A hiatus of sorts....

Hiatus:
- suspension: an interruption in the intensity or amount of something
- a missing piece (as a gap in a manuscript)
- foramen: a natural opening or perforation through a bone or a membranous structure



This week has seen all of the definitions of a hiatus for me. I have kept working but up until yesterday really I put things on hold in a lot of ways. I had a crazy intense riding weekend, put in a total of 11 hours on the bike in two days all in Pisgah. It was great but wrecked my body. So I took a bit of time off the bike until yesterday. Yesterday was a simple spin around Bent Creek, just needed to blow out the legs and today I will stretch intensely. I also took a break from the web thing for a bit. I thought some reflection time might be in order, but ironically i took a break from reflection time as well.

-A missing piece- for those that know me you all know things have been a bit haywire in the last month, but hopefully that missing piece will be cured in the coming weeks and I will feel the warmth of home again.

The natural opening, this is more of a comic relief for everyone. I don't know how well the photo really shows it, but I took a shot to the head working up in Barntown this week. I was removing a cut tree from the trail corridor and well I hit myself in the head with it. Yeah I pulled it right into my head and "whap", instant headache. Chuckle all you want, but remember KARMA...

Snow day = volunteer day...

Well, the weather doesn't really know what to do. Yesterday was nasty, snowy up in Barntown so I chose to focus energy on some work for PAS. I spent my day hiking around on Green's Lick getting the different sections flagged and working on wrapping my head around it. I believe I can happily say my head is wrapped. Now it is just a matter of finalizing the budget and making sure all the holes are filled in as far as my volunteers go. It will be important to get this stuff done before May as I will probably be out of town the whole month before the workday. Below are some photos from the trail, I hope you all enjoy.

PAS Laurel Mountain Workday

What a great day. We all (28 of us) met up at the Yellow Gap area to start some dirty, dirty on Laurel Mountain. The report was about 30 trees down and a few trail "events". It was my joy to work on one such "event". Below is a great picture of Valerie Naylor getting ready for war. The group in front of her car is everyone amassing for the workday and Mike Brown and Mark Almond getting the work plan together.


I will tell you when you have a great turn out for a workday like this, you get a lot accomplished and also have time to do some fun stuff along the way. Our main goal was to resolve the issue presented when a large Chestnut oak took a bit of trail with it as it fell. I had the idea of cutting the stump low and trying to wench it back into place, but as we arrived I knew that probably wouldn't work. As is always my way we gave it a shot first then moved on to the more labor intensive, and turns out more fun job of extracting rock and creating a retaining wall and fill slope to cross the root ball disaster.


With a few come-alongs and an immense amount of manpower we wrestled boulders into place. The crew was a rowdy savage bunch, perfect for this kind of work. the majority of the stones moved weighed close to a ton, literally 2,000 pounds. The stones seemed to fall into place in a destined sort of way they dropped out of the root ball and almost in to the perfect place.


The final picture, is the final product. Next time you are on Laurel Check it out. This was no small feat, but the joy is the fact that in a few years it will mearly be a part of the Laurel Mountain experience, assimilated into the joy and pleasure that this trail can give you. Props to Mark and Mike, great job guys.

A little slice of heaven...

Today was fantastic, a little solo road ride to help clear out the system. I climbed from here up the parkway to here. It was a Fred killer. I love the rides on nice days where the whole goal is to crush a climb, you settle into a nice rhythm, then you spot one up in the distance and the chase begins. Today's total 13. 8 on the climb 5 on the descent. It was a good day. I really enjoy this ride in the spring, the parkway is closed and you have limbs and debris to contend with, it makes road riding interesting.

Tonight it is off to the Bike Love party at the wedge, then tomorrow, a workday on Laurel and I get to run a saw all day. What a treat.

Bridging the gap.....

Another captivating picture of the project in Barntown. The place is amazing; rock cliffs, long range views, beautiful forest and a great project. The above photo is of the section George, the machine operator, is currently working on. He came to a stop here and is going to have to come around from the other side, however, we may still have to do a bit of hand work to connect the two pieces. Below is "the rootball bridge".




Okay, the story of "the root ball bridge". Once upon a time, a half dozen large trees were growing bigger than their terrain would allow and along came the big bad wind. Perhaps you have seen photos of the gaggle of trees that this bridge is a part of. The set-up is a crazy technical rock section leading to a root ball from a 24" DBH poplar, then you dive directly into a 36" DBH red oak (the one the bridge is connected to) and finally through the crown of another red oak. Looking at the bridge to your right is another three to five trees caught up in the fight and to your left, in a precarious position, are the two root balls for the red oaks.

You may look at this image and ask, "why not just cut out the tree?". Well, the answer is above you. If I were to remove the section of oak trunk that is in the trail, I would instead have a huge root ball falling into the trail to contend with. So this is a bit of an experiment. (Note: I'm not sure if this is even ridable yet) The build involves cutting a notch out of the red oak and dovetailing a joint between it and the honey locust stringers. Yeah a dove tail joint, looks pretty cool, I want to experiment a bit more and dial in my touch with the saw, but this is how to make some cool stuff. The finishing touch is a tread made of sections of 8" red oak split with an ax and mallet. They last a long time as long as there is no ground contact.

I hope to get a few photos of the ride attempts and dialing-in next week. Wish me luck, it is a super sketch move.

Cruisin...

Today was great. Other than the below freezing temps and near zero wind chill. Sally and I punched through about 400 feet of great bench in only a few hours. We kept moving fast because otherwise we were frozen. Just basic cutting today I will shoot some photos tomorrow if it is good light in the morning.

Yesterday was fairly good up there as well, the best part of my day was certainly the road ride I had in the morning what a great way to start my week. Here are photos of the trail we worked over last Friday and hopefully I will get some photos up from todays work in the next couple of days. Enjoy.

Life really can be wonderful.....

Today I sit and try to fight the urge to go back to bed. The last two days have been truly stupendous. Friday I worked up in Barntown with Sally and we moved along fairly well. Then, I came back to town and did an old-school style road ride with Andy and Travis. We pedaled from Biltmore Forest along the Parkway up past the first tunnel, then made a downtown parade lap. Town and life was good at that point.



Yesterday things got even better. The Most Horrible Thing Ever was going on and a bunch of folks (16 in total) decided it made a good excuse to pedal in the woods and sit around a camp fire to chill. Eric and Erinna are truly amazing people that I believe are making the Asheville riding scene better through competition. Most towns and a typical XC race is only going to make people fast for about two hours. Well, Pisgah doesn't really have two hour rides. We move toward the three and four scale as a quick day and can be out upwards of seven or eight hours in a ride. Throw E&E's event into the mix and you have people that are now punishingly fast for four to six hours and can healthily cruise all day (ten hours literally). Thanks guys Pisgah Productions rules.



Okay, the ride. We left the White Pines campground with a huge crew and socially meandered up Avery's to the connector over to Clawhammer. From there the group split. I wanted to ride with my PMBAR team mate on Black Mountain as he had never really done it. We split off with Kyley (local ripper chick) and her roommate Mike (also ripper) they will certainly create "the house that fast built". The plan originally was to go down Black and hit Trace or Sycamore and keep cruising, but they were out of water and my tire had decided to imitate a sponge in the air department. The rest of the group went towards Bennett with a few bailing onto Avery's. We rocked down Black Mountain (one of the best for sure) and I snagged a picture mid hike-a-bike. In Pisgah seems you ain't bike'n less'n ya hikin'. So we popped out at the bottom of Black and headed back over to the camp ground to see how the event was coming along. Things were getting interesting so Van and I slipped out for a bite of "The" Chapala.

Upon our return we were ready to do some more pedaling so with a very small amount of coxing, Van, Gordy, Sissy, and I all spun around North Slope. THAT TRAIL ROOOCCCKKKKSS. The whole time it pitched just enough down that I kept thinking "I can go faster" and pedaled and flowed in ways I haven't in a long long time. I am becoming a good dancer again and I have a lot to acredit to my partner...Salsa Ala Carte. Pick your poison and she certainly has been delivering. This bike rips.



We did our cruise and the rolled back and changed clothes to head back into town after saying our goodbyes. Today things are chill, it is raining and life feels like it steamrolled me a bit. So maybe some rollers and a good bit of stretching to sooth the gremlins, then it is on with the work week. I hope everyone got to smile as much as I did this weekend.