Woke early, maybe sleep saturated. Fixed scratch pancakes. Noticed a tent setup on the ground & not gravel pad its supposed to be on. Nobody there, didn’t notice it in the dark last night. Not an issue for me, my spot 2 was fine.
Drove to FS visitor center for morning growler. Fred is on duty today. Stopped to visit for awhile. He made a Christmas trip to visit his kids & his 93 yo mother still living by herself.
Nice that turbo is working on the van meaning that there is something underneath the pedal when pushed down.
Left for Coal Mills Shoals TH around 10:30. Was cold last night & ride @ DuPont is elevation higher than Brevard & I was counting on any ice melting before I had a chance to slip on it. Not completely successful as there were a few streaks of h2o ice on climb up Cedar rock, chose to walk them. Beautiful blue sky. Catch the trail:
This is start up or down on Burnt Mtn that I just couldn’t nail either direction. Going up it is steep w/ steps to go up & over. Going down I just couldn’t let the bike roll over.
I crammed a pair of wool socks in my pack to wear crossing Little River to get to the other side. At the crossing there was a small patch of water ice on rock. Took off booties, boots, socks, & rolled up my tights. The pulled on dry wool socks. My first step in the h2o was tenuous to learn if the wool really grabbed the slippery rock like Zysk said they would. Hooray! Of course they worked, Tom. Cold feet & shins. On far side I sat on sun warmed rock & removed wet socks, squeegeed what I could w/ my hands & put back on socks & boots. Stowed the booties & wet socks & continued ride. Back @ river crossing again I pulled on wet socks & crossed successfully again. I even tested the spot where I slipped the last time. Cold feet conclusion to ride back to van.
Paid $1.19 for ride recovery Snickers candy bar @ convenience store.
Shower @ laundromat. Visited @ The Hub and listened to wild downhill crash stories being told there. Young people w/ bodies that haven’t turner brittle.
DuPont has mostly machine cut trails. I liken them to drinking Macro Beer like Bud & Millers. Gets the job done but not much taste character. Now, hand built trails are like the hand crafted beers: Lots of character and taste better. While life is too short to drink cheap beer, sometimes a guy has to ride machine cut trails. Another aspect is IMBA designed trails can be bland as in predictable, few white knuckles.
Have date to ride FATS this Sat, will ride / hang here for a few more days & then move South to SC & FATS, an IMBA epic machine cut trails.