Whole

No post yesterday - had nothing to do with Sandy.  It had more to do with the fact that I was wiped out after driving for 13 +/- hours the previous day.  Thursday we went up to CT, Sunday we came back... with the puppies!!!

They have thoroughly sniffed the house and yard and have seemed to settle in nicely.  The new king sized bed is definitely paying off with the puppies in bed - so much room!!

I'll get back to biking stuff tomorrow... but for now I'm just so happy to have the girls back with us... now, Charlotte feels like home.

"Classic" Maggie

Scout guarding the stolen devil ball while she sleeps

Ultimate Pay Off

DuPont - where every climb is rewarded by a SUPER sick descent.

Seriously, I don't think there is a bad trail in the place... not that I rode everything there, but what we did ride was magnificent!!

I don't recall all the trails we rode, but I do remember something about a Hooker in there...  two that I do recall were the Airstrip downhill and the Ridgeline downhill that ended the ride... there was one sweet section before the final climb to the Ridgeline as well...  seriously, get out there - you can't go wrong!!

Ok, so I didn't realize that today is Thursday, which means I have to get moving (more to come about that next week) so this is a short recap - sorry!!  Enjoy the pictures... worth 1,000 words and whatnot.

View from the top of the first big climb - which was mostly slickrock

Creek crossing, had to shed the shoes and walk across... the water was FREEZING!!

View from the old airstrip - great view to take off to!

Half way up the falls.

Sean pointing it out so you don't miss it

From the bottom

Kraked my head

Friday I don't think there was one of us who woke up without some sort of dehydration/hang-over.  Some oatmeal and a couple bottles of water had me OK.  On the drive over to the trailhead my head was certainly feeling it.  Felt like my brain was a bit outside my skull - if that makes any sense?

As soon as we started riding my head sorted itself out... I think.  I certainly wasn't worried about it because as soon as the trail turned up I realized I was riding without my legs.  I obviously hadn't done enough to recover from the previous days ride, and on this day I'd be running low on the climbs.  I didn't have it in my legs to dig deep - which in turn left me with little mentally to make myself push it.  But, in the end every climb was reached and I had a great day on the trail.  A lot of singletrack riding.  Climbing singletrack is way more fun then climbing on service roads like Sean and I had done on Thursday.

 

It was a "shorter" ride, but all things being equal, I was ok with that.  We hit up Asheville after the ride to grab some pizza and continue the trend of dehydration (beers) at Barley's Taproom & Pizzeria.  Just walking around I could still feel it in my legs, which had me worrying about the next days ride and how I would perform - could I bounce back?  We headed back to the campsite, our last rider of the weekend joined us, we gathered up more firewood, showered up, and then enjoyed the flames and beers.  I decided to take it easy, and kept the water flowing.  I had to at least be ok in the head and stomach if my legs weren't going to be there.

 

Would my legs bounce back for our ride at Dupont?  Stay tuned to find out!



Missed the window... missed the turn

Thursday morning I was heading out to meet up with Sean for our mountain adventures.  As I was about to get on 277 I realized I left the garmins by the computer!! YIKES!  So I busted a quick turn and back to the house.  No biggie (I thought) as there was nary a car in sight.  Run in, grab the computer and back on the road... to hit every light and battle traffic.  Apparently when I left (the first time) I was in the sweet spot before commuter traffic.  With the turn around and re-start I was in commuter traffic.

balls.

Got up to Sean's a little later than I had anticipated, but really no big deal because we weren't on any hard set schedule.  On the ride out things weren't looking as nice as the weathermen had promised.  It wasn't raining, but it looked like it could.  I kept reassuring Sean (and myself) that it was merely misting and everything would be fine.  It never did rain for real, but it indeed did "mist" a bit while riding (and had apparently rained earlier, thus the slick roots and mud) - maybe I should be a weatherman?

On the ride out it was also determined that this was a pretty easy drive and many more (frequent) trips will need to be had.  At the conclusion of our trip it was vowed that (at least for the NC boys) we would at least be back out quarterly.  I'm thinking we can do better than that as it is close enough (at least for Sean and I) to hit it up for even just a day trip.

