Pilot Mountain

Curtis and I had planned a trip today to Dark Mountain to ride some mountain bikes. I'd been itching to do this since it's been a couple weeks since I've been on the Superfly. I ran out to the garage this morning to do a once over of the bike, and noticed, ouch, no rear brake. I have a seemingly endless supply of problems with my Juicy Ultimates. The next bike WILL NOT have them!

So, in the interest of optimizing ride time, we opted for a road ride. Curtis came up to my place and we rolled out. We took about the shortest route out to Pilot possible to ensure we would have the legs to make the climb. The shortest/easiest route is nowhere near easy with two hills that have extended double digit grades. We made it to Pilot and lowered our heads and got on with it. Curtis was looking extremely strong and made it to the top in about 17 minutes. I was feeling less than perfect; heavy, weak, basically anything that you don't want to feel when riding a bike. I made it to the top in just under 21 minutes. We filled the bottles back up at the top, took some photos, and started the descent.



So much fun! Curtis was feeling a little sketchy on his new Carbon Tubulars so he took it a little easy on the way down. I was feeling pretty confident, so I just let go of the brakes and let it rip. Curtis made the comment that our roles were reversed for the day; he out-climbing me, and me out-descending him. Once we got to the bottom, we decided to opt for the long way home, taking some backcountry roads with some amazing views of Pilot, Sauratown, and Moore's Wall.


We made it back to my place, got some cold drinks, and chilled on the deck with the puppy! MUCH FUN!

The Stats:
Moving Time (h:m:s) 2:51:16
Distance (mi ) 43.71
Moving Speed (mph) 15.3 avg. 41.7 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +4,605


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