Sunday 22 November 2009

Nice Slacks, Dude

Here's what you do:
1. Get map #12 of the Appalachian Trail. Rockfish Gap to Tye River.
2. Load up the mountain bikes, go to Sherando Lake and park the car.
3. Figure out a better way to get up to Torry Ridge than the southern part of the Blue Loop. The way we went up was a challenging walk. Hans Rey would have no shot at getting up this mother. We were sweating like stuck pigs when we finished the 1 mile hike to Torry Ridge.
4. Go south on Torry Ridge to the Slacks Trail. Torry Ridge is super tight, pretty rocky, really technical but totally rideable, with lots of VO2 climbing sections where you really have to hup hup to keep going and some blazing downhills.
5. Slacks to White Ridge is the most fun I've ever had on a bike. Tight tight tight tight. Highside it to the left and you will know how Pedro Horillo felt. You can always go faster than you want to. I've never jonesed for disc brakes so badly. Holy cannoli.
6. Right on White Ridge up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and climb to about mile marker 21. There's a parking area to the right. At the right end of the lot is a trail entry. Follow the signs to Slacks and do it again.
7. Left on White Ridge down to the Lake.
This ride took us a little over 3 hours, a bunch of which was the initial hike up. Once up to Torry, there was zero hiking. All riding. We both took diggers on the trail, me twice in the exact same spot on Slacks by washing out my front wheel. Then I took a huge biff in the parking lot going way too fast and turning through a puddle. Nice hip and elbow road rash. Fortunately the fine folks at Rogue and Magic Hat had the cure for that.

Not sure we're in any shape to ride today. 9 or so hours of riding in the last two days. Awesome.

We'll be back.

2 comments:

Jim said...

Crashed in the parking lot?

Welcome to the club, brother.

TerribleTerry said...

I crashed the same way on my way to Cyclocross practice... knobbies don't do so well on wet asphalt. Neither did my hip @ 20mph.

You're getting to do all the cool rides. Same some for the rest of us dude!!