The Official Bat Cave Explorers Club

Pyranha Rev for sale

2010-04-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

The DR goes up for sale

2009-08-19T11:58:00.001-07:00

Selling my DR200SE after some fun rides...just don't have the need for it...when you only ride a bike enough to keep everything lubed and in good condition, you aren't really using it, and it's time to move it on. Some photos.

Polk County Welcome Center

2009-04-10T21:02:00.001-07:00

Goin' left at the Polk County line on Wednesday night in my new favorite hunk of plastic, the Prijon Tornado.

West Fork of the Pigeon River

2009-03-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I woke up to rain and a text from Mike N. It was his birthday and the West Fork of the Pigeon was running. I'd never done, neither had he, and neither had Mike T., who we met up with in Asheville. A quick call to a friend who had run it a few times gave me a good feeling about this one and we headed up into the Balsams above Lake Logan.

The run starts below the Garden of the Gods, and it involves a quick hike down from the road. The hike may be quick but it is also steep and usually slick if this creek is running. Mike N. and I both had to take a bath to wipe off all the mud we'd collect on our rears from slip-sliding down the slope.

Mike T. hiking in.

Your author, at the put-in pool. Some more good stuff apparently is above if you can find the alternate hike-in point to add maybe 1/2 mile of some good boogie and ledges. Don't go too high or you'll be paddling the continuous class V+/VI Garden of the Gods.

A nice boogie rapid early on. The water level was pretty good when we started out, but we needed to scout a lot and the water definitely dropped on us. It was low by the time we took out.

I'm coming into the bottom wave-hole of another good rapid early on

Mike T. on the same. Not long after, his paddle blade snapped, and since his seat was only held in with one bolt and the boat was leaking like a sieve because of it missing a bolt on the opposite side, he had to hike back up to the road. It really sucked watching him go up the hill as we headed down the river into this stunningly beautiful gorge.

Mike N. on the same.

Caleb on the entrance to a big one -- big hole to punch after a slide-in notch slot or an S-turn around a boulder. It was nice to see a couple other guys on the run. They knew it well, but were in a rush to get back to a car (girlfriend was shuttling them for a quick run), so we were back on our own after this one. Being that Mike T was paddling with a broken paddle and that none of us knew the run, we were in no condition to hang with them as they blazed downriver.

The infamous J.E.B. heading into the second pitch of the rapid Caleb is running above. It involves a slide where the left side cruises into a) a weird pocket eddy half-way down or b) a chunky undercut behind a hole that you could hit at mach 2. The right side has a hole half-way down and a bigger hole at the bottom. Stay in the middle and punch the bottom hole. It could be a very, very stout hole at high water. Portage left if you don't like it.

Your author on a fun slide with a reasonably strong hole that was fun to plug.

Our birthday boy -- Mike N. Happy 30th birthday, Mike! What a great personal first descent to catch on your birthday and I was glad to enjoy your boof-day with ya.

We were slow and scouting almost everything that we couldn't see the bottom of because we knew there was a rapid that was a mandatory portage because of a tree blocking it. Another group that knew the run caught us not too far before the tree and we all portaged it. Words can't describe the weird ways water moves through that rapid -- the tree is so old that it was there when Middle Earth still existed.

The West Fork of the Pigeon is good to the last drop, and this was one of the last drops. Caveboy (I guess so named because of a little similarity to Caveman rapid on Raven Fork perhaps?) is all about waiting on your boof and then enjoying the air-time. We hung out with Nate, Sam and Riley (the crew who caught us before Big Tree portage) and ran multiple sessions of this drop before enjoying a class III-IV paddle out with one mandatory class II portage because of a tree. I didn't portage, but should have, and Nate had to give me a hand to get off the strainer.

I can't wait until this one runs again.
--Geoff

Enjoying the afternoon on a road bike

2009-03-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air and it was time to take the road bike out since we had temps in the high 60s this afternoon. The light was stunning on the climb of Bat Cave Road as I wound my way up past Gateway Mountain, Stone Mountain and Round Mountain.

The ride has a nice 1/2 mile level area in the middle of the climb. It's a welcome spot.

I really love seeing old homesteads. Somehow it speaks to the countless generations of effort put forth by human beings to find a way to live in this incredible part of our country.

The Rocky Broad River (below), at one of its more mellow points. The new bridge my bike leans against was a nice place to hop off the saddle, take a couple drinks of water and enjoy the early evening in the mountains.

Ah, the Blue Ridges. A decent vantage point near the top of the climb on the way back home.

Long shadows and good pavement.

Cruising back home and getting ready for the blazing downhill back to our own home.

21.2 miles of after-work joy.

Finding an interesting line on the Cheoah

2009-03-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I headed out to the Cheoah with an old friend from college days at Sewanee -- Sam. We linked up with Eric and Jim, two of Sam's friends for a run down this gem of a class IV run in the very western part of North Carolina.

The river peaks with a section called Bear Creek Rapids that is a stack of a few good rapids back-to-back. Most of the rapids in here are a somewhat nondescript series of ledges, waves, holes and boulders, but the signature is Bear Creek Falls that is more vertical and taller than all of the other drops on the run.

On my second run, I ended up in the curious position below -- facing almost upstream into a crease with a strong maw and mawl and ma factor. I say that because if you go in there, the maw will mawl you, and then you'll have to head home to ma with your tail between your legs.

Fortunately, I was able to backpaddle and not tip into the crease, and I slide off the ledge beside me backwards but fully safe. The reason for that unexpected backpaddling was too good of a "boof" stroke on the rock defining the first ledge. I literally rode up and over and flew into the strange spot on the other side of the rock. Here's a photo a local photog captured of me hammering into that boof -- you can see my almost 12-foot long kayak starting to ride up and over that 10-foot-wide rock. It was one hell of a boof stroke and felt good until I saw where I was landing.

Sam was right ahead of me and got to see the full show, including the backpaddling and the backwards slide off the second pitch. Here's a pic of him from Eric's cell phone camera showing a nice, traditional line. The rock immediately over his head is the one I flew right over.

More pics soon from today's excursion into the West Fork of the Pigeon River's upper gorge.

