I got hit by an F250 on my road bike!

Yep! Yesterday I rode my bike to work and with all the insanity on Hwy 74 in Fairview, I decided to take a back route and climb across Merrills Cove to Rose Hill Rd to play it safe. Merrills Cove is a beautiful, gradual grade then Rose Hill is a butt puckering 4 minute descent right into the parking lot of work at . I had a shiny commuter pack on my back with reflective material galore on it. I had a bright 3 buld LED light on my bike and a single red clip on LED on my pack all going.

On the way home, I was climbing & less than 100 yards from the crest of the hill on Rose Hill and cars had been grazing by. It's the steepest road I ride..ever! Granny ring on the road bike standing up in the tiniest gear!!! The very last gradual right hander, the sun was shining right at me as I came out of the shadow of the trees. I thought to myself...this could be bad. 10 seconds later I heard a silent whistling sound and suddenly WHACK!!!!!! My arm was on fire but I was still on the bike. I immediately screamed in fear and hit the grass and laid there.

The truck backs up and pulls over to check on me. He apologized profusely and said he drives it every day watching out for the cyclists that climb the hill. He saw me at the last second, but was blinded by the sun. His passenger had yelled to him or it would have been worse. Luckily, the hill was so damn steep he was going slow enough. The giant plastic, foldable mirror left me with a mild spanking like the ones from my 6th grade English teacher!

God is watching over me today!!

Bike Commuting to Work - YEAH!

I did it again today. Hadn't ridden the road bike to work in a while and can't honestly remember why I haven't. The route to work is pretty easy and not near as scary as Hendersonville Rd.

I take Emmas Grove Rd to Hwy 74 in Fairview down the mountain through Minehole Gap and coast into the parking lot of State Farm only 19 minutes later without breaking a sweat. I've been keeping some spare clothes at work and I feel so much better walking in the door.

If you've never ridden your MTB or road bike to work...DO IT! You walk in happy, confident and awake. I also recommend a blinking LED light on the back of the bike. I have one that I usually only turn on in the late afternoon shadows until I noticed a roadie on Emmas Grove who had his on in broad daylight and I could REALLY spot him from far off. Then when he rode under some shadows on the road, he disappeared but the light was so BRIGHT! I run mine on every ride now.

Oh...and when you ride, DO NOT ride the edge. It only encourages cars from behind to cut tight on you, even with oncoming traffic. You MUST ride in the right wheel track of the pavement about a 1/3 of the way out from the white line. It forces cars to follow you until they can pass you with NO ONCOMING TRAFFIC! I started doing this on road rides 3 weeks ago and haven't been buzzed. It feels much safer now.

My golden rule of rain riding ALWAYS pays off!!!

Many years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about mountain biking. It's an outdoor sport, which means you have to go outside to do it. No way around it. If you take the time to plan a ride and it rains, you better go ride!

I told my wife several years ago that if it's pouring rain on the way to the trail, it's guaranteed to either sprinkle or not rain at all at the trail! Every time I test my theory, it pays off. Yesterday was no different. It had rained off and on all day lightly.

Sure enough, come 5pm it started pouring outside my office. I kept my head high and aimed for Bent Creek. On the drive, the parkway was empty. Bent Creek Road was vacant. The parking lot of Hard Times had 1 other car. This at 5:30 on a weekday and says alot about how ahrd it was raining. But sure enough, I got out of the car and the only water was on on the trees. The trails were packed hard & no standing water anywhere.

After a few fun routes down low I went up Side Hill to check out the FS logging at 5 points. No logging yet, but still the signs. 10 minutes later I hit Greens Lick. Dust free and packed like pavement!! It was a great ride in utter silence and I saw but one set of tire tracks that looked to be from early in the day.

I did smell a bear or hawk scent lingering near the powerline trail. When I've caught that scent before in that area, twice I've got off my bike to listen & watch. Both times I spotted a beautiful Coopers Hawk, once with a small pheasant/grouse in it's claws watching me from a limb 15 feet away in the underbrush. This time, it was a bear. I couldn't find it, but it was there and staying very close to the trail the whole time.

To this day, I have not once in 16 years of MTB, seen a single bear in the woods!!!

WHITE KNIGHT: Defender of Downhillers

Got to go to Snowshoe this weekend thanks to 2 logistic blessings. Greg's parents offered a spot in the family mini-van and Brian Quillen offered his GT DHi to ride. It's been murder, the first in 10 years of not owning a DH bike!

