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!