-Geoff

Cheoah & a photo sent in by a friend

2009-02-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, in 2004, right after the hurricanes hit Georgia, a few of us decided to go kayaking. It ended up being a bunch of us by the time we got to the river. Except the road to the river was blocked with downed trees and the river was high. I suggested we poke around higher up in the watershed, and we ended up on Clear Creek, a tributary to Overflow Creek in North Georgia. We believe it to have been the first descent of the upper part of Clear Creek, but it was more portaging than quality whitewater. The story went epic, but you'll have to ask me personally about how that trip went epic. Log jams and massive waterfalls like this one were the flavor of the day. Word of my trip ended up with NC photographer and ironman hiker Bernie B, who is known for getting into the most inaccessible waterfalls and taking pictures of them. After some confusion in my explanation of which section we had paddled (leading Bernie on a wild-goose chase of a waterfall hunting expedition), we reconnected and I gave better details on how to get into where we had paddled. Finally, with ice on the ground, Bernie packed the camera and headed in this month. He sent me a couple pictures from his foray into Clear Creek, including this lovely waterfall which naturally was a portage (even with water it's ugly, though looks like it would go if the wood was removed). It really is a lovely falls and he's going to find a treat for another photo when the ice melts and he can safely venture further into that gorge.

Most of the time, my trips don't go epic. Many times they're just a day of boofing my way down a local NC run, like this past Saturday on the Cheoah. Here's a photo some photographer snapped of me taking the Tornado airborne off the double-drop route of Bear Creek Rapid.

There was a lot of carnage on the Cheoah. As we bombed down for our top-to-bottom run and a lower-2 run, I was blown away by how many boats and people were scattered along the river banks. I'm also concerned by the fact that I saw some saplings cut off like punjee sticks in some areas where swims are likely. This river, while relatively straightforward class IV, deserves respect.

-Geoff

Warden I.B. Goinlepht

2009-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

Kayaking always makes life interesting. In the photos below is the rapid Go Left, a bona fide class V on the Green River Narrows in North Carolina. The rapid starts with a tight slot, a turn to the left, sliding off a big log (seen across top of whitewater), then turning right to make it through the river left crack exit (not the one with anyone/anything visible in it in photos below).

On Sunday, one of our friends decided to run it for the first time. They went before me and I watched the line not be perfect off the log, so I waited a while, thinking it might lead to a beatdown. After a minute or so, I gave a big yell, then another and maybe another, as if to say "All clear? I'm coming down." After a little while longer, I hear a couple yells from below -- often a universal sign for "All good". I ran the entrance barely slowing as a I headed for the log boof and as I came off the log, I see an orange kayak blocking the exit, partly out of water. Coming off the big hump toward that exit slot, I took such a big stroke that my boat and I jumped the pinned kayak and caught air out the bottom slot. My friend, fortunately, wasn't in that pinned boat.

Our crew then hiked back up, crossed over to some rocks in the middle of the river, set ropes and lowered a paddler into the Go Left slots & hole where the boat was stuck. On the second try, Rob T. was able to hook a carabinered rope to the kayak and a couple of tugs later, it popped out, largely undamaged.

Unfortunately, because of the way the boat was positioned to block most of the exit slot, it changed the water dynamics in that hole, and it gave a long series of recircs to my friend when exiting the boat. Apparently the paddler was getting recirculated pretty much the entire time I was waiting above the drop, and the yells I heard were the yells of our first couple of paddlers as they saw the paddler finally flush out.

All's well that ends well, even if it was a tense situation and some effort to get the craft free from the water and rocks. Some people call this rapid the Polk County Welcome Center because this is where the county line between Polk and Henderson sits. But we agreed that today it was the Polk County Detention Center. Warden I.B. Goinlepht was presiding over the facility today, backed up by Control Officer U.B. Gottenwerkd.

Live baiting Rob T. into Go Left to clip onto the pinned kayak. It was perfectly pinned on the mid-stream rock, blocking both the left exit and the rightside exit.

Success! The boat comes free.

Old photos from Bhutan

2009-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

i was thinking today how i should put up some photos of our bhutan trip since it was an excursion that started from bat cave road and took us half way around the world. here's the start.

har-hay: big pushy bhutanese water.

big himalayas.

smart girls smirking.

my wife firing into the chaos amid a big one.

thai art in a temple on the way back home. the little creature in the tail is thinking he shouldn't have gone swimming -- a feeling i had a day before this photos when i swam out of a massive 10,000-cfs rapid in bhutan and barely made it to shore. naturally, i hopped back in the boat to run the second signature rapid (and final rapid) of the run. that one went better -- good thing, too, as not far downstream the entire flow goes over a 30-footer (which i heard was run on the first and only descent through that next gorge).

i'll post more bhutan photos when blogger lets me.

--your humble servant.

Creek boats for sale: Burn and Java

2008-12-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

I've had some inquiries on two creekboats I have listed for sale and have posted them here so people can see photos. The first is a yellow Perception Java in good condition. The second is an orange Pyranha Burn (Medium size) in good condition. The Burn has a small bend in its stern from running a drop backwards, but as you can see from the side profile picture, it's only visible on the top deck and doesn't change any of the rocker profile at all. They are both great boats and have brought me many enjoyable days on rivers and creeks. Both boats have been stored in a garage, out of sunlight.

A little Green time

2008-12-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

A while back, Crystal and I went to the Narrows and had a good time. Just another run for us, but some guy happened to be shooting video and got some of our run. See if you can spot Crystal -- hint: blue Pyranha Burn kayak.

Green River Narrows: Nov. 8 from Adam Hackenberg on Vimeo.

Linville legs

2008-12-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Today my legs are hurting more than I believe they ever have.

If I think back on the worst my legs have ever felt, I think about the summer when I was 10th grade and went to Philmont Boy Scout camp and we hiked over some massive rocky mountain. My legs felt terrible, having never walked anything quite that that high -- as I had been a full-on flatlander before that.

I think about a few months later, when I was at high school soccer practice and coach had us run 6-8 miles on the streets of Bay St. Louis, and then come back and do running repeats on the stairs at the stadium. I drove back over to campus to get books out of my locker and my legs cramped right as I tried to step out of the van. I fell to the ground and was there until the cramps went away.

The next I can remember was in 2001, when carrying into Tallulah Gorge. Ambitiously, we did something like 4 carries that weekend. Keep in mind, that I didn't think of doing training back then. On Monday, I could hardly walk into the office.

The next that I remember was probably in 2002. During the Tsali Challenge, I didn't hydrate properly and had calve cramps when I was 90% through the bicycle portion and already done with the running.

And then there is today. I can barely walk up and down the stairs in the house today. Every single supporting muscle involved in walking is screaming for relief. This is, of course, the result of hiking into the Linville and then back out. It might have only been 3 miles total hiking. However, those 3 miles featured an elevation loss of probably 900-1000 feet on the hike in, and an elevation gain of 1000 feet on way back out, coupled with carrying a creek boat laden with all kinds of winter preparedness gear, which I would guess weighed in at 60 pounds. All of that weight goes on one shoulder, and as I am ambidexterous with my shoulders, it all stayed on my righthand shoulder for both trips.

