Something wicked...

this way comes.




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zeee Gaps!

(to be read with a German accent) Heute ritt ich drei der vier Abstände, die in den unbeliebten Ausflug de Gaps mit einbezogen wurden! Today, I rode three of the four gaps involved in the infamous Tour de Gaps. I left the X at the top of Orchard Gap and set out on Boundary Road. I was set on trying to get in as much gravel as possible, and Boundary Road was an instant fix:



After just a couple of miles, I arrived at the top of the first gap I would descend, then climb back up: Willis Gap. I don't have much to say for this road aside from that I hate climbing it. It is terrible. 'nuf sed.

I caught back onto the parkway, and got onto Gunny Sack Trail. It was beautiful until it got to the point of being impassable on 25c tires. Beautiful nonetheless.


After rolling along parallel to the parkway on some other gravel roads, I got to the top of Squirrel Spur. Now this road, I love. Great descent with sweeping views of the Piedmont, pretty consistent grade for the return climb allows me to get into a rhythm.

Note Pilot and Sauratown in the background.


After having two gaps in my legs and some good rollers in between, I was out of water and decided to stop to eat and refill at Groundhog Mountain. I thoroughly enjoyed my time sitting under this great Pine. I just sat in the shade enjoying watching the flycatchers making meals of the Junebugs in the meadow.



I started back over to Orchard Gap and hit Boundary again, then down and back up to the country store at the top.


Post ride drink in honor of Mitch!


My GPS has been on the fritz again, but I think the mileage was just under 50 miles with about 7ooo feet of gain. Hefty day, but I took it at a fun pace and chilled.

MNRR

First off, I had to share this video. I assume that the same things that happen with the bike lanes here in W-S happen elsewhere...obviously that's the case.

bike lanes from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

The MNRR was a good one last night, probably the fastest of the year. The loop was reversed, so going up Petree was tons of fun battling it out to the end. I had memories of riding with Curtis on Country Club last night, as we were eclipsing the 30mph mark. I remember one of my first road rides that I went on with this group, Curtis was pulling back towards Paceline and I wholeheartedly understood why riding in a group is much faster.

Double Hump

Just got in from a fast/fun ride from my place out to do the double hump. We got out to Sauratown Mountain in pretty short order averaging about 21mph. On the climb up, obviously the average plummeted. Sauratown is such a mind game because it's not like Pilot or Hanging Rock, you have a long view to the summit, and can see the road stretching out before you for a long ways.


It's hard to stay motivated when you can see what you are up against...at least with Hanging Rock and Pilot, it's natural to break it up into sections ("okay, I'll make it to that bend in 30 seconds")



After descending off of Sauratown, we headed out Moore's Springs to climb Hanging Rock. We climbed up Hanging Rock relatively quickly and took a short break. The descent down HR is always amazing, it's pretty easy to hit 50mph in a few sections, and all the curves are pretty consistent. After stopping for some Mountain Dew at the Hanging Rock General Store, we tagged Mickey Road, and headed back to 66.

Some heroic pulls were had on 66, and all of the sudden we were back in King. Now, this is where it gets hard, with already 50ish miles in the legs and two good climbs, things start to soften up a bit. I was in the front pulling on Doral when Erich and Porter come blitzing past me. With my heart rate already pegged from breaking wind (hehe) I was at a loss for how to get onto their wheels. Mitch uttered, "kids..." I pulled over to let him give me a short break, then launched my own attack to try to bridge the gap on Tobaccoville. Before this I said to Mitch, "it's likely that Erich is gone." I managed to bridge back up to within about thirty meters and I see Erich mutter something to Porter and they both stood up. I knew that if I didn't grab a wheel here, I would be helpless to get back on. I managed to close the gap just as they accelerated and hung on. Erich put in a hard pull, and all of the sudden it was just us. After the gauntlet was thrown earlier, I had to repay the favor in kind to E. We each took another pull, and I waited patiently until I knew that Erich would be at the end of his pull, and launched my own attack. We all regrouped onto Reynolda and rolled back to my place for some homemade cobbler on the deck. What a great ride!

