this was the big 'turning 40' trip for me and 4 of my friends (one of which is 42, but we can overlook matters...he also was the only one riding a hardtail and stomped us on the climbs). some of you may recall this thread when i was looking for ideas for a 3 day roadtrip, and we settled on Pisgah, since 5 of the 6 were on the east coast and we could get direct flights into Charlotte (one ended up dropping out, so it was just the 5 of us). after the obligatory stop for lunch, we drove west, encountering a torrential downpour along the way. even though by the time we got to our rental house it was clear and sunny, the omen was (or should have been) clear. however, this was our view from the deck:
after a quick bite to eat in Asheville (beer was great, food was so so), we formulated our plan of attack for day 1.
great singletrack climb that went for about 4-5 miles before a very steep and tech hike-a-bike section was encountered.
at this point, the thunderclaps were coming in loud, fast, hard, and often. we hunkered down, not sure whether the top of the climb was exposed, hoping that the storm would blow over. after at least 30 min, we decided to soldier on, w/ no change in the weather. at the top, we found some flowers which matched larry's custom 29" IF:
the crew was ready for the descent:
at this point, the skies absolutely opened up, like god's waterbed got knifed. crackles of thunder and flashes of lightning were going off like car alarms in the ghetto, so we hopped on the bikes and made a conscious decision that crashing on the wet, rocky/rooty and treacherous track of Pilot Rock was safer than getting 40 kA of electricity in our collective butts, so we took off, despite the immense of difficulty of seeing through sheets of rain and mud/dirt from the front tire, on a technical trail none of us had been on. it made for quite an exhilirating ride, aside from the arm pump.
after a few sphincter-clenching rock gardens and diagonal root crossings, mike, erik and i waited at a trail intersection for larry and rich to catch up. 20 minutes later, in rain that i'm hard pressed in my life to recall being any harder (the record setting rain we got at my house 5 weeks ago was about the same)...the trail was a brown river and we called on the 2 way radio to make sure that both larry and rich were safe. just a flat tire. whew.
after regrouping, the rain subsided, we travelled in the remaining 1000 ft to the fire road, and decided to scratch plans for the slate rock loop option. we'd had enough. end of day 1...<more later>
edit: here's a map from the www.mtbikewnc.com site of the ride we did:
after a quick bite to eat in Asheville (beer was great, food was so so), we formulated our plan of attack for day 1.
great singletrack climb that went for about 4-5 miles before a very steep and tech hike-a-bike section was encountered.
at this point, the thunderclaps were coming in loud, fast, hard, and often. we hunkered down, not sure whether the top of the climb was exposed, hoping that the storm would blow over. after at least 30 min, we decided to soldier on, w/ no change in the weather. at the top, we found some flowers which matched larry's custom 29" IF:
the crew was ready for the descent:
at this point, the skies absolutely opened up, like god's waterbed got knifed. crackles of thunder and flashes of lightning were going off like car alarms in the ghetto, so we hopped on the bikes and made a conscious decision that crashing on the wet, rocky/rooty and treacherous track of Pilot Rock was safer than getting 40 kA of electricity in our collective butts, so we took off, despite the immense of difficulty of seeing through sheets of rain and mud/dirt from the front tire, on a technical trail none of us had been on. it made for quite an exhilirating ride, aside from the arm pump.
after a few sphincter-clenching rock gardens and diagonal root crossings, mike, erik and i waited at a trail intersection for larry and rich to catch up. 20 minutes later, in rain that i'm hard pressed in my life to recall being any harder (the record setting rain we got at my house 5 weeks ago was about the same)...the trail was a brown river and we called on the 2 way radio to make sure that both larry and rich were safe. just a flat tire. whew.
after regrouping, the rain subsided, we travelled in the remaining 1000 ft to the fire road, and decided to scratch plans for the slate rock loop option. we'd had enough. end of day 1...<more later>
edit: here's a map from the www.mtbikewnc.com site of the ride we did:
