It seemed like the alarm went off just after I had finally gone to sleep. The alarm had been set for 6:30, which would have been fine, if it had been set to the proper time zone instead of Argentinian time, which is an hour ahead of EDT. So it was actually 5:30 and that little fact didn't come to light until well after showers and packing had commenced. Such a shame to waste an hour of precious sleep like that. But we did get to go have some good breakfast with Chris at Gillie's, where Kirk and Chris almost came to blows about when the check came.
My dog Madison had come with us, and was having some GI issues, so I decided against leaving him at Chris's place for the weekend, as I didn't want him messing up Chris's carpet. So Maddog came with us on the rest of our way down to Asheville, NC. To our pleasant surprise, the weather was much nicer than forecasted, which meant there was no rain and very comfortable.
We grabbed lunch and headed to the area we had planned out, only to find the road completely closed. We scrambled around and found another trail so our first ride ended up being a short "warm up" ride with a decent climb and a quick fun downhill return for a total a little more than 3 miles. Maddog stayed by the truck in the shade and almost seemed disappointed at our return and re-entry to the truck. But we drove a little down the road to another area to get a second ride in the for the afternoon.
Ted recently got a new bike, which happens to be a Santa Cruz Heckler, which fit right in with my Santa Cruz Blur LT and Kirk's Santa Cruz Nomad. Naturally we started calling our selves, Team Santa Cruz. When we arrived at the second rides parking lot, we saw another guy pull in with a Santa Cruz Tall Boy and started chatting. He was a local and was more than happy to show us around some fun trails. He was probably in his mid-40's, but it was very obvious he'd been riding a lot and knew what he was doing as he "rode our legs off" as Kirk described it. We would see him quickly disappear into the distance and then catch up when he waited at a fork in the trail. He was kind enough to show us some other fun trails on the map and gave us ideas on where to ride the rest of the weekend.
Sufficiently tired and hungry we went to "Hog Wild" for some NC barbeque and live music. We stuff ourselves silly and then found a campsite to crash. It rained a little early the next morning before we woke up, but luckily not enough to hinder any riding. We did another shorter ride, but it was really fun. Again with a bit of a steep climb at the beginning, but then a long fairly smooth decent with some nice rollers and rocks to get some air off of.
Kirk's friend Becky lives in Asheville, and we made plans to meet up with her for lunch and to hang out for the rest of the day. We went to a unique, but well known place called "The Laughing Seed Cafe" which offers only vegetarian dishes, but they all sounded great, and everything we had was. The coconut torte was also awesome. Kirk, Becky, Maddog and I went on a hike and Ted went for another ride after lunch and we all met up again for dinner. (Noticing a trend here? Food, ride, food, ride, sleep, food, ride. That pretty much encompasses the whole long weekend.)
We then crashed on Becky's floor, and actually slept in! (7am is sleeping in with Kirk in charge). It was amazing. Clean and refreshed we made our way downtown around 8:15am, only to find everything close. Even "The Early Girl" restaurant was still closed. Thankfully, a couple hippie's in Asheville do drag themselves out of bed and open one place, where they actually had a great menu and a very nice selection of different coffees and teas, and a large variety of gluten free options. Asheville was very progressive in their food selections which was nice to see.
Maddog had been feeling better, so we left him at Becky's for the day and again went riding. This was our longest ride and also the best. It was a brutal uphill where I walked most of it and pushed my bike along. It took a little over an hour to get to the top, but once there, it was pure delight. We had a snack, rested up, and then proceeded to flow down the other side of the mountain through rhododendron tunnels, sweet single track turns and burms all the way back to the truck. Well over an hour later we made it back and Ted said it best when he declared he felt like he had gotten a bargain. Meaning for the work we did, the return was so much better. It was fantastic.
Back to Becky's we went to pick up the dog and get some more food. We then parted ways and headed west to see the sun set on Max Patch Bald. This had been predetermined by Kirk, as he'd been there before and felt it was worth doing again, and I'd have to agree. The sun set was awesome, and the stars were amazing. However, the wind was trying to outdo itself. With roughly 40 mph sustained winds, Ted's tent had to be taken down because of the noise, and only our giant duffel bags used as wind-blocks made it bearable. 
This was another killer ascent which just about did me in. I was less and less excited about this ascent, as by day 4, my legs weren't responding anymore. I took a bit of a short cut while the more seasoned legs of Ted and Kirk did some more climbing. When we finished this ride, it meant the end of another epic weekend. Excited and exhausted we finished the drive back to Charlottesville were we parted ways and Maddog and I continued on our way back to Richmond.
Thanks to Kirk and Ted for driving and making another unbelievable weekend. Thanks to Chris and Becky for putting us up and showing us great places to eat. Good times all around. Here's a few pictures from the trip. Until the next one.
No comments:
Post a Comment