Mount Rogers Backpacking

Over the past year or so, I've slowly been accumulating backpacking gear. This has been in the hopes of not only using it for backpacking, but possibly someday bikepacking as well. I finally felt like I had a decent enough kit to have the bare necessities, so I invited a coworker who backpacks quite a bit to come along. I knew that he would be interested in going, but also that I could learn a bit from the stuff that he was using. I chose to head to Grayson Highlands and Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in Virginia because it would allow us to choose from a number of loops dependent on how things were going. Our first day was a bit short due to the time we were able to leave, but still allowed us to get in maybe about 6 miles up to Thomas Knob at about 5400'. On our way out, we were being chased by storms.



Thunder echoing off the valley walls, and intermittent showers were the norm for the hike out. A storms level of malevolence can be appreciated with altitude. Lightning can be seen all around when out on these balds, some striking near, some three or four ridgelines away. It's amazing to get the scale of storms, by counting the ridgelines in the distance. By the time we got to where we decided to camp, things were looking better.


We got a fire started and ate some food. Mountain House Teriyaki Chicken is awesome! After about twenty minutes in the tents, all hell broke loose on us. A series of about five thunderstorms unleashed on us for probably about 4 hours. The thunder sounded like it was actually coming from down in the valley next to us, then flying over our heads like jet planes; definitely a surreal experience. I was finally able to get to sleep around 3 or so, then was awoken around 6 by another thunderstorm. We replenished our water supplies in the nearby spring and sat under the Thomas Knob shelter until about 10 when the rain finally subsided. We packed up our stuff and headed out towards the Scales.
We ran into these Longhorns on the way to the Scales. I'm guessing that local farmers can access grazing rights to the bald areas in order to keep them pastoral.


The morning was great, the rain had cleared out and gave us big puffy white clouds with blue skies as a backdrop. We stopped in at the Scales for some lunch and were still trying to decide what to do that night. We had enough food for three days, but were considering cutting it short dependent on how the afternoon looked. We continued hiking back towards Grayson Highlands taking a few off shoot loops here and there to add mileage.

The night before, we had camped near the pinnacle of the rock outcroppings to the left. This was about 1500 feet above where we were when I took this picture.


When we got to the Wise shelter, we took another little break, and the thunder and rain made our decision, we would hike the last three miles back to the truck and not continue on the AT. Setting our wet tents back up only to spend another night getting hammered by storms wasn't too appealing for my first real trip of legitimate backpacking. All in all a fun trip, and I'm already scheming another trip for this fall!

Break time at the Wise Shelter, replete with the thousand yard stare from dog and man.

Wedding Festivities!

This weekend another Mafia member got married. Possibly the happiest bride and groom I have seen! Congrats Rob and Becky!

Erich was slated to bring the tandem for the getaway vehicle after the reception. Of course, we took it upon ourselves to test the beast out and make sure it was legit to ride for the newlyweds.


At the rehearsal dinner, Erich captured a pretty good photo of Lisa and I. Another great weekend here in "the dash"

Shoals Gravel

So over the past week or so, I've been working on this route trying to link up some new gravel roads I have found in my explorations of Surry and Yadkin counties. I knew that if anyone would be intrigued by this route and it's requisite climbing and dirt, Erich would be. Very quickly after figuring a way to link the roads, I sent the map to Erich and plans were firmed up for riding it this morning. After yesterday's HP and A route, my legs were already feeling a bit soft, and I knew this ride seemed a bit ambitious after yesterdays investment. For the two days, the totals are 105 miles and 9000 feet of climbing. Somewhere along the way, my GPS stopped registering, but I don't think it was too terribly long without a signal. The seven secteurs of gravel were in this order: Kiger, Sam Scott, Crissman, Atkinson, Stanford Church, and Reeves. The highlights were Kiger and Crissman. Kiger had some long wide open views, as evidenced below



Crissman was a road that I had driven, but to be honest I wasn't sure about its ability to be ridden on a road bike. The descent and corresponding climb were both steep on very loose gravel. They did both end up proving to be rideable, at least when there isn't a dropped chain. Atkinson was a suprise gravel section, but it appears to be going through the process of being paved. About halfway up the road there is new blacktop, and the gravel sections appear to have been widened to allow for eventual paving. After the first six sections of gravel, we were cruising pretty quickly down Quaker Church from 268 and ran into our last strip of gravel on Reeves Road.



