Smells Like PMBAR

My first day back on the bike after Cohutta was this past Friday. D-Kuntz, ZB and I rode my local haunt to, from and at Paris. After ejecting myself from the bike in the first 200 yards on the trail I took it easy and really suffered from lack of fitness. It was a good 27 miles to start out a weekend.

Saturday involved a ton of shoving, pushing, lifting, wrestling, hernia-ting rocks. Zach and I drove up from Travlers Rest to meet a small but efficient work crew. We worked on “the DROP section” of Burnt Mountain. This is probably the most prized/well known downhill in all of Dupont. It is a pretty hairy section of trail that previously had three decent sized drops in succession. The Appalachian Rock Armoring technique that I have been involved with so frequently as of late was brought to use. We moved some extremely large rocks into place and the work looks beautiful. When this trail opens back up, you are going to want to walk this technical section and have a “looksie” before you ride it.

Sunday rolled around and Kristin wanted to take her single speed out for its first spin. We rounded up the dogs and took the following route for Kristin’s first ride in Dupont.

From Fawn Lake, Fawn Lake Trail (clockwise) -> Airstrip -> Laurel Ridge -> Shoals -> Corn Mill Shoals (river ford) -> looked at the new work on Burnt Mountain -> back across the river on Corn Mill Shoals -> Shoals -> Laurel Ridge -> Mine Mountain

I just had to “break the rules” and ride the work we had done on Burnt. So we hiked up and Kristin snapped my photo. This trail is going to have quite the pucker factor when it is complete. Nice work everyone!!