Hanging Rock

Curtis, Drew and I had tons of fun on our ride today. They both came out to my place and we made a last minute route change to head to Hanging Rock. Once we came up with the route, we changed, and took off. Both of them are riding new bikes, so we had to stop a couple of times to make some adjustments, but overall everything was working pretty well, just a few random noises here and there that need to be sorted out.

We made it through King with only a few close calls. I made a remark along the lines of loving the roads in Stokes County, but only wished the drivers were at least somewhat respectful of cyclists. As is, each time you venture out there, I feel like a lamb amongst wolves. We turned onto Moore's Springs Road to head to Hanging Rock and were having a ton of fun on the rollers on the way out..

A nice rolling section of Moore's Springs.

Further out Moore's Springs Road we began seeing signs. Detour ahead. Road Closed 1 mile. Road Closed 1500 feet. Road Closed 1000 ft. Until we came to this....


We made an attempt at crossing the beams, but were met with less than confidence inspiring footing.


So...we ended up doing this...



And then this....

Untitled from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.

Finally, after crossing the stream, we had only about 2 miles or so to get to the big climb. Everything went pretty smooth on the climb, no issues aside from the obligatory burning of muscle and pouring of sweat. At the top we refilled and started the descent. The descent wasn't nearly as fast as what would be normal because we got caught behind a Ranger's patrol truck. Needless to say, we were unwilling to pass him on the left for fear of being ticketed.

After the descent we did some more route planning and came up with the idea of just following the way we came. We would end up with 50 miles and around 4000 feet of climbing...enough to be sure.

Drew on Moore's Springs, with the mountain in the background.


A shot of all three of us hurting on one of the last climbs before 66.

On the way home, Drew decided to do some heroic pulls, rocking 66 at about 25-26 mph...reeeediculous. Then, when we were back to King, I made the mistake of saying something to the effect of, "Hey, we're only like 7 miles from home now." Crap. It was on after that, Drew and Curtis were both laying down the hurt from then on. I've not ridden in my drops on any ride as much as I had on today's ride. We averaged 18mph even with the big climb. Our average without it, still with around 3000ft of climbing, would have been close to 20mph. Much fun was had by all! Thanks guys!

Horseshoe Loop

This morning, Mark had a plan for the Paceline ride that included some roads that I had not yet been on. Typically, there are two ways that we leave from the shop on saturday mornings. We either head down shallowford, cross the river and head into Yadkin County, or we head out grapevine, cross the river and head into Yadkin County. Today we hit the fast descent of Grapevine, and made our way towards East Bend.

Curtis got a new bike, mine on the left, his on the right. The shadows are of Curtis and me...

Once we got to East Bend, we ended up on some roads that I had never been on. We nearly made it to Surry County (which would have had us crossing the river yet again, just further upstream), and did what I've heard some call the, "Horseshoe Loop." A nice long downhill almost makes you fel as if you are going to head down to the river. Everyone that is a cyclist knows what it means to go down...you always have to climb afterwards. The climb out of the valley was shorter, but significantly steeper. Curtis, Cliff, Martin and myself all put a little gap on the group working hard up the climb and for the remainder of the loop.


Cliff and I


After we completed the loop we started to make our way back towards Forsyth County and the shop. Rolling up and down some short little hills got us back towards Flint Hill. On one of these rollers, we were just starting to head back up when a rider in front of me noticed he had lost some pressure in his tire. I was just starting to stand up to go hard up the hill when he stopped. It wasn't really either of our faults, but I ran right into the back of him before I could scrub much speed. No damage was done to either of us or either of our bikes, but it did make for an awkward pause in the middle of the hill. I helped him get it back up and running and we caught back up to the group at the stop sign.


Regrouping just after, "the incident."

After Flint Hill, we descended one of my favorite climbs; Taylor Road. We crossed over the river and back into Forsyth County and started the long climb up Grapevine (2.4 miles). Again, Curtis, Cliff, and myself took off on the climb. We each took turns pulling until we got near the top. I pulled up the last steep section, then when I pulled off, I couldn't grab Cliff's wheel...pooh! So for the remainder of the climb, I was by myself with a carrot dangling only maybe 30-40 meters ahead. The last part of the ride was the typical hammerfest from Lewisville square back to the shop. On the last climb up, I took off of the front, but Curtis caught and passed me just at the pinnacle of the climb. Man alive, Curtis is getting stronger and stronger at a seemingly exponential pace!

