Blue Ridge Parkway Ride

I had been wanting to get up on the parkway for some time now, and today was the perfect day. After a number of days with rain, most of which came yesterday, I'd been itching to get in a good ride. I loaded up the car, and headed up to Cumberland Knob along the NC/VA border. From previous experience, I knew that heading south afforded more worthwhile views and a couple pretty good climbs.

Self Portrait, Bullhead Mountain in the background.


On top of this, I had another motive...Mahogany Rock Road. Mahogany Rock is a part of the Hurt Pain Agony Metric that is put on by the BMCC. I've heard many a horror stories of the climb up to the parkway...the horror stories are true. To the tune of 28 percent. I pushed entirely too hard and the vomit factor was about 9.8. The total ride was only about 35 or so miles, with around 3500 feet of climbing. I was feeling pretty good today, and was able to keep a pretty good average even with all of the climbing. Beaufitul views were the staple of the day, and the trees above 3000 feet are starting to show a hint of that lovely fall color.

The view from Fox Hunter's Paradise


Fun day, leading into a very busy week. I'll probably only get out on the bike three times between today and next sunday...ouch!

The view towards the Piedmont was great....


Even with some elevation, one can't escape stupidity...tagging a BRP trash can? I didn't realize that this was such highly contested territory!

Three Weeks!

Three weeks from right now, Brad and I will be rolling out on the Brown County Breakdown I have yet to decide what variety I am going to do for sure. Ride at a great pace, with my brother, have fun, take pictures and do 60 miles? Ride a bit faster, mostly with my brother, less pictures, more suffering and do 75 miles? Or obliterate myself, take no pictures, and probably ride by myself most of the way and do 100 miles? Decisions.....

Brad at BCSP this past weekend


Any of the decisions would be acceptable, but I think I like the 60 the best. Either way, it is more than 90 percent singletrack, and some of the best singletrack in the midwest, if not anywhere! I can't wait for this event!

CLM 100K!

I am definitely cooked after the Mafia 100K. Three city loops at a pace 10 to 15 percent faster than normal is killer!

We all rolled into the Elementary School around 8. The ride included a poker run with stops at Mitch's Subaru to add to the hand. After a bit of pre-ride talking and snapping of some pictures we were off.

The first lap was chill enough, around the normal 16-17mph average. Mitch's wife was at one of the turns with some friends/relatives cheering us on. Then, once in the West End we were cheered on by Erich's wife and her friend...nice! Towards the end of the first loop, there was an enormous possum dead in the road. Mitch called it out, then hopped over. Further back in the pack, Sirena ended up riding RIGHT OVER IT. According to Whitney, who was behind her, the possum's head end and tail end both bloated up when Sirena's wheels went over it, nasty!

We rolled on past the school, and started the "fast lap." "Fast lap," was an understatement. Duane decided to pick up the pace, but was in the back of the pack, so he rode up onto the sidewalk, past the group, bunny-hopped off of the curb, then attacked....impressive! From that point on it was a struggle just to hold a wheel. Around one of the turns, I found myself in the back, and got accordioned off. Then Mitch found himself off as well. We got back in with the group by making a quarter mile short cut and hung on for dear life. Up one of the steeper climbs in the west end (23 percent) with some cowbell ringing ladies along the way. Then, back to country club.

Once on Country Club, Cam and his family rolled up next to us and started video taping. Curtis and I had a bit of camera inspired bravado hit us so we worked our way up from the back. Curtis....took....off. I followed him all the way to the front, but couldn't hang as he was pulling along at 33+ mph. Craziness. Group split again at this point, but ended up regrouping for a quick stop at the school. We picked up two more cards, and went out for a third lap.

Lap 3, same as the first, just faster...and no one ran over the possum. Back to the school again, and the last card of the hand topped off the worst possible hand in poker....



The after party was awesome (Thanks Erich and Jill!) Chili, cookies, dips, cobbler and everything nice! This plus college footbal and some ice cold beverages made for an awesome afternoon!

City Loop mafia

Well, I shelled out the $25 for the Rollin' Round the River ride in Wilkesboro slated for Saturday morning. But, plans have changed... The city loop is a ride that readers have probably noticed that I do fairly often. There is a group of about a dozen different customers of Paceline that all enjoy the same route (along with probably countless many others). Erich, Mitch, and a few others have been working on something that will be a crap ton of fun. The plan is the City Loop 100K. We are going to be doing three loops of the city loop with a stop by Erich's house/neighborhood for a poker run on each lap. The reward for the winning hand will be a gift card to Chik-Fil-A (no doubt a ploy put in place by none other than Mitch). After all the fun on the bikes, there were be more fun had at Erich's place; of the Chili Cook Off and College Football variety...man, I can't wait for this weekend!

Mediocre Ride

For some reason, I couldnt manage to muster up the fun-o-meter on todays ride. I opted out early and came home...strange. I guess maybe Pisgah gets me spoiled on my mountain bike.

I set up the timer, headed back up the trail, only to have these two get in on the timer...cool!

