Solo Mission

When I woke up Saturday morning, I had no idea where I would end up. I knew I wanted to ride, and ride a lot. The plan was to ride until my legs couldn’t take it anymore, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted that to take place. The road bike didn’t sound very appealing, and staying local with my mountain bike wasn’t getting me very excited either. After a little bit of thought, I decided to head over to Asheville and ride the fun trails at Bent Creek. I tried to get Lunchbox to tag along, but he had some kind of epic skateboarding adventure planned. I loaded up and headed out all by my lonesome.



On my way to the mountains, things were already heating up. I was excited about my day in the woods, and planned to make the most of it. I had my bike, a map, plenty of food and water, and no plan whatsoever except to ride. It would be torture, but in a fun sort of way.


When I arrived at the trailhead, the parking lot was packed as usual. I set out on my solo mission, stopping occasionally to check the map. I’ve been to Bent Creek before, but I wanted to hit up some trails I missed on previous trips. Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things. I was reckless.


There were some neat features out there, including this log skinny over a small gully. There was a go-around, luckily.



The previously unknown to me trails out there were chock full of fun. I stopped every so often to check my map, to make sure I didn’t end up way off course.



I rode around with my helmet camera, but it’s gonna take a while to process all the footage. I took a few photos, but I was usually too busy riding to get any good ones. At one point in my adventure though, I decided to take a long, steep, fire road climb up to the Blue Ridge parkway. After climbing what seemed like forever, I made it to the top. There was a sign marking the entrance to the forest for those that came in from the Parkway side.



When I got the actual Parkway, I was a little disappointed with the view.



It was just a road, with no good vies of the surrounding mountains.



The road went under the Parkway was pretty neat, but a bunch of assholes had covered it in graffiti.




The climb sucked, and my legs were tired. The good thing about climbing so much was the fact that I got to haul ass downhill. I ended up with speeds in excess of twenty-five miles per hour on the fire road, and it was scary and fun all at the same time. After that it was more singletrack, and eventually I made my way back to the parking lot. I was toast when I got there. My legs were dead, but my mind felt good. That’s what it was all about.


After grabbing a bite to eat, I headed out of the mountains and back towards Charlotte.



Mission accomplished.