Sean and I were the first to hit the area so we hit up Pisgah.  As I mentioned earlier, I did some internetal investigations and found us a ride.  As we were driving through Brevard on the way to the trailhead we passed a bike shop - do we need to stop in for anything?  Nah.  I had directions for what trails to take - we should be all good.  Ok, first rule of riding Pisgah - have a map.  This being a weekend of dick and fart jokes, camp fires, beers and the Kraken there were no rules... so we hit the trails with no map (and of course no cell service to retrieve a map if needed).

For the most part it wasn't hard to follow the route.  BUT, there were two turns that did prove confusing.  The first was when the mileage listed didn't seem to align with our mileage ridden... took a little backtracking and logic to determine what to do, but we prevailed without too much trouble.

"mother f***en waterfall" we passed after finding our way back on trail

The second came towards the end of the ride when the directions indicated a left turn around a gate onto an unnamed fire road....  as we were bombing down a service road we did see a gate and fire road around the mileage our turn should be, but this one was labeled 471D (all other turns on our list were labeled as unnamed or indicated their trail name/number) so we figured this couldn't be our turn.

Instead we enjoyed the downhill speeds and actually saw a black coyote on the trail.  Upon first glance it appeared to be a German Shepherd, but as I got closer I realized it was no dog.  It looked up and ran off around the bend, and as I cleared the corner it started off again away from us - eventually ditching the trail into the bush.  The other wildlife we saw was a Wild Turkey.  After it jumped off trail we came upon a hunter just up the trail so I pointed him in the right direction and about a quarter of a mile later gun shots ran out.  I thought about heading back to claim a wing for pointing him toward the bird.

Eventually we realized we are WAY past where the turn should have been and we resign to climbing back up (after already ignoring my first suggestion that we stop and turn around).  The climb back up wasn't that bad and we decided to try out 471D to see if it was in fact our turn... it was.

that little dangle-down on our loop was that damn miss on 471D

Even with the extra climbing it was still a blast.  The singletrack was amazing.  And we only scratched the surface.  Definitely a lot of fun to be had... and a lot of suffering I'm sure.  But beautiful scenery, lot's of climbing, and great trails - can't ask for anything more!

What a GREAT way to start the weekend!!  We headed to camp, cracked a beer, set up camp, showered and got the fire going.  From there others arrived, the Kraken was let loose and eventually sleep was had.  The adventures continue tomorrow - stay tuned.

WOW

If I wasn't so freakin tired, I'd tell you all about the trip out to Brevard.  But, since I am so freakin tired, it will have to wait.

I'll just say this.  There wasn't a ride over the weekend that didn't put the biggest smile on my face - even when I lost my legs.  I found them again, don't you worry!

But more on that in the coming days.

Hello Cleveland

Media Fridays

We'll post videos or photos that will hopefully inspire trail shredding weekends.

Sweet look at Quail Hollow State Park in Ohio.  Nice use of multiple angles.  

Sometimes you have to wonder how the hell they capture some of the shots... 

like at 2:35 - helicopter?

QUAIL HOLLOW - Trail ride from Shadow Studios on Vimeo.

And we're off!!

Today we are heading out early to get a ride in before setting up camp.  I did a little research and found a sweet ass compendium of rides throughout Pisgah and Dupont.  For my purposes I was researching a ride for Thursday in Pisgah.  Since it will be the first day of our riding weekend we didn't want to go overboard so I picked a nice intro to the area - it's my first time!!!

So today we will be riding what is referred to as "Well Seasoned Butter."

The rest of the itinerary as dictated by Sean:

10/18 Thursday
-Meet at the campsite and set up shop
-Dinner: Campfire Chicken/Rice Soup
-Beers

10/19 Friday
-Ride: either Mills River or Bent Creek
-Leave straight from trails and head up to Asheville to meet **** ******
-Dinner @ Barley's Taproom & Pizzeria
-Beers: Fill up some Growlers and head back to Camp

10/20 Saturday
-Ride: All day at Dupont State Forest
-Dinner: TBD- Provided by the ***** and ****: Most likley sausage.
-Beers

10/21 Sunday
-Ride: TBD
-NC Boyz Depart

(names withheld to protect the innocent)

The weather continues to look perfect... a bit chilly in the mornings, but beautiful afternoons.

I'll be bringing the camera along - we'll see about footage... I'm feeling like it being my first time in the mountains here in NC I may just be focusing a bit more on riding and enjoying than worried about filming.  But we shall see.

I'm sure I'll have a story or two to tell upon my return!!  Until then, get out and ride!!