Siloam-Shoals Ride

Today's Paceline ride was a departure from the norm. We headed in a new direction, into Surry County...an area where climbing cannot be avoided. On top of that, the group was a seriously quick group. Between Mitch, Mark, Scott, Curtis, Cliff, Cisco, Erich, and a guy from Philly who just happened to be in town (and who also just happened to have done the RAAM and is a part of the Team Type 1) I knew that I was in for some pain.

Curtis and Cisco pulling us along.

We rolled out after the pre-ride talk. Out through East Bend, onto Siloam and across the river. We made a quick pit stop at a country store. I couldn't get anyone to take my dare of eating one of the pickled eggs...I don't know why though. I was offering 5 bucks to boot, but alas, no takers. They'd probably been there since the sixties anyways, someone would've been hallucinating on the climb up from the river. In the parking lot, Mitch did some obligatory (for him) rapping of Busta Rhymes...so dangerous!

Back onto the road led us to a nice long climb up from the Yadkin. More rolling climbs on Shoals Road. The turnoff onto Stoney Ridge, which saps you of any momentum, leads you into a nice long steep climb. After a mile long steeeeep downhill, there is bound to be some more climbing...no surprise there.

Cool point of the ride: When Cisco and I were up front, we had a red fox cross the road about 50 yards in front of us...very cool!

Regrouping at the end of Stoney Ridge


The view that Erich is taking a photo of in the above picture.

We headed back into Forsyth County and hit some of the normal roads riding back from Pilot. Onto Vienna-Dozier and Lewisville-Vienna the group broke up, and the pace got a little bit stupid. Andy (Team Type 1) and Erich started a pull on Vienna-Dozier that nearly was the end of me. I looked down out of curiosity and saw that they were pulling at 28-30mph (not on a descent). Nearly dropping off the back twice, I was deep in the pain cave. We made it back to the shop though as one group, with no one that went off the front being dropped off the back.

TOO MUCH FUN!


As a side note, my Paragon is finished being built up. 23.9 lbs for those that care. Tomorrow will be a good day to test out the new wheels, I'll be heading out to do the OVT...woohoo!

Missing This Place

Definitely missing this place, can't even get a good night's rest in a bed now...

Another Great Weekend in the Forest

Brad and I had our yearly meetup camping trip in Pisgah this past weekend. As always, it was so much fun that I have little motivation to come back to reality. Rides/events were as follows...

FRIDAY:
Get to the campsite around 5 or 6 and do a quick set up. Brad called as I was leaving to inform me he left early...sweet. Once I arrived, we suited up for a quick ride, beating sundown. Fish Hatchery ride, right out of the campsite onto gravel to Long Branch...fun trail! Arrive back at the campsite and eat the crap out of some paninis made over the fire...giddyup!

SATURDAY:
Meet up at 9 with the guys from SORBA for the IMBA epic at Dupont State Forest. Over 30 miles of excellent riding, multiple stream crossings, waterfalls, and slickrock trails...very, very cool. This was our first time there, so this was a perfect introduction to basically all the great trails. My personal favorites were the rocky goodness of Joanna, fast descent of Ridgeline, cool views of Big Rock and Cedar Rock.




SUNDAY:
Two rides in one day, bonus! AM ride; campsite>475>Davidson River Trail>475>475B>225>Caney Bottom (Cove Creek)>Daniel Ridge Connector>Daniel Ridge>campsite. This is one of my favorite loops, after we got back to the site we made some lunch, hung out for a bit then decided to head down to the Visitor's Center for another ride. The planned route was to head up Clawhammer to Black Mountain, down Black to Thrift Cove and Sycamore Cove. We opted to head up Black Mountain instead of up Clawhammer in order to maximize singletrack. Brad's bike had been suffering from some chainsuck all weekend due probably mostly to a new chain, and it was acting up a ton on the climb. He turned back after about a mile or so, and told me to continue on. I rode on up to where Thrift Cove turns off, but decided to head back down Black Mountain so we could do some flyfishing at the hatchery. All I could manage there was two fingerling Rainbows and one enormous chub.




What a fun weekend! We said our goodbyes this morning after packing up only to realize we'd be camping out doing a lot of riding in about a month at the Brown County Breakdown...I can't wait!

Looking Glass Falls


And of course, wherever two or more Stevenson's gather there is bound to be stupidity

Well....

Disorganization in my shop can mean only one thing...

The revolving door continues. Here are some pictures of my next project. This one I'll be sticking with for a while. I know the geometry, in about a week it will have all of the components that I am used to/like, everything will be golden. I was telling Curtis tonight when I was at the shop that I'm done with this selling business for a little while, sick of the hassle of selling stuff on ebay.

I've swapped some things over already, but will have a few more swaps after this weekend. I've got a set of wheels on the way from Stan's. They'll be a set of the white 355 rims with their ZTR hubs. Along with the bike I ordered a set of the Bontrager XR1 tires. Should be a pretty light set up. Speaking of light, the bike as stock weighed 26.55lbs without pedals. Not to shabby, but hopefully with the upgrades I'm going to do, it will be below 25lbs when I am done.