The Drive Home

There's about as much to say here as you'd expect, given the title.  The drive was smooth, except for some traffic.  We kept ourselves entertained, though.

More correctly, Dave kept us entertained.

Slippery Conditions

On Tuesday we got our act together and drove the 3.5 hours down to Windrock, TN to do some downhilling.  The area was established mainly for ATVs and rock crawlers, but there's a section of shuttle-able downhill biking. We wanted to check it out.

We got down there, and Tom, Rob, Max and Anson took the inaugural run while Dave and Chris shuttled.  We were greeted with techy rock sections and steep switchbacks were interspersed  with wet clay.  Stopping became difficult as the dirt sections were a bit too slick, and your clay filled tires made the rocks a bit interesting.

Towards the end of the first run, Anson's rear derailleur fell victim to some vicious chain-suck and broke clean in two, so that bike was out for the day.  At the bottom of that run, we were all a little down.  After a long food and water break, we rallied and took a different descent with Anson shuttling. This time we found ourselves in a quite heinous, sustained rock garden... Another long food and water break ensued to get our stoke back.

After much discussion and more than a few snickers and PB&J's, we decided to hike the first trail we'd come down and session a series of plank banks and jumps, work on jumping, and take pictures.  What was looking like a bummer day because of conditions turned around, and we got some pretty sweet photos.

Anson takes a trial run off of the top jump.  Photo by Max McClorey

Adventuring

Our goal for today was the Trace Ridge trail in Pisgah.

The first hiccup of the day occurred when we went to turn onto forest road 5000, only to find that it was gated and closed due to weather damage. The second hiccup was when we realized a few minutes into the climb that we were sans guide book. Getting it would have required repeating the initial climb and the route had looked simple. This was where our learning experience began. Our climb went without a hitch (except riding right past the trailhead without realizing it). We arrived at the top and found that our path intersected a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway that had been closed due to a landslide. We explored and found three cool tunnels (how often do you get to ride through tunnels?). We also realized that we had no idea where the trailhead was.

The (Sorta) Sunny South

Our first several days down here have gone remarkably smoothly, all things considered.  Our first day down here, after rolling in to town, we rallied to go ride Kitsuma, a trail only minutes from our house. Unfortunately, we never got the camera out.

Day two saw us driving out to the Bent Creek area of Pisgah National Forest, and exploring that area.  We rode some pretty long climbs, and ended the day with the feature-laden descent of Sidehill Trail.

 

Tom dialing in a berm on Sidehill

Towards Warmer Climes...

While Hanover was unseasonably warm, there was still a frustrating amount of snow on the ground.  So, six of us (with the help of the DOC) headed south to Asheville, NC.  While Asheville had recently been under more snow than New Hampshire, when we arrived it was warm, sunny, and most importantly, dry.