Four days off, four days of riding
Posted on August 14, 2005
Filed Under bikes, images, mountain biking, out of town
I don’t very often have consecutive days of absolutely no obligations, so months ago I committed to spend four days in July on some classic Southeastern singletrack. My plan was to drop off a friend in Atlanta, then meander my way back to Durham.
In the days leading up to the trip, Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on the Gulf of Mexico. About the time I left Atlanta, Dennis hit the panhandle of Florida, heading due north. I knew I had to be flexible, so I was prepared to check out trails in northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina. I planned to outrun the rain and bike where I could.
Sunday
Tsali is as benign a place to begin as any. I reached the trailhead by 4:30, it hadn’t yet rained, and I was sailing down Right Loop by 5pm. The trail was buff – smooth as butter. Except for the water bars on the downhill sections, the trail couldn’t be smoother if it was paved. Riding Tsali involves a lot of gentle leaning from side to side. You hover over the seat, feet and pedals at 9 and 3, knees bent, arms loose. You throw your body weight shoulder first where you want to go and glide through the turns around Fontana Lake and its coves.
A couple of days (and a couple of rides) before leaving town, I had noticed a knocking sound coming from the rear triangle of my bike. When I’d lift the bike off the ground, the swingarm would move slightly. Other than this subtle movement, I couldn’t detect any mechanical problems.
More than 10 miles into Right Loop, at the top of the overlook spur, I figured out the source of the knocking. I’d broken in half the bolt that holds the rear shock to the swingarm. With the rear of the bike suspended in the air, I could easily pull half the bolt out of the swingarm.
While packing on Saturday, I wondered out loud, to a friend, whether to bring both bikes. The question wasn’t whether anything in the mountains would be single-speed friendly. With the right mindset, I find just about any trail ss-able. The question was whether I’d ride any trail where single-speeding would be preferable.
“Keep it simple… take just the Super V,” my friend said.
On the tip of my smart-ass tongue, I almost said, “if I was really keeping it simple, I’d take only the single-speed.” With a hard tail and no derailleur, fewer things can go wrong. There’s just less to break.
Wishing now that I was riding a hard tail, I hesitantly returned the half-bolt to its precarious place in the swingarm, made a pact with the devil for safe passage back to the parking lot, and rode without incident the remaining few miles of trail.
The night-shift clerk at Freeman’s Motel told me the two closest bike shops are at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) and in Sylva, 10 and 30 miles away respectively. Freeman’s is the kind of place where they put up a “Back in 10 minutes” sign, and everyone knows they mean half an hour, but nobody cares because nobody has anything better to do than wait.
Monday
A raspy-voiced smoking woman with tightly permed hair comes to clean the room in the morning. It’s been raining since around midnight. Heavy, monsoon-like rain. Even when I find a replacement bolt, I’m not going to be able to ride anywhere in Nantahala National Forest for a few days.
The NOC’s bike shop is about the size of my kitchen. A prominent sign discourages patrons from asking about the day’s Tour de France stage. After digging around in a toolbox for a few minutes, the wrenches come up empty handed and send me on my way to Sylva.
Motion Makers, a true full-service bike shop, replaces the bolt and gets me going again in about 20 minutes. Back out into the rain. Blinding rain that comes down so hard it turns the windshield white no matter how fast the wipers spin.
After calling around, I get a hold of my dad who pulls up a weather map on the Internet. Looking at the bands of rain spinning off an eye hovering over Atlanta, he says my best bet for outrunning the rain is to keep heading east. I’ll have to wait for another time to ride Tanasi and the rest of Tsali.
After washing down lunch at the Laughing Seed in Asheville with a cherry wheat micro-brew, I head to the Davidson River area of Pisgah National Forest. The rain’s finally let up.
Davidson River area
The Thrift Cove and Sycamore Cove trails are an excellent introduction to the variety of trail types in Pisgah. The Black Mountain Trail, the climb up to the top of Thrift Cove, begins in the parking lot just south of the Ranger Station. The climb up the BMT (white markings) is a narrow, washed gully of loose fist-sized rocks and broken slate. About half the way up, I drop down to the granny gear just to keep moving. Three quarters of the way up, I reach out to click down into the small chainring only to realize that I’m already in it. Errgh.
About a mile and a half up, the Thrift Cove (red markings) trail splits off to the right. The climbing is a little easier and doesn’t last much longer. The Thrift Cove trail levels, rides 100 yards above the perimeter of the grassy cove, then begins its descent. The trail widens to double-track. From here to the bottom, it’s a screaming, bombing descent over waterbars spaced 50 ft apart. With any speed, you can’t keep your wheels on the ground on the two-plus mile rollercoaster. It’s not hard to keep speed. The trail’s wide enough to let you confidently sail into the air, the sharp turns are bermed, and even the wet exposed slate is easier to negotiate than loose rocks.
Almost back to the bottom of Thrift Cove, an aptly named Grassy Road meets the trail and climbs to the left. Grassy Road is an overgrown fire road connecting the bottom of Thrift Cove with the top of the Sycamore Cove Trail. Grassy Road is an uneventful climb, but the scenery changes dramatically when you exit onto Sycamore. Sycamore is the kind of singletrack I dream of. It’s what I think of when I think of mountain biking.