Long City Loop

The corner of Bank and Church streets in Old Salem


Rolling through the cemetary between downtown and Old Salem

Curtis and I had a great ride tonight. We attached the normal (forward, not backward) city loop to a loop that adds on the greenway out to Salem Lake. On the way out towards the lake, we saw Dr. Pain going the opposite direction. He pulled a U-Turn and hopped in with us to ride through Wake Forest and over towards the West End. Good to see you Doc! After Dr. P pulled off, Curtis and I made our way to Salem Lake via the greenway.

Once at the Lake, we chilled for a little bit and watched the sun dip low. We headed back the way we came, and the headlights were becoming more of a requirement now. We rolled back through downtown, seeing some people we knew, and over to the West End. We did a couple more of the hills back to the top to downtown, and then turned back West towards the shop. Even after Curtis' now legendary efforts on the City Loop Mafia ride last night, he was still pulling hard back down Country Club. I didn't have the Garmin charged tonight, so there's no real stats, aside from 29.5 miles.

Shakedown Ride

Not sure how I feel yet. Not sure.

Ride, Shop, Build!

I made the weekly saturday AM ride at paceline today. We pulled off 52 miles at almost 19mph. Much fun was had by all, with only a sprinkle here and there. After I got back, Van asked if I could work at the shop, to which I heartily replied, "Of course!" I get to hang out with my friends, sell people bikes, talk about something I love and have a great time, it hardly seems like work! Curtis, Steve, and I finished up the build in between helping out the customers. I'm very pleased with the final build, I can't wait to get out and ride it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get in a nice shakedown ride. The final weight with cages and pedals is 26.6lbs. It's actually a little bit lighter than what I thought it would end up as.


Build Specs:
Karate Monkey 20" frame/fork
Cane Creek S3 Headset
Avid Speed Dial brake levers
Avid BB7 brakeset 185mm/160mm
Bontrager RL big sweep bar
Bontrager RXL stem
Bontrager RXL seatpost
Bontrager RL saddle
Bontrager Rhythym Comp wheelset
Panaracer Rampage 2.35 tires
XO shifter and rear derailleur
SRAM PG990 cassette
Sram PC991 chain
Truvativ Stylo 1.1 32T crank
Crank Bros. Eggbeater pedals

More Build Pics

I got to work on piecing my bike together a little bit more today, the final build up should be done tomorrow! I am hoping that as long as the weather holds, I'll get to go on a shakedown ride on sunday...that'll have to wait and see.

Oh yeah, Curtis built up a fixie...how cool is this? I felt messenger-ey when I rode it around a bit today.

New Build Teaser

What's coming???



Just a teaser, more pics tomorrow or saturday...

Turkeys and Hills!

Chris and I set out tonight with a goal of climbing some decent hills. We set out from my place and accomplished this goal hitting most of the good climbs within a five mile radius of the house. We ended up with just under 20 miles and about 1600 feet of climbing. We had a good time, and I think he is ready for the Wednesday night Paceline Recovery "Race."


Chris calls his sunglasses the "eurotrash" look. I dig it!



Oh, and I just registered for the Brushy Mountain Cyclists Club Rollin' Round the River Ride! Should be fun!

Brown County Breakdown

The Brown County Breakdown is just over two months away, and I'm already incredibly excited to be riding in it. The event is more of a ride than a race. There are 20,40,60,75, and 100 mile options available. I've ridden the trails in Brown County State Park a number of times since my brother lives only about a half hour from the trails. We've camped out at other places in the county, namely Valley Branch Retreat. Between BCSP, Valley Branch, Gnaw Bone Camp, and the national forest, Brown County has probably over 100 miles of trail, if not 150 or more. One of the coolest parts about this ride is that it contains tons of singletrack. Typically, in an event like this, there would be extensive amounts of time spent on gravel roads, but even for the 100 miler more than 90 percent of it is on singletrack. How sweet is that?!?!?!?

October, southern Indiana, mountain bikes, singletrack...excellence!

Painful Road Ride...

Laurent having entirely too much fun!


I woke up this morning about 4 AM to the new puppy whining, so I get up to let her out. I go to get some water and come back to the back deck to see her running frantically around the yard, chasing absolutely nothing and realize, well...this is probably the end of my sleep for the night if she is that hyper. In vain, I tried to take her back to bed, but to no avail, so I went ahead and stayed up.

I took the chance to get things set up for today's ride, get a good breakfast (oatmeal, raisins, brown sugar, berries and some good coffee), and play with the pup. I got suited up and headed on down to the shop.

