Friday, January 27, 2012

Long, Slow, Lap around Linville Gorge...

So I'd hoped to go mountain biking with friends on my day off this week, but with unsure weather and people's busy lives I ended up riding alone. "I guess I'll just ride alone."

Studying various weather websites I realized I should head southeast - so I decided to ride the Linville Gorge Loop listed in one of the books we sell at work. Problem is, I'm still running 36/46 x 11/26 gearing from CX racing. Oh well, a 34/50 x 11/28 would have made more sense...

An eerie old, moldy sign greeted me as I rolled out:



My route for the day:





It took a little over 4 hours of riding to cover the 52 miles, and nearly 5 hours start to finish including 10+ stops to check the map. I left my handwritten cue sheet at the car. Oops. It was a fun day, and I'd like to go back and try riding up Tablerock Mtn Rd sometime instead of 'Simpson Creek Rd' or whatever it turns into. As usual, thanks for reading. JG

Sunday, January 22, 2012

january 22nd CX ride

so today darcy and i went out to old cove creek school and rode our CX bikes for a couple hours. our route:

old 421, left onto north fork rd, left onto beaver dam rd, left onto georges gap rd, left to old cove creek school.

darcy got loaded up, i swapped out bottles and began my ride home. i headed over mast gap rd, 194n, bairds creek rd, dewitt barnett rd, moore mtn rd, willow mtn rd, laurel fork rd, greer ln, then long st back to our house.

we were really excited to check out north fork rd since neither of us had ridden it before and i was glad to find/connect moore mtn rd to willow mtn rd - we stayed in a cabin off willow mtn rd w/ friends before our wedding. it was neat to stop there and see it again 3.5 years later.

okay, okay, some photos: