Climbing Mountains

So I've kind of slacked a little bit in my blog entries, but we've had some seriously challenging riding days in the last week. We've been climbing mountains for 4 ride days in a row now. We've figured that yesterday was the toughest day of the whole trip, we went through two mountain passes and still put on almost 80 miles, (see my "final preparations/realizations" entry to see the route profile for yesterday). I really don't know how to explain to people just how much we've been climbing these last few days, I was told more than once to not underestimate the Appalachian Mountains, now I know why. I've spend about 90% of the last three riding days geared out, either in my absolute lowest gear crawling at 7-10 mph, or my highest gear cruising at 35-45 mph.



We've still been spoiled by all our hosts, we've only been on our own for dinner one night so far. In Winston-Salem we stayed at a church one of the riders family attends (he's from there). Riding in I was with a group which included a NC native who took us off the route into Old Salem to check out the cobblestone streets and go to a well known bakery. We got some sugar cake and it was about the best thing I ever tasted.

Taylorsville was alot of fun, but it was a tough ride coming in. It was really hot that day and alot of big rolling hills. Me and one of the other faster riders decided to get to the host site as fast as we could after lunch and were making great time until I got a flat on the bottom of one of the bigger inclines. That kind of took the wind out of our sails and killed our momentum. There was no shade and it seemed to take forever to fix, but it was the first flat I've gotten on my bike so I shouldn't complain too much. I ran out of water before reaching town and got pretty dehydrated so I was hurting pretty bad when we finally rolled into the host site, but I soon felt better after getting some more water in me. We stayed at a Baptist church that hooked us up at the local pool which was unbelievably nice after such a long hot day. They had a great dinner for us and there was a grand piano on the stage in the gym so me and one of the other riders who plays performed a bunch of songs. They even gave us mics which connected to the gymnasium sound system.

I drove the van to Alamont (Newland) the next day, and it was a good day to do it. It was our first big climb day, which I was sad to miss, but the road going up the mountain was under construction and miserable to ride. We did get to the Blue Ridge Parkway about halfway through the day which is gorgeous, but we had plenty of more miles on it so I wasn't too sad to miss the portion that day. We stayed at a little church in the middle of grazing fields, it was really nice and they fed us a great dinner and breakfast the next day.

The ride into Asheville was definitely the best of my life. We were on the Blue Ridge Parkway for over 70 miles. The climbs were epic, the descents were extreme, and the views were too good for me to really capture them with my camera. I couldn't stop smiling while taking my first long decent, it was about 8 miles longer than any other downhill ride I've done. We stayed at the YMCA in Asheville and had a build day so we were there for two nights. We utilized the hot tub and pool not long after arriving. Our first night the parents of two of our riders hosted us for dinner and it was great. Their house was amazing (on top of a mountain) and the food was great. Our second night we were hosted by Volvo, which was less than a 5 minute walk from the YMCA. They had an awesome BBQ dinner lined up for us, everyone stuffed there faces and loved everything. Peter Causer was the main organizer of the event and gave us a very entertaining presentation in their auditorium. He said some very nice things about me and Ryan Inc to the group which was touching, and presented me with an amazing Volvo Racing Jersey. Its got American Flags on the shoulders and is simply awesome. I really wanted to wear it the next day, but we have a policy about wearing our Bike & Build Jerseys so I decided to set a good example and stick to that. We're having a ride with some locals in Maryville after our build day tomorrow and I'm definitely braking it in during that. We were also all hooked up big time by Josh Reddoch with Cane Creek. They are a big bike component producer located in Asheville and they heard about us through Peters efforts. Josh provided every rider on the trip with ThudBuster seatposts and armwarmers. The seatposts have a hinged suspension system in them and are great for keeping long rides more comfortable. They retail at over $150 so it was an incredible gesture towards us, we still can't believe it. I didn't have a chance to switch it out that night, but tried it out today and so far really like it.

I already talked about our ride out of Asheville, epic is the only word that can describe it. We rode to a tourist town called Gatlinburg. It was the funniest little mountain town; there were two Riply's museums, indoor blacklight mini golf, go carts, a haunted house, any major tourist restaurant like the Hard Rock, and endless souvenir shops. We were on our own for dinner that night and alot of us went to a Mexican restaurant, then explored the town. We couldn't get over some of the stuff we saw, the T-shirts in some of the stores just can't even be explained. They all seemed to talk about Jesus and they were all more corny than any other shirt I've ever seen, but I don't think most of them were suppose to be that way. That might not be a great explanation but its the best I can do.

The ride today was a short one so we all slept in. I was riding weep so I had to stay behind everyone. There was one climb in the beginning, it might have been really hard a week ago but after the last few days, I hardly even noticed it. The majority of the rest of it was downhill and followed a Mountain river, it was really cool. We're in Maryville TN tonight and will have 2 work days with Habitat. We're staying in dorms and I totally lucked out and got my own room so I'm not really looking forward to leaving. Anyway, I have to wake up in a little over 5 hours to get ready for our build day so I'm calling it a night. Sorry I've been lazy about my blogging to those keeping track of me and thank you for those who have made comments, its nice to hear from you. We also had a mail drop today and I was overwhelmed with the stuff I got. Thank you so much to those of you who sent me thinks, (Jackie, Erin, and of course Mom & Dad) it was much appreciated.