And that is why I have Linville legs today. The pain beats the cramps of the Tsali Challenge and the brutal soccer running workout. I did have muscle spasm cramps, and they were in the quads. It beat the post-Tallulah and post Philmont calf jitters. I had calf jitters on the first part of the hike. The hike down burned the quads and destroyed the calves. Then we repeated it on the way back out. It is, of course, a pleasant burn in the legs, and the terrible burn and the practically immobile legs come with a true sense of accomplishment.

P.S. The Linville River Gorge is incredible and I can't wait to go back.

Moshier Section of the Beaver River, New York

2008-09-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

Forgive the order of the photos, but for some reason Blogger puts the photo order bass-ackwards...Hmmm... These are all from Trevyn's camera off the Moshier section of the Beaver River in New York. Fun class III-IV run with nice drops and then a good finale at Moshier Falls.

I had the good fortune of connecting with an old college friend for some paddling on Sunday. Ryan was out there crushing it. He and his girlfriend, another solid paddler, were up from U. Mass-Amherst where he's getting a PhD in stones. He may be a geologist, but he's also a rocking paddler.

The "4th drop" of Moshier Falls is a straightforward ledge with a nice hole. Edgar decided to paddle back up into the hole to work on his hole exiting skills. He came right out. Sort of. :-)

The first rapid is a ledge on river left and a slide on river right. Here's your author finding a nice boof spot at the end of the slide.

Trevyn doing the same with a backwards boof after not quite getting a full rockspin.

Ryan taking it home on the 3rd drop of Moshier Falls. We watched a guy swim the middle; he came out with 4 broken ribs and a broken vertebrae. The banks were lined with people and a couple guys grabbed him out of the water before the 4th drop.

As I mentioned, the first drop is a straightforward ledge. Here's Ryan's friend Mags (sp?) showing how Up East Boaters do it.

Here's how NC boaters like myself do it: 3rd drop of Moshier Falls Rapid.

Another Gorgeous Gorge: Beaver's Moshier section.

Trevyn was stomping boofs like they were roaches in a cheap motel room. He was crushing them all weekend.

Boofs are good, but so are freewheels. Trevyn getting vertical.

When Edgar goes handpaddling, sometimes he doesn't need the handpaddles. Here he is again, performing the Screaming Eagle off the first drop.

And me, bringing it all down with a fun boof.

The Moshier Section of the Beaver is super fun; a must-do for any whitewater paddler with the skills. When it's releasing (thank American Whitewater), you'll be joined by hundreds of others. There were a couple other drops on this run (2nd drop is a nice ledge boof and a follow-on rapid) that keep it interesting. The style is pool-drop; I mean, really, the Moshier is the very definition of a pool-drop river.

-Geoff

Stone Valley of the Raquette River, NY

2008-09-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

For Labor Day Weekend, Trevyn, Edgar and I headed north to the Upper Yough and then to the Adirondacks in NY. First up was the Stone Valley section of the Raquette (other posts will follow). Some photos...

Trevyn airing it out with a rail grab on the left side of the island (other side of Particle Accelerator). We were generally fooling around on this easy drop.

A little boofing from your author.

I was shooting photos when this guy came down Particle Accelerator, which is a long slide with junky rocks, some curlers and other stuff in play. He flipped about 2/3rds of the way down, ran the nastiest part upside down, broke his paddle, broke his nose, but rolled up only to flip off the lip. Brutal rapid to be upside down on. The Raquette is boat abusive enough even when you're upright.

Gorgeous gorge: Stone Valley of the Raquette.

In that series of photos of the guy bashing down Particle Accelerator (it's really smooth if you do it right), I caught a shot of him after a swim at the bottom, tossing his paddle. We've all been there at one time or another.

I came up with the idea to do paddle tosses off the left drop, and then I decided I'd just take the photos (yeah, you know it's a good idea when the guy who suggests it sits at the bottom with a camera). Trevyn had gone first and I wasn't thinking he'd need a bow rescue since he'd been stomping that drop all day. I was wrong, but the swim is in a big pool and he needed a bath anyway, right? Here's Edgar, borrowing a paddle for a toss.

The 2nd drop of the Stone Valley (1st is the put-in slide thing) is Colton Falls. I was telling Edgar about a photo I had of a friend where he puts his hands in a "Walk like an Egyptian" pose as he boofs with his handpaddles. As Edgar aired out this tight boof in the 1st half of the approx. 60-foot Colton Falls rapid, he walked like an Egyptian. too.

Edgar performing his signature "Screaming Eagle" handpaddling move off a boof in Colton Falls (it's a long rapid).

I'm splashing down at the bottom of Particle Accelerator after a smooth line. Photos can't do many of these rapids justice -- certainly not Colton Falls, Tubs or Particle Accelerator.

The Tubs don't look like much in this photo, but you have two big holes to contend with. The bottom one is pretty sticky, and the top one is sort of sticky and has a pothole underwater, forming the hole as I'm told. The line is "twice left". It, like everything on the Raquette, boats better than it looks.

As I said, Trevyn was crushing the boofs all day. Here's one of his sessions off the carry-back-up side of Particle Accelerator. Very nice!

Your author giving the thumbs up on Colton Falls. This is the traditional line. Just after Trevyn took this photo, some guy almost drowned in a hole on a marginal right-side entrance of Colton Falls. He was OK thanks to quick work from a guy who I'm told is AW's Safety Chairperson. It solidified my choice to stick to the traditional route at the top of Colton Falls. New York rocks like an Egyptian.

-Geoff

Cheoah (and the Cheoah race)

2008-08-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

Jen, Crystal, Joel and I headed to the Cheoah on Sunday morning to meet up with Maria around 10 a.m. We had a great run on this packed-house river (lots of private boaters and quite a number of rafts, too). Joel launched the Pyranha Mountain 300 off of Bear Creek Rapid; Jen did some serious boofing in the lead-in, and we just generally had lots of fun. Maria had to split after lap 1, so we did a quick lap from the FS bridge down. I dialed in some race lines on this lap.

At 3 p.m. I was at the port-o-lets-in-the-woods launch site waiting on the race to start and Milton had hooked me up with a Prijon Tornado to race instead of my Prijon Hurricane. 40 minutes later, the race finally got going and we had a blast. I came in third and probably could have done much better had I pushed it more; at some point, I just felt like I wasn't in a race mood anymore and was just running the river. Got to remember for future races to push the burning muscles more.

