Our Practice Honeymoon

...we did pretty well. I think we're ready for our real honeymoon now, we just have to pick a date and a place. Maybe my riding legs will be back by then!!

Eddie and I got into Black Mountain late on Saturday, with just enough time for a short road ride. It turned out there was a big Halloween party at the (awful) hotel we stayed at (Monte Vista--don't ever stay there) and we got a total of 2 hours of sleep Saturday night. The plan was to ride the ORAMM route on Sunday, but with 2 hours of sleep and my lack of fitness (after pretty much 4 weeks of little riding and 2 weeks of no riding) the plan changed a bit. We ended up riding Kitzuma and Heartbreak Ridge---the uphills were tough to say the least. Riding my SS up in Pisgah has to be the stupidest idea ever...especially when I'm out of shape. It convinced me that I need to build a geared bike up again. The descents were hair-raising fun. There was at least 4 inches of leaves covering the 12" wide singletrack, hiding the million off camber roots underneath. Luckily there were no spectacular crashes--but I came close a few times!!









We decided to find a quieter hotel in Asheville on Saturday night so we could get some much needed sleep. Today we slept in a bit and did a nice road ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I needed to ride a bike with gears, even though I really wanted to check out Bent Creek. The fall colors along the BRP were amazing. Our ride was basically 2 hours of climbing, and 30 min. of descending to get back to the car.









Good times!