Curtis showed up, and unfortunately had forgotten his clothes. I'm sure that he would have absolutely loved this ride too, it was right up his alley! The route was picked and we took off. We would be making our way to East Bend, which generally means a relatively hilly ride. Once we got to East Bend the group split into two. Slowly the faster group got split up further until we were pretty well strung out.

We came up Baltimore Road, across to Dinkins Bottom and then up Shallowford and Turbo Hill. Once we got to Turbo Hill the group split up even further. E-Rich, Scott, Cliff and myself all took off off the front. We were able to hold off the main pack all the way back to the shop. I'm sure that there were a few parts though that they could see us off in the distance just enough to be the carrot on the stick.

This ride had me hurting at the end, I was right at the threshold of cramping for a good portion, especially on the last few little climbs up Country Club. E-Rich, Scott and Cliff were all putting in strong efforts, we were able to manage over 20mph with stops included.

Highlight of the ride: Seeing a dog walk across the road with an entire cornstalk in his mouth, then proceed to pull the corn off the stalk and eat it off of the cob....priceless!

Erich and I pulling before the ride really started to ramp up...notice we have enough breath to actually make faces. Later in the ride our faces probably looked similar to that, only involuntarily...

Tomorrow, a welcome back from the honeymoon ride with Mitch and the crew! Woohoo!

Mount Rogers

Lisa and I and the dogs loaded up the Xterra to head to Mount Rogers for a camping trip. We've each got about a week left until we have to be back to school, and we hadn't really taken any vacations this summer...so, it was time! Once we got all unpacked and set up, in near record time, we headed up to Elk Garden for a short hike on the AT. Arwen has been recovering from a shoulder injury due to an extremely heated game of frisbee, so she'd not been on a walk in nearly a month. The trail was very pretty, tons of ferns and mosses in the undergrowth.
Arwen and Lorien on the AT


Day two, we decided to take the X up to an area called the Scales. The "road" to the scales is hardly a road. I had new tires installed earlier in the week and had been wanting to try them out off road. The X got muddied up on the way to the top.


The top of The Scales is used as a backcountry horse camp, and is surrounded by meadows filled with berry bushes.

We got the dogs set up and started out towards Massie Gap on the AT. After only about a mile, I happened to look up on the hill above us and see a bear come running kind of in our general direction. He slammed on the brakes, stood up to get a better look at us and became very indecisive. First he took off in one direction, then another, before finally settling on scurrying on in another. I was able to snap a very quick picture, the bear is in the left, kind of in front of one of the trees. It was the best I could do in the ten seconds or so that he was running around in front of us.


We met a guy coming the other way a few hundred yards later, he asked us if we saw the bear. He explained that he had scared it up and over the hill, so now we had the explanation why the bear was running frantically towards us at first. The rest of the trail was mostly open with lots of views like below...beautiful!


One the way back down from the Scales, we stopped at this little waterfall.

Once back in camp we made a feast of hot dogs, pretzels, the berries I picked, Gatorade and many other likely camp foods. The dogs were spent.

Lorien wrapped up in her sleeping bag, this dog is always cold!


A very fun trip, wish we could have spent more time up there!

Hot Road Ride!!

I knew that the forecast high for the day was going to be in the mid 90's so, I had to get out early if I didn't want to die...makes sense. I left the house about 7:45 or so, and headed out to do my regular mill ride out into yadkin county. About halfway out, I ran across another rider haning out on the side of the road. I slowed up to see if he needed any help, but he was just messing with some food in his pockets, all was well. he jumped on my wheel, and we ended up riding for about 20 miles together. I took him out past the old Butner Mill, we stopped ate a quick snack and headed on up the gravel road. Otis was a lot of fun to ride with, he had never been on gravel on his road bike, never past the mill, and was up for just hanging in with me and exploring a little bit. After the mill we headed back up to 67 towards East Bend. We split off once across the river back into Forsyth County. It was good to meet you Otis, if you end up checking the site!

After we split, I was feeling really good still so I decided to make the long climb up Donnaha and Spainhour Mill roads. The grade is pretty chill, not too often getting above 5 or 6 percent, but it's long and out in the sun for most of the way. It was starting to get extremely hot, the sun radiating from the pavement. After I made my way back through Tobaccoville, I decided to continue on and go towards Bethania. I cut off on a road that I hadn't been on before, but knew that it had some potential. I made the right onto Bowens Road and was greeted with lots of farm country, no cars, and lots of fun rollers. There is one nasty climb on Bowens that gets up to 12% for a decent little while...I already had about 45 miles in by this time, so it definitely hurt! After I got to Old Richmond, I decided it was time to head on back. I got in all in all about 50-55 miles in just under 3 hours. Pretty fast ride, hot, and fun!