Here are the results:

Top 10
1. 16:14 Charlie Simmons, Dagger Response
2. 16:28 Chris Gallaway, The Wave Sport Race Boat
3. 16:40 Geoff Kohl, Prijon Tornado
4. 16:46 Ben Davis, Liquid Logic Remix
5. 17:09 Matthew Wallace, Liquid Logic Jefe
6. 17:38 Chris McCoy, Dagger Nomad
7. 17:49 Cruise Quenelle, Liquid Logic Jefe
8. 18:13 Warren Stallings, Dagger Nomad
9. 18:30 Chuck Armantrout, Jackson Rocker
10. 19:28 Danny Flem and Bryan ?, Riot Magnum and Liquid Logic Jefe

It was a lot of fun; very relaxed little race put on by Chuck and with some support from World Kayak. No photos from the race; because I switched kayaks at the last second, Jennifer didn't recognize me until I was already through the falls.

BTW, avoid Sweetwater BBQ in Robbinsville, N.C. Food quality has gone way down and service is non-existent. Watched three groups of diners walk out because the service was that bad. One of them went to another restaurant and was on the road ahead of us, despite the fact that they came into the restaurant 15 minutes after us and waited around for some time before deciding to go elsewhere.

Coming next: photo updates of some recent rides.

Transalps to Rumbling Bald, Linville Gorge

2008-07-28T21:03:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, Joel met me at the house for a full day of fun. We mixed in some climbing, caving, canyoneering-like efforts, some hiking, lots of motorcycle riding, some coffee drinking and god knows what else into one action packed day. We started at Rumbling Bald after a couple cups of coffee in Chimney Rock, N.C. We checked out the caves and boulder fields on the East side. Nice little section of riding on rutted clay to a nice section of (very uphill) hiking. We checked out the entrances to two caves; did some clumsy climbing in riding boots and generally enjoyed the area. According to Joel (who sourced someone else), the reason Rumbling Bald is called "Rumbling" is because at some point in the 1800s, it rumbled and cracked and split some of its bald. The result was some stunning fissure caves. The Flittermouse Grotto, it seems, has been trying to find and survey these caves; many of which are quite short, but nice places to explore nonetheless.

Following that, we sprinted to Marion, then to Lake James and picked up Old NC 105, which formerly was a rough 4x4 road, but now has been graveled and washboarded to death in true Pisgah NF style. We saw some incredible overlooks, notably Wiseman's View (and its climbing area). That spot gives a stunning look over at Table Rock, Hawk's Bill and the impressive class IV-V+ Linville Gorge.

The Honda Transalps were up to the task quite perfectly: Twisties, gravel, rutted clay, pavement, super-slab, etc. Hard to believe we packed as much activity in 5 hours as we did.
Here are the photos (sorry, no pics of bikes, but sometimes for me, a bike is just a means of travel, and not the real fun of what is going on):

Joel checking out the wicked stryation (I think that's the right term to refer to the banding) in the rock. That's from sedimentary rocks metamorphosing, as I understand it.

Not one of the caves, but one of the many natural tunnels create by the shifting rocks.

This flower was blooming all through the forest floor around Rumbling Bald.

Joel soaking up Wiseman's View

The beauty of Linville Gorge: A climbing area, a stunning whitewater river and rugged attributes as far as the eye can see.

Heartbreaker

2008-07-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to riding Heartbreak ridge afterwork one day about 3 weeks ago. Without time to ride up Curtis Creek, we decided to do a quick shuttle route (I have felt guilty about shuttling this ride ever since; this was the first time I've ever shuttled a MTB ride, and it was quite embarrassing somehow). Great ride with Will J -- and here are the photos to prove it.

Will pushes up the incline from the Parkway

At the notable overlook. Stunning. Will was tracking our descent on GPS... it drops a lot of vertical feet...

Your author, same overlook. Gorgeous day; hot as heck in Old Fort, but perfectly pleasant up on Heartbreak Ridge. Maybe we should call it Heat-break Ridge for the nice weather.

Will coming into a tight switchback

On the ride out Jarrett Creek Road, self portrait

and finally, a shot capturing the fading as we wrapped up Heartbreak and made our way to the car.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

2008-07-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes exploring is about just stepping out into your driveway and letting an experience come to you. Case in point: This wonderful, post shower rainbow that happened in late June. I started taking photos and a cool thing happened -- a second (although faint) rainbow appeared, arching over the first one. Both went the full distance, 180 degrees. It reminded me of a magical day when I was moving from Mississippi to Georgia and I was driving my van across Alabama, and I had a jazz tape or CD in my car and I was listening to what I think was a John Coltrane recording and he segued from the piece he was playing into the melody of Over the Rainbow as a nice interlude right as I happened to notice a rainbow appear over the eastern sky. It had been a gloomy day; I was leaving an area of comfort, and something about that Coltrane twist and that rainbow made everything look up and be all OK. (I think this interlude was wrapped inside of either a tune on Ole or A Love Supreme, but I don't have either album here with me so I can check.) Enough words, here are two photos from that wonderful afternoon.

Somewhere over the rainbow / Skies are blue /

And the dreams that you dare to dream / Really do come true

--lyrics excerpted from Arlen/Harburg, "Over the Rainbow."

A Woodlawn kind of evening

2008-06-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

All day I was hyped up about riding the mountain bike today. Maybe Sunday's Dupont ride had me motivated. I was thinking Kitsuma, but when 5:30 and then 6 p.m. and then 6:30 rolled around, I thought that it would be nice to drift out to Woodlawn in Marion. The trail is in good shape, very dry, but not dusty. However, there is a lot of blow-down affecting the trail right now. Most of it is on the forest road in (3 or 4 places requiring dismount, I recollect) and on the first mile or two of the singletrack (another few required dismounts). I moved a few pieces; should have moved more but was also concerned about running out of daylight since I didn't arrive until 7 p.m. Not a soul was out there, and it looks like it's only been ridden by maybe 3 bikes since the blow-down. (I counted the unique tire prints in the dirt.) Here are the photos.

You start riding at the Woodlawn Work Center, but the FS guys have already gone home for the day by the time I'm there.

Blow-down on the FS into the trail.

What I'm really here for; glad to be off the FS road, which has some ugly sections where there is fresh gravel of the very-large chunks variety.

I'm getting better at my bunnyhops but I'm not this good yet. More blow-down.

Someone actually has been working on these two big logs with a saw. Wish I knew who it was; perhaps we could organize an evening work party and clean this trail. I think I might drift over there during the day and ask the FS if they are OK with me taking a chainsaw in there to clean this up.

