Tales From The Commute: Asheville long write up

Great trip to Asheville. We arrived at the house

around 4:30 and quickly changed and went out to ride the trails at Bent Creek. We rode for close to two hours. Some of the trails at Bent Creek you work your tail off but there's always a payoff. Ray and I rode our SS and I swear Randy took the steepest trails he could find to make us work hard. The second day we drove to the top of a gravel road next to the Blue Ridge pkwy. parked and rode down 5 miles rode about a mile of flat gravel roads and climbed another 4 before we went down again to hit a trail that would have been a lot more fun if we didn't have to stop to walk around the down trees. Asheville got a lot of wet snow and ice and every where you went many trees and branches were down. We got to a point were it was a tree down after another, I turned around and Ross went to get the guys. On the way down I stopped a lot to move branches out of the way so the guys could have a better ride down. So nice of them to come flying down the mountain while I was moving branches go by me not to see them again until I came out of the trail. I should have put a thick branch through the spokes as they were riding by. On the way back we had to climb the 5 miles we went down and I put a good effort in to test my fitness and see where I'm at for Cohutta. I felt good climbing and I'm glad I went out hard, I feel I'm stronger this time than last year. Ohhhhh but I paid for it, the next day we went to Dupont State Forest which is one of my favorites places to ride down there. I knew as soon as we started that I didn't have the legs, the first 1.5 hrs I spent them trying not to get dropped, It was the rubber band effect strech strech strech until I finally ask to show me where to hit the paved road back to the parking lot. Tiffany had already left us and I got to the parking lot first and didn't see her there I thought something happened. No, Bruce neglected to tell her (and me) that you had to make a right hand turn at the intersection, she kept going straight down hill for another 3 miles and had to climb back. I only noticed because I happened to lift my head as I was riding by the sign that said "pavement ends"
I didn't think we had driven on pavement o the way to the parking lot so I turned around and saved myself having to climb back 3 more miles in the state I was. after resting a bit at the parking lot I decided I wanted to do Ridgeline trail at least once. Any trail that is named Ridgeline has to be good. After riding that trail last year I knew I had to do it. It's 1.5 miles long and they should rename it "one and a half mile smile" It just goes in and out of the woods as you hit mach 5 speeds. Well, I didn't once and went back up again and again until I did it 5 times. The climb is very mellow and I just took my time. I kept doing it because the guys had to go down the same trail and I was expecting to meet them somewhere on the trail. Well, I never did see them because the last time I went up I went into the kids

riding area to ride and that's when they went by. I rode to the trail entrance dropped the bike and laid down to take a nap and wait for them. Finally after almost 1.5 hrs I thought something was wrong and started down the trail only to find Frank and Ray walking up looking for me and telling me they thought I crashed somewhere never to be found again until the voulchers started circling above. Man I felt so bad I didn't even wanted to go to the car. I knew they wanted to kill me but they were very gracious and didn't hurt me.
We ate dinner at a different place every night and the food was great.
Sunday it started raining in the early morning and we didn't get to ride before leaving but we were all happy with all the miles and hours we had logged in.
Overall we had a great time and I can't wait to do it again.
thanks for the great time guys and gal.
Few pictures below and a couple of short videos. I need a new camera, a lot of time it didn't turn on, it didn't focus or did anything for that matter. I know I know, I've said it before, I'll get a new one sooner or later.