Eric's Ride Log

Mike Rischitelli and I had a fun sub- 2 hour ride yesterday. I went to his house to change the rotors and pads on my Jeep and brought my bike along just in case we had time to hit the trails after the maintenance. Well after a few hang-ups we found ourselves at North Mills River campground right at 6pm. We started the ride fifteen minutes later by heading up 5000 to Spencer Gap trail. Did we try to slowly warm up? Hell no, we don't need no stinkin' warm up! We started mashing right from the get-go. Up to the singletrack where the gate had been left open. Weird. If you open gates people, close them behind you! Anyway, up up up to Trace Ridge we went. I had to get off in the steep field but otherwise had a great climb.

Here I am at the Spencer/Spencer/Trace intersection:

At Trace we decided to head down Spencer Branch. It had been a long time since I went that way and it was a ton of fun. The top is seriously steep but wide enough to have multiple lines running through it. There are rocks in every configuration of shape and size known to man which provide ample opportunities for launches, tight squeezes, pinch flats, and carnage. I've actually broken a frame on that descent... Well, nothing bad happened this time. We had a blast hauling down about a quickly as hardtails (fully rigid for me) could through the nastiness. The trail then mellows and starts to run with a creek. It still is downhill, for sure, but much easier. It was starting to get dark by the time we hit the intersection with the never-ending-road but we decided to continue on Spencer. Down in there the trails are plain 'ole classic Pisgah singletrack, the reason I moved here. There are roots, rocks, mud pits, creek crossings, sudden short uphills, jumps, hips, a beaver dam, pretty flowers, and places that will send you flying over the bars if you're not careful.

Here's Mike at the beaver dam:

Up and over the short but annoying climb and down the bobcat downhill and Spencer finally dumps out on the Reservoir road. We upped the pace there and made our way to the Trace Ridge parking lot very quickly. The next decision was to either take gravel back to the car or lower Trace to the fisherman's trail (shhhh! don't tell the fishermen we were there) so, yes, we took lower Trace. Luckily Mike had the forethought to bring lights on a ride in Pisgah that started after 6pm in the middle of September.... I sure didn't... because we needed them. I followed his wheel (and light) through the slickrock section, down the step-downs, over the pipe, and all the way to the river. I nearly lost it right at the end. My front wheel found nothing to stick to, I guess. It was just floating around out there with no care for my well being at all..... I yelled out, the tire hooked up, I got a niiiiiice rear tire burn on my leg, and I saved it. We crossed the river and were at the vehicles in a matter of minutes later. Fun, fast ride. 1:45 total time in the woods.