Old Fort Training Ride

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  This past wednesday my friend Barry and I headed up to Old Fort for some epic mountain riding.  We were planning on doing 60+ miles but disaster struck part way in, but details on that later.  The day was a great day for a long ride, there was just a little nip in the air that made it quite comfortable when putting in a harder effort.  We ended up riding the 9 mile curtis creek climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and continuing on up the Parkway to Heartbreak Ridge to make a good 14 mile climb.  I was very surprised at the pace we held, it was a good confidence builder. Here is a very cliche pic of us on the Parkway.

Coming down heart break was fun and very beautiful.  We ended up spending a lot of time clearing windfall but it was still good riding. Here are some pics of the Rododendrums and Laurel in bloom!

On the way down heartbreak at the Star Gap section Barry face-planted and caught an eyeful of dirt. This was the aforementioned disaster.  We rinsed all of the debris out of his eye but he still had trouble keeping it open.  We went and rode Kitsuma but his eye just kept getting worse so we called it a day.  We still got about 40 miles in and a good amount of climbing, not to mention lots of good fun!