What Do You Mean No Riding?

Its true, a weekend all about Mountain Biking but I didn’t ride one all weekend. How does that happen?

Saturday was spent working on one of my favorite trails in all of the land Reasonover Creek. We conquered two re-routes on the beginning of the trail. I told Woody one of the re-routes seemed pretty large to me but then I remembered that we had a ditch witch at our disposal which makes things a little quicker than just me and my shovel and rake. So what took me over 3 months to accomplish at my house took us less than one day out in Dupont. That works for me.

A small team of us took on a 30 foot re-route and made it our own. Its a nice little piece of trail through some rhododendrons and we were quick enough that only hand tools touched this piece of trail, a personal goal of the team.

Sunday morning our family was due for a hike. We had some friends that were hoping to finish the SWANK so we decided a hike in PNF Ranger District was in order. I talked over our hiking options with Kristin; go to the start then hike up the connector to Daniel, or we could go to Daniel then hike a bit up Farlow or go to the top of Farlow and hike down. I was happy when Kristin mentioned the top of Farlow.

Once we arrived, Shade and Buddy donned their hunting attire and were set free to sniff and chase everything in the forest. To keep things interesting we hiked the Art Loeb on the way over which put us on top of Sassafras Mountain and the views were outstanding. Hardly any leaves are left at elevation. I have some pictures to post soon.

Not long after we started we found ourselves headed down Farlow, as Kristin gingerly stepped down the leaf and rock strewn beast I asked her if she was ready to ride it. She didn’t seem too optimistic.

We made to the rock garden wall of hell just in time to pick out a great spot amongst the masses of people (ourselves) when we heard some riders. The first guy down went head over heals into the mountain laurel before the real tech begins. I saw him wrangling in the bushes and yelled up to make sure he was OK, indeed he was and not soon thereafter a friend of his came rolling down and I heard a crash accompanied with “Owe I broke my finger.” “Great,” I thought a first aid situation before racers even start coming down. Well sure enough it was someone I knew from Greenville (ends up there was no broken finger only a shattered ego after he found out spectators were on the trail) and we chatted it up for a minute before they went on their merry hike down the rest of the rocks.

Not long after we had started our lunch, we heard Sam K. flying down the trail in the lead. I gave him a little cheer as he rode the huge rocks around us as though he were headed for crumpets and tea. He cleaned the entire section at what seemed like mach 10 without so much as a dab.

Second and third came down and were quickly clomp clomping down the rocks hike-a-biking like mad men through the leaves. Kristin commented “How can they run down the trail like that in those shoes?”

In the hour and a half that we observed this section of trail we saw just about every level of experience attempt to ride and walk the beast. Luckily we did not observe any injuries to the physical body, only the psyche. My favorite comment that came at least 5 or 6 times from what I would imagine were non-locals was “Did anyone actually ride this?” Oh yes my friend, not only did they ride it, they rode while they buttered their pancakes and sugared their coffee.

One thing is obvious after observing so many folks, momentum is your friend and hecklers are not. One racer observed “Did you guys come out just to witness other’s pain?” Why yes sir, I believe you hit the nail on the head.

Ahhhhhhhhh yes, a fine day indeed.