Off Roading, Tandumb style

Sunday, May 15 was the day I was really looking forward to and perhaps knowing it was so close made Saturday, the 14^th a much better day.

Andy and I set out on a “mountain bike tandem adventure,” which for us just means riding for a really long time, and when in town, on roads or trails we already know. We were going to do most of the Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell course, which we can get to with just a 15 minute bike ride, but overnight rain and the resulting soggy trails changed our plans to stick to the fire roads. That was fine with me since those trails are pretty technical and this would be our first mountain bike tandumb ride ALL YEAR!

What was the ride like, besides, of course, awesome (since it involved me and Andy)? We live on a mountain, and our big race this year involves riding up and down a bunch o’ mountains. So, that’s what we did. Up the 15 mile Curtis Creek fire road, down a long descent into the Black Mountain Campground (not to be confused with the Town of Black Mountain, which lies 20+ miles away), then climb out and up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where the  views were so beautiful and poetic they looked fake. 

Imagine this view, only in Technicolor - a glimmer of the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway

Even after 10 years of living here the scenery just doesn’t get old. 

Bombing down the parkway at 40 mph I noticed the rear wheel wobbling dramatically from side to side, something it’s not supposed to do. As my imagination works well beyond the 10% brainpower I use in other daily activities, Andy figured I was being a worry wart, but we stopped to check it out anyway. Turns out we broke a spoke, which scared the bejiminies out of me since we still had to descend Curtis Creek, but thankfully it didn’t phase Andy in the least. 

Andy fixes our broken spoke, sort of not really.

On our last climb, a 3 mile stretch up a closed highway, my favoritest climb in the world, I pretended it was a race and rode up it like I had a snackie cake in my pocket and a hungry Andy was trolling for it. Four plus hours into the ride, and I could put out that kind of effort! I was stoked stoked stoked I could do this, and gloated at my current state of awesomeness on the short remainder to the ride.

But perhaps I was fueled by an invisible energy known as excitement, for every second we pedaled was a second closer to the evening, one I had been anticipating for quite some time.

See next post for details about the evening….