PISGAH

Pisgah Climb

An eroded spot on a clinging trail, a remnant of the 2004 hurricane season.

A friend I have not seen in forever once told me that this word just sounds nice, Pisgah. Saturday morning not too early Rich, Josh and I headed up to meet Eric and Captain Jason I can ride circles around you on a mountain bike ride Morgan at the parking lot of the fish hatchery. We were greeted by a three legged dog which reminded me of a bike ride I was on in California once where I ran into a three toed dog that wound up changing the direction of my ride and caused me to sleep in a lighthouse that was never on my plan.

The 5 of us took off riding up to Long Branch through a seasonal bike trail to the intersection of Butter Gap and continued on LB to the right. After the little warm up climb we descended down Butter back to LB, climbing back up a little to the gravel intersection for a right hand turn which started the the long climb up to the top of Farlow gap. From here out was all new to me. I had never been to Farlow before and was very excited about seeing the descent that everyone except me has ridden. The climb was endless, like Eric said it would rank against Curtis Creek and it did. Somewhere on the top half of the climb I looked up and saw Capt Morgan descending towards me while I was trial side stuffing me face with half a sandwich. He had already made the climb and wanted to check on the rear of the pack and stay warm. I got back on the bike and slogged upwards as Capt Morgan passed from behind again(he did this a total of 3 times before I topped out on this climb).

Farlow was fun! I was able to ride a lot of the rocky nasty. On the lower of one steep with my saddle in my stomach I was following Eric and all of a sudden I wedged my front wheel in a mini crevasse that was covered in a foot of leaves. I stopped at a really awkward angle and unclipped before I feel over. There was laughter, hoots and funny guttural noises echoing off the rocks. After Farlow we traversed and descended Daniel Ridge and were back at the car in under 6hours after leaving.

That night we slept at Eric and Erinna's house but first there was a BIKE LOVE party to attend by bike of course. Mike Brown came by and then Eric, Erinna, Rich, Josh and I took off on a hilly urban descent for the Wedge Gallery and this bike party. I was amazed at the amount and variety of individual bike people there. I was further amazed that there were prolly less than twenty bicycles locked up out front. I saw Ian The Pony Leone my old friend and former ex employee from Ultimate Courier back in the dizzay. It was great to see him and all of his positive observant force. His roommate was crazy and scary and crazy. Go Pisgah Works! At some point around midnight we got back on our bikes did a little traverse over the bridge and climbed back up to the Wever house. Sleep.