Trip started with bike loading logistics, with 1 gettings trapped to the roof! Once loaded, I learned the back seat is the place to be. Leg room, wide seat, big storage bin, my laptop & MP3 player and BOOM! 6 hours later, we're in Snowshoe.

Our room was comical...tiny, the mattress for Greg & his gf was from 1982, the jacuzzi didn't work until Sunday afternoon when we turned on the light in the kitchen? The downstairs toilet leaked & the dishwasher poured water all over the kitchen. I wound up wedged in a 6 foot long by 3 foot wide corner, feet firmly on a fireplace. Slept good though. His mom fed us like kings though!!!

Snowshoe has a new trail that is a downhill berm filled roller coaster that is a work of art and LOVE. Rode it and the DH course for the most part. Dropped a glove on the lift Sunday b4 my race, rode down the hill to get it and took some insane, near impossible trail to the bottom. It was the 1st trail in a while that had me walking for fear of getting hurt b4 my run!!!

Race time came & there was more comedy than competition. The course was a BLAST and I hit 2 monster gaps, the second one blind & for the first time in my race run. After that..I was just excited & virtually forgot about racing. Finished poorly for Elite, but better than most anybody who was in AM...so I still belong? hah!

4000 Feet Elevation...no Descent?

Ever have your wife concoct a ride with her friend for you that ties into an outing? Me and 2 other husbands fell victim to this evil plot on Sunday. "Why don't you guys ride your road bikes to the Craggy Gardens picnic area & we'll meet you guys there with a delicious picnic with the kids?"

Part of our conversation on the road was like this:
"So your wife thought this up?"
"Nope. Mine said it was your wife!"

Regardless, we started in Fairview, climbed across Merrills Cove to the Blue Ridge Parkway & headed North. 3 miles on the Parkway, it dawned on me. Sign reads 15 Miles to Craggy Gardens!! 2 1/2 hours of non-stop gradual climbing behind a life long 50 year old roadie with not so much as a pee break later, we got to 1 mile long silly steep finish at 5225 feet elevation in the parking lot at Bearpen Gap.


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I've always ridden MTB on long rides with breaks to chat, snack & shed/add clothes If it's road, 1 1/2 hours rides tops. I've never sat in the saddle nonstop for 4000 feet of vertical, unending climbing. You become a machine of efficiency. Walking became foreign!!

And for some dang reason...I want to do it again...but this time, I'll get the descent in!!!

Bent Creek will be Destroyed

There are around half of the original trails in Bent Creek as there were when I first rode it over 15 years ago. Now I find out the fire road that became singletrack will be GUTTED NEXT WEEK!! North Boundary Rd aka Tony Michaels Parkway is being logged by the forest service. It's the second time in less than 5 years. The irony being that MTB volunteers built Greenslick at the top of the road they're gutting, meaning riders won't have access to a trail we donated to the FS!!!

And the FS never even followed through in converting Ingles Field back from a road to a trail per their original agreement with the public. Time to call Bent Creek Experimentail Forest and complain...LOUDLY! Join Pisgah Area SORBA

I saw the signs on a really fun ride last night. Easily over 100 riders out there and I hit the one route where I saw 1 single rider...a good day in my book..with a sad footnote.

Blacksnake Moan

Ever wonder what a blacksnake eats? Me too!!! I really wanted to cut this guy open to see just how big his meal was, but hoped it was one of many rodents it will eat in it's lifetime.

My house was a epi-center of wildlife 2 days ago. First this guy showed up & my dog went postal on it. Then that night I heard something I heard months ago....coyotes! To say they were viscious sounding is an understatement. This wasn't a pack of dogs fighting over a female in heat. It was feral animals on the hunt snapping, snarling & howling furiously only a few 100 feet from my back door. I ran them off but never saw one. Conservative estimate...8? Next morning, a Coopers Hawk dug around in my backyard like a robin looking for worms. Hawks are my favorite creature on God's green earth, bar none!

Anyway, been riding a ton and Ryane (wifey) has been helping me eat right and this morning I hit 188.4lbs! Less is more for me. If you've ever wanted to lose weight and not get bored...search for the Bodyweight 200 or Spartan 300. On YouTube, look up Turbulence Training exercises & routines. Call me when you can do 10 1 legged squats!
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=turbulence+training&search_type=&aq=0&oq=turbulence+train">


Last of all, I got some real inspiration from an awesome DH video on Dirt Mag's website. Check out the tractors lined up at 6 seconds & 25 seconds, not to mention the AWESOME step ups & step downs:

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