Yup, whoda think it? Not me at the beginning of this nearly clustero fuck of a bike ride. We all met(six of us in 4 cars vis a vi swingers) off of Yeller Gap Road roundish 12:45. Things looked a bit bleak when we got outta the car to see a whole shit pile of snow. There was little snow left in asheville at all of our houses so we were a bit serprised.
Nobody seemed to innarested in doing the planned ride due to a snowfall of round six inches covering the initial start of the climb on double track. Me, Lea and Cathorine climbed up a bit, it was nearly impossible to peddle up this grade thru this much snow so we turned around. The rest of the crew had their bikes pointed in the other direction so we all headed that way to another trail But alas that trail was snowed in as well. I decided after driving this far to the way way end of Pizzzgah I wanted to at least try to
do the original ride known as Horse Cove Gap. Nobody was innarested except for little Butterfly so we headed up the snowy doubletrack while the rest of the group headed off in another direction.
I must say the first 1/4 mile was a fucking bitch. Deep powdering snow calling for snow shoes or cross country skis but not mountain bike tires. But alas the bike gods blessed us, we came around a switch pack and "poof" the snow was gone from the trail like it never existed as we crossed onto the south side of the mountain. The next 2 hours was mostly dry double track followed by an occasional 1/4 mile of hard to ride deep snow. Neither my spidery self nor Butterfly intended to do anything but get as close to the top of the mountain as possible. BUT, we got to the top and the beginning of the singletrack and holy ass fuck shit if the trail wasn't dryer than a nuns snatch.
We yanked out our trusty pisgah map, figured we had roughly 2.5 hours of day light left to mostly decend about 7-9 miles and said, hey, fuck it, lets go for it. The first 3/4 of the trail was amazingly dry, tight twisting singletrack that led to frequently drop offs, twisted roots and some muddy sections and an occasional 50 years of shady deep snow. This was pure bliss. We stopped for some snacks in a sunny spot and both had perma-grins on our faces. I knew at this moment I would remember this ride for a loooooong time.
All went well for the next hour or so. We finished the main decent and ended up on a roughly 3 mile slight climb with some rollers along the way, and that's when the snow really piled up and the temps dropped as it neared 6 pm. The last mile seemed to take forever as the snow got deeper and deeper. Seeing Butterflies pimped out mini-van at the trailhead was a welcome site as darkness set in.
We both agreed this was one our best rides ever, truly the soul of mountain biking adventure, unknown trail conditions, weather and so much more.
The downtown beer scene is getting an intriguing new player with the opening of the Thirsty Monk downtown Euro-pub devoted exclusively to Belgian and Belgian-style brews.
I've gone approximately 8 times since opening, great, unusual beers, this is a fucking GREAT place to bring someone who is not a big beer fan, since they have quite a selection of beers that have more of a wine or bubbly taste. Yum Yum. Bring yer wallet though, it gets kinda pricey. I recommend going with the flights of beer, you get 3 have glasses for roughly 7 bucks.