That cool root ball that holds about a million rocks. According to Gaston, this has been like this since the 2004 'canes. It's slowly dropping its rocks out of the roots. This a nice tech session down a short incline, drop into the creek, ride some rock and make a hard right uphill about where I'm standing (bike is pointed opposite direction of normal travel).

As you get close to the exit of Woodlawn and are on the M-to-S trail for a short distance you pop out on a FS road that is really fun to rail on. But at that junction is one of my favorite trees. This tough old geezer is more hollow log than tree, but it's still throwing off growth. Never, ever, ever, ever give up.

Dirty legs (and a little blood from a branch thrown up by the wheels; it looks worse than it is) post ride.

Time to head home.

2 laps Green, 1 big Dupont ride

2008-06-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

This was a weekend all about creeking and riding. Checked off 1 lap of the Green Saturday before heading over to the Desi's wedding. Sunday I woke up tired but decided to hit up 2 runs of the Green and 3+ hours of biking in the Dupont State Forest, checking off pretty much every Southside trail. Legs are tired today but that was one action packed day: 2 quick Green laps and 1 juicy mtb ride.

While at Zaxby's post Green and pre-Dupont, I met Peter, who is a ADVrider and was videoing the Narrows. Here's his video, showing my crew and some of other folks who were paddling from Chief down through Nutcracker when were were on our second lap.

Green River Narrows from svgklingon on Vimeo.

Tractor night leads to questions

2008-06-11T19:33:00.001-07:00

It's tractor night down here on Bat Cave Road. And it's time for service of the tough little grey market Mitsubishi D1500FD four-wheel-drive, 2 cylinder diesel tractor. Straight from the rice paddy fields of Japan to rural Western North Carolina.

I'm posting these photos because "life as adventure" is part of the underlying theme of this blog, and certainly keeping a 30 year old tractor running is an adventure unto itself. First, the tractor:

Okay, now here's where things get complicated. I'm trying to figure out what this lever on the left, behind the seat (with the knob top) controls. If you're looking at the photo, it's the only one with a knob on it, with some silverish coloring at top of the knob. Help me out, please!

Okay, now to a more challenging question. In the photo below you can see one knob-topped lever. That's the PTO controller. I've got that figured out, as well as the gear shifter above it. Now here's what I'm trying to figure out. Above the gearbox (below the seat, which is just out of the top of this picture) is a controller for the 3-point hitch lift. There's a knob with one wing on the front of this. It's in the middle setting now, and can turn about 90 degrees left or right from this position. I don't know how to set this or what that is for.

The second question for this picture is what the metal "box" that is pictured in the bottom right of this photo is. Here's what I can tell -- It has one fluid line that goes forward to what I believe is a pump on the engine. That line is at the bottom of this box, under the footrest (not seen in this photo). The top line to the pump you can see just above that box. The box has four bolts on the top that hold down a top plate. What's in this "box"? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

And the final photo is about levers again. In this photo you see three knobbed levers. Top one is the 3-point hitch controller. Second one is 4WD control lever, and third is the High-Low gear box controller. My question is simple -- which is the position that engages the 4WD -- is it when the level is pushed forward, or when it is backwards?

Also in this photo, you can see the transmission oil fill cap. Mine doesn't have a dipstick, and there's not another dipstick as far as I can tell on this gear box. How high do you fill these gear boxes with fluid, what type of fluid do you use, and is there a filter anywhere on these transmissions that I can clean now that I'm changing the fluid?

That's all the questions... Thanks for tuning in on tractor night here along Bat Cave Road.

-Geoff

Jerry's Baddle

2008-04-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

No photos from the Baddle, but I pulled through a tough time on the kayak course with just over 1 hour for that (not particularly good, but well, there was that...) and then around 1:45 on the bike course (decent, not particularly good). Smushed up my shoulder 3 times on the kayak course: Nies Pieces, Rapid Transit, 3rd rapid below Sunshine. Ugh, it's hurting after today's mountain bike ride at Bent Creek.

The race was a lot of fun and there was a lot of camaraderie. To race and support the memory of Jerry and help raise money for ALS research was really powerful. Brid spreading Jerry's ashes in the Green made us all soften, I'm sure. Wonderful day...

The Thing

2008-04-12T19:24:00.000-07:00

We loaded up the car and went to Tallulah today. I really like that river, and it's hard to debate whether I enjoy it more in the spring when the new greenery is out on the trees, or in the fall, when the colors are vibrantly changing. Despite the stairs and the lake paddle, it's a classic run, even if it only has a few notable rapids.

Notable, they are. Below is a friend's boat post-Oceana/The Thing, and then below: after being repaired in our garage here along Bat Cave Road. Even after a smash against the thing, our friend still was glad they stepped up to run the big 'un. Jen checked off her first run of the big 'un today and had probably the best line I've seen on Oceana, barely getting her head wet beside The Thing and skipping over the hole at the bottom, not slowing down until a good 15 feet out. I also had a good line, and it was nice to get back out there after quite some time of skipping the Tallulah releases.

[P/S = If you look closely at the bottom of the lower pic, you can see a new Bontrager tire and rim mounted up on my new 5" travel mtb. Damn, that's fun, too! I guess I'm a gradient addict. Good thing there isn't good skiing in NC.]

Twisties to Lake Lure

2008-04-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Thursday night was an ADVrider.com dinner in Lake Lure, NC. A few of the usual suspects and their bikes...

Wednesday is for knobs

2008-04-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is indeed for knobs. Riding atop a ridge in WNC...

Shannon arrives. He avoids the mud hole, even though it would have made a nice pic.

Even the mudholes are kind of beautiful up here, brown and churned, they still cast a stunning reflection of the woods around these parts of the escarpment.

Artful bike portrait. DR Putt-putt 200.

Bike portrait done, how about combo portrait bike and rider?

Some people have no class. Trash dumped after some family's nice visit to the woods. Thanks, McDonald's, for helping make littering so easy.

The place seemed like it had been recently visited by a shotgun shooting club. Piles of these were everywhere on the ground. Kind of sad, and it won't surprise me one bit when the public loses full access rights to this piece of land and we see it more tightly managed. Can't say I would blame the state when they do that...

Target practice for shotguns was apparently this hollow tree. In a close-up pic I have, you can see the shot embedded in the bark. If shooting trees is your idea of fun, may I suggest a lobotomy? I'd also recommend you find a good hobby, like bicycling, motorbiking, kayaking, gardening, laughing, etc.

