Dobovedo's Journal of Journeys

Saturday: Change of Plans

Saturday was scheduled to be a traditional Asheville Day 2 ride which uses part of the Assault on Mt. Mitchell. Rather than do the full event route in one direction from Spartanburg, the group does only the upper elevations, starting on Rt. 80, heading along the Parkway and on up to the finish at Mt. Mitchell. This year Craig came up with the idea to do the Rt. 80 part as a time trial. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts I was completely unable to get any sleep Friday night – a mix of muscles that wouldn’t calm down, a resting heart rate that stayed 25-30 beats above normal and a brain that just won’t quiet itself. Same things I’ve struggled with all my life – nothing new. I really get annoyed at people who say things like “I’m going to sleep great tonight” after long hard rides or other athletic events.

(Yes, Goose.. that includes YOU! – grrrrrrrrr!) LOL

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Friday: Hot Doggett / Devil’s Fork Metric

A couple years ago one of the guys read about a ride called the Hot Doggett 100, which was running concurrently with the annual Asheville trip. I didn’t make that trip but the other guys all did the 100 mile ride and really enjoyed it. The following year they opted to do the 62 mile Devil’s Fork Metric which is most of the same climbing but leaves off some extra mileage – and they also did it on their own with Carla as the support driver, instead of registering for the official event. This year the plan was the same – do the 62 (actually 65) mile / metric the day before the actual event. We met out at Mars Hill College and by now the group was six, as Craig, Goose and I were joined by Vince, Todd and Chuck, three veterans of the Asheville trips who had come down Thursday for the more traditional two days of riding.

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Thursday: Ring of Fire

The plan for Thursday was up in the air during the planning stages before the trip. A lot of roads around here are under construction or even closed due last year’s above average rainfall and record winter snowfalls. The entire length of the Parkway is open for the first time in over a year thanks to a single lane being available up to Mount Pisgah. That would normally have been the route of choice, or possibly the traditional ride up to Mt. Mitchell via Craggy, but after describing the local Ring of Fire route to Craig, he thought that sounded like an ideal ride. And I was more than happy to lead he and Goose once more over my local roads. I promised them that unlike the previous day, this route would be very low traffic and no construction messes would get in our way.

I kept my promise on that score, but as it turned out, I had another little lie for them.

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Wednesday: “Watercrock” Knob

The first ride with Ohio friends was for me a repeat of the previous day’s ride up to Balsam, followed by continuing up the Parkway to Waterrock Knob. I was joined by my friends Craig aka “Egg” and Jeff aka “Goose” and also escorted by Goose’s wife Carla, aka “Noose” (yes.. Goose & Noose) who drives a support vehicle for us and takes a lot of photos on these mountain ride trips. They arrived at my place in the early afternoon and the first thing they wanted to know was “are we going to ride on that highway?!?”.

Yes!

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Five years ago I joined some friends on my first trip to Asheville for their annual Mt. Mitchell/Parkway riding excursion. Although it was somebody else who said the words, the phrase “hardest thing I ever did” pretty much sums up that trip. My memory of that first time climbing up Town Mountain Rd. – before we even got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway – seemed ridiculously slow and difficult (because it was). I remember wondering, and sometimes I still wonder – how (and why) I ever managed to do another climb after that.

Not to mention wondering why I not only continued to climb mountain roads, but actually moved here four years later, pretty much for the sole purpose of doing it on a daily basis.

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