As a flashback, I have to thank Van at Paceline for embarrassing me on Saturday. We were getting ready to head out for the AM ride, maybe about 30 riders. Van always has a pre-ride pep talk usually dealing with safety/route/having fun and the such. Saturday, though, he called attention to what he deemed, "the best dressed rider," and said that all riders should dress this way;

My face was probably exceptionally red...thanks Van!

Post 150!

Well, this is my 150th post, pretty incredible that I've had that much to write about when I look over the past year and a half.

I took Chris out last night for another short road ride. We decided since we only had about 45 minutes of daylight that we'd go really hard. We went out to a road called Killmurry Hill and did some sprintwork. It's fun to have some variety because typically I do not do those kind of rides, short and hard.

Motionbased is no longer accepting uploads from Garmin units, so I've been relegated to GarminConnect. Everything seems different when I upload the same ride to GC that I had on MB, it's kind of strange.

Lisa and I had planned on going camping over the next three days, but 97 degrees does not sound like much fun to be camping, so we've opted to do some work around the house, get my classroom ready over at the school, and just generally hang out on my last week off from school.

Oh, and by the way, the revolving door for bikes is getting more action at my house, the Superfly is up for sale on ebay...time for my next project...back to steel!

Ohio

Well, I know I had promised trying to blog while in Ohio, but alas, the only computer I had access to had an ailing hamster off his wheel. Microsoft DOS is strange, so was playing Dig Dug. Anyways, the trip was pretty eventful. If I had never been to Ohio before and was basing what I knew about Ohio on this one week, I might actually be impressed. The weather was unbelieveable (75 or so, low humidity and sunny), the trails were dry (an oddity), and there was plenty to do!

The first outdoor activity was taking the new pup, Lorien, on a short hike in one of the metroparks. The area is called Oxbow, for one of the bends in the river. This lovely river might look mildly pretty, but it was the one that was made famous by catching fire in the late 60's. Needless to say, there was no swimming or fishing done in this river!


The next fun activity was taking my brother-in-law for a ride. I picked him up at his parents house, and we went to the Towpath. The towpath was alongside the canal that connected the Ohio River and Lake Erie. Essentially the towpath was there to allow animals (namely horses and mules) to pull the canal boats up and down the canal. I wrote an enormous paper regarding this canal when I was in undergrad at Akron. This was a huge project in the 1820's and 1830's. The railroad arrived shortly thereafter; it wasn't long before the canal was obsolete. The towpath today, and some of the canal and locks have been restored. I believe the trail now, from end to end is over 100 miles. Pretty cool, but flat as a board of course. We rode almost 16 miles, and climbed only 37 feet...gnarly! Nick did extremely well, he's such a cool kid!

We stopped at a snack shop alongside the trail called Trail Mix. We got some homemade ice cream and hung out for a bit. Around back was this cool bike art.


I was able to make it out for one legitimate mountain bike ride. I met up with some of the guys I used to work at Eddys Bike Shop with. We hit the trails at West Branch State Park. There are two sides to this trail. A wide open, super fast, non-technical lake side. Then there is a rocky, super technical South side. I arrived about an hour early to attempt some of the rock gardens. I knew that they had been riding these trails at least twice a week since I'd been gone, and they knew all the lines through the rock gardens. I had to get out there and try to remember/pick some lines. After about an hour of tooling around, I headed back to the trailhead to meet up. We rode for about 3 hours, making two laps of everything out there. That 3 hours constituted about 20 miles, a testament to the technical nature of the south side.
Heath tearing it up!

Nick riding rigid and single on the same section!

Another section of techy goodness.

Big Numbers!

Well, I officially had over 1000 visitors come to my blog this past month. I never expected so many people to actually read this! Last year when I started the blog, I kind of did it just as an experiment, to log all of my rides and keep some photos. Now I feel obligated to update it more often! Also, my mileage numbers got royally screwed up for the month, but I think it ended up somewhere in the 500-600 mark, and elevation somwhere about 60k to 75k feet of climbing.

This morning, I'm off for the Paceline ride, then packing up the Xterra and headed to Ohio for about a week. Lisa and I are going to visit with the family a little bit, see some friends, and just generally hang out. I am planning some rides while I am home. The best of which should be on Tuesday. I got ahold of some of the guys I used to work at Eddys Bike Shop with when I lived in Ohio. We will likely be headed to Mohican State Park for a nice long ride, should be fun! I'll try to get some entries in while I am up there!