-Geoff

Kitzoomin'

2008-04-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

I really like having Kitsuma in the backyard, so to speak. It's a tough trail, a 10-mile loop (I like loops) and something you really have to get physical with. I also love the fact that I never see any other trail users during the week, except for one time, and they were like-minded cyclists. I love the brutality of those uphill switchbacks, some of which make me push. I love the sections on the downhill that make me white knuckle. I hate the endo I got Monday when I miss-timed my bounces/jumps through some roots on the trail. Ugh, but I really have bonded with this trail. Onto the pics from Monday's ride...

Getting geared up at the Old Fort picnic area

A kudzu overlook at around mile marker 2 if you started from the bottom. You can see the ridge you have to ride to get back to your car.

The train route up from Old Fort over to Black Mountain winds and tunnels its way up the pass. In one of these tunnels (maybe the one at the far end of the picture where the train disappears into the woods and a tunnel) is where DD met his fate. I can't ride by these tunnels without thinking of him and the exposure he gave to kayaking. I met the guy just once at a bar in Decatur, Ga., where he had put on a premiere for one of his first LVM kayaking films. I can still remember his enthusiasm to this day.

Hanging Bike Gap, also known as I-40 at Kitsuma Pass

Overlooking Black Mountain and Swannanoa about half-way up to Kitsuma's peak

Landing on your friends

2008-03-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

Some years ago on the Ocoee, I was caught in a small hole in Broken Nose rapid. My bud Rafe weighed in about 280 and came slamming down a few seconds behind me. I saw him before he could T-bone me, and I managed to flip upside down before I could get sucker punched by his kayak. I got worked, but I managed to get out...

Later that summer, I was side-surfing a hole that is on the route for the rafts. I was having a hard time getting out and looked up the ledge and saw a shadow appear over me as a raft full of people plowed down on me. I was caught upside down under the floor of the raft in my kayak and headed for a shallow part of the river. Somehow I got out, though I don't recall exactly how.

In 2007, Jen was surfing the top hole of Zwicks on the Green and I plowed over her in my old school kayak. While she was about to get out before I came down, I ended up pushing her into the worst part of the hole, and IIRC, a beat-down ensued. Bad. Worse. Even worse.

Then on Sunday, Mark heads down Zwicks ahead of me, and I give him about 50 feet of lead and then head on down. After going through the top hole, I was waiting to time my lefty boof stroke off the bottom ledge, and as I did, I see Mark getting surfed in the hole below me. Already somewhat airborne, this was beyond free will and was now into the part of life we call destiny. "I hope I don't land on his head," I thought! I felt his kayak soften my landing. Then, as I spun and eddied out, I looked back. Apparently I had dislodged him from the meat of the hole and he was working his way out. Mark waved off my apologies; he said I had actually helped him. So, while these incidents often don't lead to positive outcomes, sometimes boofing a kayak on top of your bud is a good thing. But not most of the time!

It had only been since mid-February, but I forgot how much I love the Green Narrows. When I take a month or two off and come back, it's like meeting an old friend again, and all of the drops seem a little bigger than they did before...

Thinking back to another night adventures

2008-03-26T13:22:00.001-07:00

I mentioned in my last post that the Kitsuma ride gave me that same feeling that I'd had before on a ride in Georgia. I dug up my earlier writing on that and have decided to post it here:

-->

You know what sucks?

Getting a flat. Yeah, you say, getting a flat does suck. But what's so notable? Okay, then a quick ride report...

5:30 p.m.: I'm out the door from work, over to the LBS for a couple gels then driving way up to Bull Mountain parking lot. It takes an hour because 1) I had to go by LBS to get a couple gels and 2) I had to stop at a convenience store to drain my water bladder, refill the water bladder in my hydration pack (mine is so old that Avenir built it before Camelbak existed, so it's a hydration pack, I guess).

The parking lot is empty. As usual. Not like Blankets Creek. Not like Central Park. It's awesome. But I didn't bring my light. No problem, I'm thinking. I've got 2 hours before it gets dark and I'm only doing 16.3 miles.

I'm wishing that I'd brought my pump (ah, foreshadowing perhaps?) because I hadn't topped off my tires since the weekend when I did a little 15-mile tour of the ORAMM course in Old Fort. And the rear tire had been set low that day anyway because I was experimenting with pressures on a new set of tires. No worries...what's a few pounds difference? I'm also wishing I'd found a ride buddy to come along for the pedal. Oh well, solo rides have their own affinity in my heart.

As I strap on the helmet and affix the Velcro of my gloves, I'm hoping I have the legs. I could hardly push the pedals on the trainer at my gym the night before. We're about to find out, I tell myself, and then I slam off up Bull Mountain. It seems I have the legs. 15 minutes up Bull to the "T", at 43 minutes into ride I'm at the Bare Hare, and I take a little break to admire the ridge and the fern gullies near the trail. Then it's a Bare Hare "downhill wahoooooo!"----but I have to tell myself, "Don't go too fast because if you break your collarbone, there's no one to help you get out of the woods!"

At the bottom of Bare Hare I pause for a short break, and then I tackle the grinder up Lance Creek. I see a huge deer, and I'm glad it's not attacking me because I think it might win. My legs are doing ok, and I'm taking it easy, but I just can't ride that last little loose rock section. My tires spin and walk themselves sideways as they spin around rocks. I take a mental note that I'm rapidly losing light, but I glance at my clock and decided it shouldn't be an issue.

I hike a bike for the last short stint to the junction with Bull/Bare Hare. I turn left to bomb down Bull, feeling great. I'm hammering it pretty hard and really noting how my new tires handle in the corners. They're so stable that I'm pushing faster through the corners and carrying that on the straights. I feel giddy. Am I allowed to have this much fun after work?

I'm dropping a little gully midway between the Bare Hare and the Whoop-De-Doos junctions, when "Thub-thub-thub-thub-thub...", I've got a flat. It could have pinch-flatted, or it may have been a thorn. There was a jump and a brushy hitchhiker all at the same time in that gully.

Okay, this wasn't planned for. It's now getting darker. Helmet and pack come off. I feel like it's notably darker in the minute it takes me to offload my pack and find my tire levers and the spare tube. I jump on the tube change like I'm a born again NASCAR mechanic. No thorn in tire? Good. It must have not stuck around. Tire is on. I love how the IRC Mythos beads itself so easily, like it was designed for Mavic 517s. I save about two minutes because of how easy it is to remove and reload the tire. That's two minutes more light, I say to myself.

And then I go to inflate. I fish into my pack for my CO2 inflator and then I mate it with my Presta valve and pull the trigger. I get somewhere with it... about 15 lbs max.... and then it's empty. Darn it. I silently curse inside my head. I can almost squeeze the tire enough to pinch flat. I try the CO2 again, it's definitely empty. Doh! Doh! Doh! I remount the tire. I'm going to try to ride it out.

