MTB NC

I have now mountain biked 4 trails in North Carolina. One had a nice whoop-de-doo pit, another was along the shore of a lake with a part called "drop-zone" and one that was just an intermediate trail. Mountain biking in North Carolina is a lot different than out west. I call it root-riding: most of the single track is compacted dirt through forests, and the main obstacles are trees (not catching your handlebars on them) and roots (making sure you go over them rather than them stopping you). There are a couple of long ramps and bridges, but not as many techical rocks and not as much open space to open up the speed.

I decided to take on some longer and harder trails and Paul came along. He went riding with me on one of the previous rides, but prior to that, he hasn't ridden in 5 or 6 years. I planned on a route that would cover about 15 miles with some gravel trails (speed) and some technical stuff. I even planned well by adding extra salt to my breakfast and eating a banana so that I would have enough sodium and potassium. Paul had some other obligations on Saturday morning, so we got on the trails about 11 am. We started with some gravel trails for 6 miles and I got up to 33.4 mph on one of the downhills. It wasn't until about the sixth mile where there was a seemingly endless uphill for a mile.

I've been talking to some people on a local MTB forum, so I got some info on some "bandit" trails or "trails-that-must-not-be-named". The first of these was a 5 mile series of loops with the instructions, "just keep taking rights". It was a pretty good intermediate trail, but you just got that feeling that you didn't know where you were and couldn't wait to see the road again. Finally we exited and crossed over to a trail that parallels the freeway.

I thought it would be a straight shot, so I opened up some speed and hit 20 mph, but the trail kept getting narrower and my tire hit the pine needle edges of the dirt and I endoed, almost slamming into 2 trees. I ended up with a couple of scratches and bruises, but I was glad I ate it then, because we soon were on the side of a ravine and a crash would've been a 25' drop. Let's just say that this trail soon became very advanced and by the end of the 2 mile "straight-away" my quads were cramping, I had finished my 2 liters of water in my camelback, and we had to call for the rescue party. Tami came and picked us up and drove me the last 2 miles to get my car so we could load the bikes up. We still finished with 12 miles, but maybe doing it in 90 degree weather and high humidity wasn't such a good idea. I drank a liter of gatorade and some more water and ate some food, but still wasn't hydrated until Sunday morning.

Here's a classic endo (not me, just a video I found on youtube for an example) *disclaimer: there is mild swearing by the observers, so you may want to mute it