NC - Day 4

We arrived at our friend Brian’s house in Asheville last evening. Brian was on the 2023 Trek cross country trip with Jesse and Ruth (which I joined in Madison for the last 40%). This morning, we drove north about 30 minutes to meet up with Bud. Bud was on the Seattle to Glacier National Park trip in 2022 when Jesse and I crashed. Bud also rode the 2024 Trek cross country trip. In the photo above, taken at the the beginning of our ride, Bud is third and Brian is fourth.

After a couple of miles, the road started climbing. I would like to say that I dropped back to take this photo, but the truth is that they are all much better climbers than me.

The scenery was lovely as I climbed. Farther ahead, the end of the climb was a quarter mile at a 20% grade which was very tough.

Fortunately, everyone waited for me at the top so we could continue to roll together. The next 20 miles were a gradual descent along a river - my kind of cycling.

We passed the usual collection of potentially haunted buildings. (See prior references to Ruth and haunted houses.)

We were cycling in areas that had been devastated by Hurricane Helene in September of 2024. I wouldn’t be surprised if flooding had caused this building to collapse. Most of the roads we were riding on today have been repaved since the floods. This meant that road surfaces were generally wonderful.

This is the one section of road that was still being worked on. The railroad above us to the right was severely damaged by the 2024 flooding. They have to completely rebuild the side of the hill that was washed away.

We paused at one of the river crossings to take photos.

I liked the look of this general store building. Unfortunately, it looks like it has not been in operation for many years.

Our route was a lollipop route. We biked out along the stick, rode a loop following some rivers, then returned along the route we started on. This meant that we got to bike down the 20% grade section I suffered climbing up on earlier in the ride. This is the crest of that hill. Descending was great, but took far, far less time than biking up it.

Tomorrow I am leaning towards taking a rest day. I had been contemplating taking one from the start of the trip. Today, my right knee started bothering me after the 20% grade today. It is nothing serious, but it gives me a bit more reason to take tomorrow off. If I do, I think I will try to get out for some birding.