It's now rather dark, especially under the canopy here along the ridge. Helmet on. Pack on. I start riding, probably about 4 or 5 miles to go, but it's too dark to read my computer anymore. The tire squishes out from under me on a couple sections, like the sidewall gives out b/c of lack of pressure. I'm trying to put all my weight on my front tire so my back tire doesn't pinch flat. It's working but it's hard on my arms/chest, and I'm standing up to shift my weight forward. On downhills I'm braking hard; in fact, you could say I'm decidedly riding my brakes. I don't want to huck off a root and crush my rim. I'm leaning forward on downhills and using the front brake. It's like a bad recipe and I'm wondering when I'll get my serving of endo-soup... If my teeth get knocked out, it will probably be too dark to find them in the undergrowth.

I hear something big moving in the woods, and I begin to wonder if I could out run a bear with a soft, sloppy tire. I conclude that I probably could not, but I then decide that a bear would appreciate a hard tail rider, and would probably not eat me because of the determination I showed by riding "old technology". Besides, the meat on F/S riders is much less gamey, and an RP3 shock makes a nice post-dinner tart for a starving bear.

Finally I make it to the T for the final descent down Bull Mountain (and the section which is the most technical part of the downhill). It's now officially dark and I'm only able to see the trail in black/white. I wish I had some infrared goggles, but I only have about 30 cubic inches of storage capacity in my pack, so I opted for the spare tube.

I can't see roots. I can't see rocks. I can barely tell what's trail and what's not. Sometimes I make the wrong choice, but I just have to roll with it. By the time I'm on the short little section that separates from the horse trail, it's miserably dark and I'm just pointing at what I think is the middle of the trail and dealing with it. It gets rough. I get bounced around. But it's working...and I feel like I'm learning how to flow on the trail better than I had before. And the lack of light gives the woods a unique beauty that can't be beaten, like everything is frozen in time and yet blurred, as if some artist had been there to capture the scene using only charcoal rubbings. I feel like I'm miles away from anything. Come to think of it, I probably am.

Finally, I emerge on the gravel road near the parking lot, and there's some light again. I feel like I'm being let out of prison. "You're free to go," the warden of the woods says. "It turns out you weren't guilty, just like you said."

The early night is gorgeous, and the last light is shining over the field where I parked. Everything below the canopy has gone dark, and there is just a tint of blue dusted across the sky. The trees and the hills are calling out with their darkness. They're telling me, "10 more minutes and you'd have been one of us." But I'm not one of them....and pedaling that line between the realm you live in and the realm that calls for you is perhaps the chief appeal of flatting a tire at dusk in the mountains.

Darkness over Kitsuma

2008-03-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Dan emailed me to see about getting an old Trek 360 road bike I had so that he could do some road riding, maybe even Jerry's Baddle. I said, yes, and we made plans to exchange it at the Kitsuma parking lot in Ridgecrest, N.C., followed by a ride of Kitsuma.

Well, first things first, I was a bit late. After I tuned and loaded my mountain bike, I realized that the rear wheel was out of true. Turns out it was badly out of true and some spokes were terribly loose. After a few minutes of trying to adjust spoke tension to bring it back to true, I gave up and swapped out to the RSS, and I'm not talking really simple syndication. Rather, I'm talking about my 1993 Raleigh MT200 full-rigid singlespeed (RSS). We met up and slugged our way up the switchbacks toward the peak, and this time I rode two of the switchbacks that I'd never cleaned before. I also had to walk one that I normally clean, so there's payback as always.

We regrouped at the top with another pair of riders, enjoying the sunset, but knowing that it meant a ride back in the dark. Well, apparently, it also meant some downhilling in the dark. There's one spot, right before the bottom where you drop into an evergreen forest with some dying hemlocks and a nice mix of pines. It gets really dark, since you have dropped into an easterly facing hollow. Rolling the roots and drops here was a blast. It was one of the most beautiful times on a ride I have ever had -- going by instinct more than sight, and enjoying the almost dark spook of a Pisgah mountain hollow.

Of course that meant a ride back up Old 70 in the dark. The last vestiges of the sun were fully gone by the time we hit the FS gate, and then the stars came out and produced a stunning night sky at the three points where kudzu has overtaken the forest and yields an overhead view. Grinding up that steady grade, Dan commented that it was like pedaling through a dream, and it was. Off to our north, somewhere off the Kitsuma ridge trail we had ridden down, I could hear a lost dog barking in the still night. I wondered also, if he could hear the hum of our knobby tires etching their way over broken concrete, asphalt and gravel, and whether the dog might wonder if we too were lost. A while later, dazed after trying to infer what was ahead of our wheels on the decaying road bed from the slightest of light variations (dark to even darker to pitch black were the tones we were reading), we finally arrived at the top, under the surreal glow of the illuminated mega-cross of the LifeWay conference center there in Ridgecrest.

Shivering, I slipped back into my civvies, fired up the truck and warmed myself up. The dream faded back to things I had to do, and we split off into the night. I wouldn't have my adventures any other way. It took me back to a similar instance on Bull Mountain in Georgia some years ago. No photos, but some adventures are best left to the memories and imaginations.

-Geoff

Getting crooked

2008-03-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

Sweet jehosaboof! I camped at Crooked Fork Creek over a decade ago hoping to get on the goods, but it was too high, so we took off to Citico -- where I trashed my Freefall LT kayak on a rock. A heat gun helped get it back into shape, and I was still occasionally paddling it in 2002! So it was a much-anticipated return this month when Jen and I made it over to Crooked Fork at a decent water level (medium - 4.65 feet) with some friends like Wes, Crystal, Skully, Becca (new friend) and a bunch of K-town locals who knew the creek's drops and chutes. The photos above (except for the obviously different one, which is LaMance Falls, taken by Brandon H) were taken at Potters Falls by yours truly and Jen. The one below is the piece de resistance, taken by Tom R -- featuring your author's boof at LaMance from a different angle. This is all I've got in photos, but the memories are top-notch! -- Geoff

Um, it's been too long

2008-01-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

I almost lost my blog license for not posting often enough, but I'm back. What has happened in the meantime: Got married, honeymooned, holidays, kayaking, more kayaking, even more kayaking, and some random what-not. What's the best way to get back on target with a blog other than post some of my eye candy.

To get back on track, let me take you back to our November honeymoon in Bhutan...

