Well that sure was fun!
Well that sure was fun!
Yesterday the Pisgah Area Sorba chapter had a group ride to check out Squirrel Gap trail. Sorba is now taking care of Squirrel from Mullinax to Horse Cove so they decided to get everyone out there. 18 people showed up for the ride with 14 of them doing a cross county shuttle. The route was as follows: 66 jumps->S.Mills River->Mullinax->Squirrel->Buckhorn Gap->Black Mountain down to 276. The shuttle cars were at the bottom of Black mountain but Mike Brown, Kassi, Kristy, and I rode back to Turkey Pen on the pavement.
The ride started at Turkey Pen parking lot at abot 10:30. The group split with half going down the road and half going down the trail. We all met up again at the bridge and headed to Mullinax. It took a little while for me to warm up and as soon as I did, we came to our first stop.
The day would be full of stops to regroup at every intersection. Hey! That’s what group rides are about! Make sure everyone gets to where they are going. Once we got onto Squirrel I was behind a guy from Spartanburg (sorry I forget your name) on an orange blur and Vicki. We were getting into the groove and moving right along. They would try some of the hard stuff and not try some of the other hard stuff. It was fun just cruising along, not trying to go too fast. Then suddenly orange blur guy fell off the side of the trail! He wasn’t able to get his foot unclipped and tumbled down off the trail a good 25 feet or so. I could hear the wreck happening but the scary part was hearing the wreck both continue for more than a second or so and also getting faster and faster until the big thud that signaled his stop. I helped him back up to the trail after a photo or two. He was o.k. except for some lost skin.
There was no checking up until Laurel Mtn. so we were unable to talk about the wreck until then. The group reorganized at that rest and I got in behind Mike Brown. Mike definitely has got his groove back, what? Two years after getting into that horrible crash involving a horrible driver…. Anyway, we picked up the pace a bit and made it up to Cantrell and then Horse Cove rather quickly. We checked-up again there and made sure Kassi was going to be able to make it all the way. She had banged her knee pretty hard.
Here's a shot of the goup at a rest:
After Horse Cove the trail decends to the Horse Ford. Along the way a bunch of the group was stung by bees. One guy was zapped right under the eye, Gabe was hit three or four times and he’s allergic, and 3 or 4 others were stung as well. I either stirred up the nest or got really lucky because I didn’t get stung. We made it to the Ford and Gabe was looking pretty pale. He took a bynadryl and about 20 minutes later he was feeling spaced out but better. Oh! I’ve got to mention that Gabe was riding this beast:
We then cruised the Buckhorn Gap trail with a nice clip all the way to the steps to the shelter. The group split up at that point with half descending Clawhammer either back to the car for those that were done or to Maxwell for those that were crazy and needed another big ass climb. The rest went up Black Mtn. trail up and over Clawhammer and Black Mountains. The view was spectacular but I sure was getting tired and didn’t take any photos. Once we were over the top Mike and I really worked hard and hauled ass down Black. The top is severely steep with loose rock and sharp turns. I followed Mike’s wheel as best I could. Near Maxwell Mike really stepped it up and pulled away by a good 50 feet. I took my fingers off the brake levers, concentrated, and slowly reeled him back in. That may have been the fastest descent on the WaltWorks yet. The White Bros fork sure does help! Anyway, as we arrived at Maxwell I was moving so fast that I just lifted off the steps at the bottom and nearly cleared the whole set. The final climb was next and that was torturous. Again, I was getting rather tired but once we reached the top I knew to get back in the front, well right behind Mike, for the final descent down Black. The final descent is much wider and faster than the top half. Mike was hitting the water bar jumps and I tried to keep two wheels on the ground. We really railed with Mark following close behind. I wish I had film footage of that run, it’s hard to describe the feeling or how fast we were really going. I was thinking about Return of the Jedi and the motorcycle things the stormtroopers rode on the ewok planet. We were really hauling and it was sooooooo much fun. I enjoyed being behind Mike on his 6x5 travel couch because I could see his reaction to the terrain ahead and adjust accordingly. We passed a pair of riders going up and the downhill was over rather quickly. The run down Black mountain is one of the best in Pisgah and it’s been a looong time since I’ve done the whole length. I’m glad we did. Once we were in the parking lot the 4 of us had about 8 miles of pavement and 1 mile of gravel back to the cars.
Big group ride, tons of fun!
Just under 26 miles, 5300 feet of climbing.
