Over Mountain Victory Trail with historical significance and the ghosts of Revolutionary Soldiers

The base of the dam on the down stream side with The WonderBoy in place to help see the scale The WonderBoy with a sweet swooping new line on the Dark Mountain side

Make a tunnel, Jordy and TWB will enter(look way into the hole you will see them near a sliver of light)

Okay, so I followed a bit for the film documentation of getting side tracked in a tunnel

Swanny and Phil upward berming through the twisty

Jordy and the trail close to the lake, the vistas on this ride were 5 stars the whole way around

I had family not this Easter and date of my sister Betsy's Birthday which as far as I can remember back has never been on the day of Christ's Resurrection. Happy Birthday Betsy and Happy Resurrection day to all! What a day it was indeed starting at 0600hrs with the WonderBoy driving the "Bird" into my drive way and stirring Pemba into a growl in the darkness. How funny, he burned Dicky and I last Sunday but showed up for a ride at my house that was never really planned all the way through. Whatever, an adventure was about to be had in familiar territory with familiar faces, some trail familiar and a bunch refreshingly different, fast and clean smelling. Within a few minutes of TWB's arrival I had a brew firing up on the stove and I had belled up Jordy of the Toon telling him a road trip was on, his reply let me know that within the hour he would be up. We were early out and on the road north for any riding between here and N. Wilkesboro's Kerr Dam recreation area where we were going to ride Dark Mountain first and then meet Swanny and Phil on the other side of the dam for a new trail tour at 1300hrs. We looked off of 77N for a little while in search of a trail that did not exist then decided collectively to get north for Dark Mountain where we were greeted by Bells playing harmoniously from the amplified steeple of the small stone church when we got out of the car on top of the Kerr Dam. Over the dam and around the Burn 24hr course clearly marked with small glossy images of the Burn. When we came out of the trail we had a bit of time to kill before meeting the ride so we shot images on the down stream end of the Kerr Dam, not often enough do we get to see such varied landscapes.
It was good to see my ole friend Mike Swanson on this day, he was on his new 29'er TI Bike. Swanny and I first rode together at Poplar Tent in 1993 when I was following Rondal around from trail to trail on his former ex girlfriend Julie's Nishiti, that's right Nishiti. Swanny knew the Over-Mountain Victory Trail which holds Revolutionary historical significance and these really cool 30ft berm sections both up and down the mountain. Our 3hour adventure included tunneling, exquisite fat single track up and down, pine trees, clear water, laughter, clouds against an azure sky, an out of control knee skinning disaster after the clip of a fixed gear driven pedal and a few narrow shallow creek crossings. This was an out and back style trail with a slightly different and longer leg on the return part, the total mileage for this part of our ride was around16. On one of the descents my drive side pedal hit something I never saw and pole vaulted me and the bike off the front. It happened so fast that it was over before it started ending with a forward knee rub into the hard packed earth. No blood, no foul, oh wait there was blood on my right knee and this is not basketball. That crash was a reminder that fixed gear on a mountain bike can never be assumed the normal reaction to impediments on the trail as if I were to have been coasting. What a great ride indeed, thanks Swanny for showing us something so fast, fun and new.