[put in for a beautiful run, deep in the Himalayas]

[enjoying a chance to stretch our legs on a bus ride; this is at a 12,000-foot pass that looks deeply into the Himalayas]

Bull Mtn Redux

2007-09-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

So, the first time I took Jen to Bull Mountain, it was still (VERY) early in her cycling career and we had just done a 14-mile out-and-back climb up Bear Creek the day before. Bear must have been fun because she agreed to go with me the next day for what she would consider a Bull Mountain Epic. Only I didn't tell her it would be an epic. In fact, I didn't know it was going to be a semi-epic myself because I hadn't been there before and I have a terrible sense of mileage. We ended up doing Bull, Bear Hare and then pedaled our way over to trail in the Jake Mountain area. It was a bruiser of a ride before we had to ride back to the car. She was a trooper and finished the ride, but hadn't been back since. In the meantime, it became one of my favorite after-work and nighttime rides.

Fortunately, we were in Atlanta for something (OK, a Def Leppard concert) a few weeks ago, and we decided to rock out some miles on Bull before heading to the show. This time was more tame (only about 15 miles -- the traditional Bull loop) and the Georgia heat of August let up and gave us decent weather for the ride. SORBA's Nimblewill festival was occurring nearby so we saw some people on the trails, though we still had pretty much the mountains to ourselves. Enough text, give us the pics:

[the SORBAru at the Bull Mtn Parking lot, so named because of the SORBA members deal]

[Mmmmm, refreshing creek crossings during a dry, dry summer]

[My next truck, I just put a downpayment on it. Actually I told Jen to pose like this was going on the cover of Low Rider Magazine; she just laughed and told me to take the stupid photo.]

[Ok, it's not as steep as the camera angle, just a funky shot.]

[Rolling through the ferns on Lance Creek Road...stunning]

Welcome to Pisgah

2007-09-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

This week was a pretty good week for riding as I got to do one of my favorites -- Hard Times Trailhead to Ingles Field Gap to Wolf Creek over at the Bent Creek forest. My friend Will was along for the ride and I didn't wear him out enough on Ingles Field, and since he left his keys in my truck, he had to meet me for Kitsuma the next day. Keep in mind that this is his third mountain bike ride, and his first was Pink Fields, second was Ingles Field Gap and third, Kitsuma. That's a pretty steep learning curve, but to be honest there aren't that many intermediate XC trails I can think of that are around me. So off to Kitsuma it was. Will did great, although his Hayes disc brakes were crying by the end of the downhill. Photos tell the story...

[big uphill with switchbacks ahead -- that's really what the sign should say]

[if Will doesn't get ready soon, T is going to go riding]

[Pepper took a while to figure out that downhills and dogs in the trail don't gel]

[Will, getting his brake on -- and learning quickly how to descend rooty, steep trails]

[Loading up in the dark down in Old Fort]

Big and Hungry

2007-09-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer (a month ago?) I got the chance to get my first run on Big Hungry River (really a creek), a tributary to the Green River in NC. It's a fun run, about a mile long, with some slides, some boulder gardens and some ledges. The water was muddy and led to a nice chocolate-milk ride down the Narrows of the Green at about 15" (approx 200%). My friend Adam (granolapaddler) just sent me this tasty pic of me on Big Hungry. Thanks, Adam, if you ever see this.

[The big slide below the dam on Big Hungry River - Summer '07, photo by Adam G]

--Geoff

Wilson Creek protected for now

2007-08-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

I was disheartened because I didn't think Jen or I could make it to the Wilson Creek public hearing about a project to build a ton of homes and a number of bridges over beautiful Wilson Creek. Here's a cheers to the fact that the developer has withdrawn the proposal. ... For now.

http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/247925.html

Kitsuma, finally!

2007-08-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, riding Kitsuma has been one of my goals since Jen and I started our process of building a home and moving to NC. I'm proud to say that, while it took much longer to finally happen than I would have predicted, I finally found the time and energy to go ride Kitsuma yesterday.

Some thoughts:
- Old 70 climb is nice and mindless.
- Switchbacks going up to Kitsuma peak are pure hell.
- Downhill from there is fun as hell.
- Suspension would be nice on a bike -- my rigid SS made me feel like I was riding a jackhammer down the mountain.
- Disc brakes would be nice; I was getting finger cramps from having to squeeze the old cantilever brakes.
- This trail will make me learn to let go on downhills...too long of a downhill not to let go

[mindlessly spinning up Old 70 -- enjoying great overlooks]

Overall time from the point I arrived at picnic area to park was about 1 hour 45 minutes. Kind of slow for a 10-mile ride, but that's 'cause I was pusing those darn switchbacks. I think I took some photos on the ride up, but forgot to take any on the singletrack. They wouldn't have come out well, it was getting dark and I was on the NE side of a ridge after effective sunset.

[stretching out at the end, another dusk in the valley]

Got to do it again!

Old 70 and Mill Creek

2007-08-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

Aug. 21 - This is really my first official post. I wrapped up work yesterday and wanted to get some fun in. I loaded the bike (my old trusty Raleigh MT200 rigid singlespeed) and was about to depart for Kitsuma when I realized I couldn't find my MTB shoe insole. I had pulled it out of the shoe and left it in the garage a week before, and I guess one of the dogs must have deigned it a chew toy, because it was missing.

After a fairly exhaustive search, I did what any paddler would do. I made a new insole out of thin mini-cell by tracing the other insole. It worked well, but the shoes were tight already, and the thicker insole from the mini-cell made my left foot a tad uncomfortable.

[creating a new insole from minicell]

I spun my way up Old 70 and caught a freight train about 3/4ths the way up after enjoying one of the kudzu overlooks. A little before the "No Bikes, You are trespassing" sign, I ran into a guy who was cutting firewood. He may have been the landowner who put up the no bikes gate, but he seemed friendly as we exchanged greetings, and I decided not to find out what his relationship to the land was.

[the kudzu corners overlook on the way up old 70]

As I hit Royal Gorge Road, I realized sadly that my search for the insole had taken too much time and that I was going to ride Kitsuma in the dark if chose to head up the trail. I elected to coast down Mill Creek Road instead. Mill Creek was a good ride, especially since a rain earlier in the day had settled all the dust and added some traction, and as a bonus, there were no cars going up or down the road while I was on it. Before I knew it, I was riding by the Andrews Geyser and back to the truck to enjoy a sunset in the Mill Creek cove.

[beauty at dusk in the Mill Creek valley]

Now, at least, I have an insole ready to go, so I won't be missing Kitsuma next time.

(addendum for Aug. 22 -- enjoyed a quick 2-mile run at dawn in the Bethlehem Church valley this morning. Not many cars out on the road, and the sun coming over the ridge made it a glorious way to start the day).