This dumped us out by the Ararat River. Throughout the ride, I slowly revealed to Erich the nature of the roads we would be travelling. I hadn't really explained what to expect from Crissman or Sam Scott. The tail end of the ride as we descended towards the Ararat, I mentioned to Erich offhand that our highest elevations were going to be beyond this point. Now, here, when faced with our longest sustained climbs of the day, my legs were reminding me of the effort exerted yesterday, and I had a few twinges of cramps starting to creep in on me. I finished out the ride soft pedaling and Erich was kind enough to oblige by staying with me. Overall, I am pretty pleased with how the route turned out, I might try to loop in another road that I have been thinking about, but it would up the mileage to about 50 to 55. Of the 41 miles, probably 6-8 of it was gravel, with a bit more exploration I'd like to get this route to about 10 miles of the good stuff...we shall see!

Hurt, Pain and Agony

Plans fell into place where I could get out for a ride with the Brushy Mountain Bear, a.k.a Portier (to be read with a massive french accent). We decided to meet up and check out the new Hurt, Pain and Agony route. With construction on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the organizers had to cut out Mahogany Rock and add in some other roads. One of these roads, Scenic Valley, is an amazing ride. As you descend into the valley, you can look across the floor and see the opposite hillside with the road sweeping back up the mountain towards the parkway. It was almost reminiscent of a scene in the high alps, where riders can see the climb snaking up the side of the mountain for miles. Of course, in Grayson county, you are a far cry from alpine territory, and the climb wasn't much more than a mile. Stats for the day, 63 miles 5800 feet of climbing and about 3.5 hours. As always, a pretty good day in the saddle, especially shared with good company!

Oklahoma!


Overlook on the Parkway. Pilot Mountain, Sauratown Mountain, and Hanging Rock are all out there in the distance



About halfway through the ride, we stopped at a little country store to get some gatorade and shoot the breeze a bit.



Glade Valley Road, having entirely too much fun



Man and machine, look at those calves! (Disclaimer: This picture included for "tha ladeez" in Porter's words)

Caulk the Wagons and float it!

So I've been out and about the last couple of weeks since my last post. This may be the longest I have gone without an update on here since a couple years ago. To be honest, I'm afraid I am losing interest in keeping up the blog. Mostly, this lack of interest stems from the fact that I haven't really been doing anything blogworthy. Group rides, solo rides, fun rides, slow rides...but nothing too terribly exciting. Today, however, I took the dog for a hike from the Shoals access in East Bend up into Surry County. Those of you familiar with the area realize that there is something in the way between the Shoals access and Surry County: the Yadkin River.


There are designated fording areas across the river and to the islands that are set up for horses to cross, and lanky hikers. Well, some of you may remember, my dog isn't the most apt swimmer in the world, however today, she displayed some tadpole-esque moves. The ford is broken into three parts by two islands. The first ford had a moderate current, so I carried the dog across. I was concerned that she would get out into the current and end up down at Donnaha before she got across. Carrying a dog that is flailing about trying to swim (whilst in the air) and a backpack in waist deep water is inadvisable. I nearly bit it twice, but managed to stay upright. At the second ford, Lorien boldly took off and swam right across. Impressive. The third crossing was another deeper, speedier crossing, so it required some carrying. I was just glad to make it across without the wagon flipping over and drowning everyone.


The copilot chose the route, and we continued on...



After our forays in hiking, I decided to go for a little drive to check out some gravel roads I want to include on some rides. They were grand.