The ribbon of trail is narrow, winding first up then alongside the ridge. With a steep wall to the left and a sharp drop to the right, you ride like you’re trying to hug the left side. Blooming mountain laurel grows over the trail forming a tunnel of green leaves and white flowers. Fallen flower pedals line the trail, and you feel like a Hindu god or Egyptian royalty following a flower-lined path.
Once the decent starts, the trail turns technical. Mountain laurel gives way to hemlock, and the hemlock roots push up through the trail bed. They form an off-camber path, slick as an oiled sunbather’s back. The roots grab your tires, telling them where to go. While you’ve got to hang on to the handlebars, steering feels almost optional. Farther down, the trail gets rocky – real rocky. There are five or six rocky stream crossings, some with entrances and exits three feet or more above the stream bed.You have to drop in to the stream bed with a little huck and climb back out with a mighty hop.
The trail also contains several of the classic drops off root-wall cliffs, indicating that these are multi-use trails. Given that most of Pisgah’s trails were carved before mountain bikes existed, you can forgive (and even enjoy) these hiker-specific features.
Whereas speed makes Tsali fun and challenging, the Sycamore loop is the sort of trail that speed makes fun and dangerous. While riding, I’m thinking that this is not really a trail for a hard tail. Davidson River area trails are where all-mountain style bikes with four to five inches of travel excel. A well-tuned suspension system just eats up the variations in the trail surface, keeping you rolling down the trail at incredible speed. Then I remember that this is not my first time on this trail and that the last time was on a fully rigid 1989 Specialized Hard Rock with a chromoly fork. Twelve years ago, the Thrift and Sycamore Cove loops are where I was introduced to what Pisgah had to offer. I feel spoiled.
The Sycamore Cove trail ends rather abruptly, spitting you out onto 276. A curt finale, the sudden re-aquaintance with pavement; you just want to let out a scream of accomplishment, pride, and exhilaration – a scream that lets the RV drivers around you know what you just did.
Tuesday
In the morning, I return to the same parking lot that I parked in to ride the Sycamore and Thrift Cove trails. From here, I ride north on 276, turning east toward the horse stables. Clawhammer Road begins behind the horse stables, and climbs to Maxwell Cove road. Maxwell Cove road finishes the climb up to Pressley Gap, where I turn south on the Black Mountain trail and followed it back down to the Thrift Cove trail. In total, this route is about nine and a half miles, with the bulk of it climbing. But, the climbing sections are always rideable and the upper section of the Black Mountain Trail alone is worth the climb. Overall, it’s a long, gradual climb and a fast descent.
On the climb, I pass folks riding horses back down Clawhammer, there are waterfalls alongside the Maxwell Cove trail, and I run over the mid section of a timber rattler that was so long I can’t see its head or tail for the tall grass on either side of the ribbon of dirt I’m following. I’m not sure who is more scared at that moment.
The descent along the Black Mountain Trail is a lot like the Sycamore Cove trail, but rockier. Occassionally, there are slick sqare-hewn timbers posing as waterbars in the trail. If you don’t clear these entirely while hopping over, they’ll throw your wheel to the side.
Near the bottom of the trail, I meet another solo rider on vacation. He drove to Pisgah all the way from Illinois — just to ride.
Back in the parking lot, I eat lunch and set off again, this time for the Fish Hatchery area. Just north of the Fish Hatchery, 475B climbs off to the right. Another long, steady climb. From the gravel road, there are nice view of Looking Glass rock. Just beyond this stop, a thunderstorm brews up very quickly and begins to unleash it’s fury around the same time I find the top entrance of Cove Creek trail (yellow markings). I wait a few moments, hoping the storm will pass, and eventually it does. Storms in the mountains can be furious, but they’re usually over quickly.
With the storm gone, I begin the descent down the Cove Creek trail. One of the first things I notice is the extensive trail re-routing. I’m always impressed by the evidence of hard work and trail care in the Davidson River area. Rock armoring is a lot of work where ever it’s done; finding, carrying, and laying stones into place while this remote in the woods is truly impressive. Farther down the trail, there are slick logs over stream crossings, intense rock gardens, and a few bermed walls on the corners you can take with speed. For the bottom third of the trail, there are often views and sounds of waterfalls just off the trail. The trail empties into the Cove Creek group camping area and finishes with a wide stream crossing made even deeper and more swift by the rain. No bridges this time; I have to wade through carrying my bike overhead.
Wednesday
DuPont State Forest is one of the best uses of eminent domain I can think of. The area was saved from development nine years ago and turned into a public forest. DuPont’s caretaker is a mountain biker, and with the help of many volunteers, he has put together a network of well-designed, sustainable mountain bike trails. The Cedar Rock trail climbs parts of exposed granite dome making for a unique trail riding experience. In some places, the only way you know where the trail goes is the stacked rocks.
On top of Cedar Rock, an imminent thunderstorm threatens to ruin the ride. It’s all bark and no bite, however. It never rains, the storm glides around the mountain to the east, and I finish up my ride on the Big Rock Trail.
Back in the parking lot, I talk with more out of town vacationers. Mountain bikers have driven from as far away as Florida and Texas just to ride here. I feel lucky to live within a few hours drive.
On the way to my folks house, I stop off at nearby Ceasar’s Head. The storm that earlier threatened my ride now hangs over Table Rock – another mountain with the exposed granite dome unique to this area.
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