Well, that was over two months ago and while I could come up with all kinds of excuses, they would all sound pretty lousy, so I'll just move on.
Whitney and the kids just came back from a full week at the beach. They had a great time and it was pretty nice for me as well. Only went on two bike rides while they were gone, but those two rides had me on the bike for around eleven hours, put me on some new trails and I felt lost on each. I'm pretty burnt out on my local MTB spots. Don't get me wrong, we have some great places to ride here in Knoxville but after close to twenty years riding around these same places, I'm excited to see some new terrain and have a bit of adventure in my rides.
First up was Black Mountain. If you click the link, you'll see Tom's decription uses terms like "a maze of jeep trails" and "good luck", both very appropriate. The trails were very rough, steep and had lots of intersections. So many intersections that I fianally gave up on trying to keep track of where I had turned or finding my way back. I figured if I kept at it I would have to pop out on a improved road at some point.
One of many, many creek crossings. In fact, there were some sections where the creek and the trail became one for several hundred yards at a time.
Well I was right, but it took a long time, lots of dead ends and when I finally did hit the highway I had no idea which one or which way I needed to ride. I just started ride and after a mile or so, ran into a couple college kids using the roadside facilities. They didn't know the name of the highway, but they did say they were headed to Crossville which meant it had to be Hwy 68. Looking at the map earlier I knew I needed to look for Cox Valley Rd. and it would put me at the base of the mountain to climb back to may car. Easy enough.
Well, it would have been easy enough has some redneck not stolen the sign to Cox Valley Rd. I discovered this by arriving on Crossville, which I knew was miles beyond where I needed to turn. A friendly convienience store clerk told me what to watch for to make my turn. So after tacking on some extra miles I was finally headed back. The bad news is that I was feeling pretty tired and still had a very steep and long climb up Black Mounatin to my car.
Spotted this guy on the way up. Barely bigger than a quarter.
This momma spider was enourmous and carrying a few hundred of the next generation of creepy huge spiders on it's back.
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