i double dare you

It's official - the Double Dare is on. Zach and I are registered and ready for a little WNDC domination. Saturday we went out for a little 40 mile warm up spin. Our route starting from the Fish Hatchery:

475 > Davidson River > 475 > 5003 > 140A > Art Loeb > BRP > 879 > Flat Laurel Creek > 215 > Indian Creek Rd. > 475 > 471 > 471D > Butter Gap > Longbranch > 5095 > 475 > Davidson River > 475

It looks like this:



I don't particularly like 140A and wasn't crazy about taking it but was relieved to find that it is a much more reasonable climb at the beginning of a ride instead of at the end and other than two little pushes I managed to ride it all. Once we hit 879 there was a solid line of cars, literally 1000, so we skipped the Ivestor out and back and instead tried to dodge oblivious hikers on Flat Laurel Creek. A kid passed us climbing on a bike up the other way. He was totally nailing it through a rocky section and I was quite impressed. Around the next bend we ran into Shrimper with his other kid. I guess they'll let just about anyone ride up there!



We took our one break at the creek and it was so nice I could have sat there all day soaking in the high mountain sunshine. But we had bikes to ride and for once I could say with conviction that it was all downhill from here.