Monday, February 11, 2008

The Funk Will Cure Your Pain

no pics just links. Last week was a struggle. The peg leg kept me moving slow till Friday. However, a ride around town and a party on Friday night loosened things up a bit. After a few singapor slings at Bruce's and Ian's pad, I bit off a little more than I wanted when I called out Black Mtn Trail in Pisgah for the Saturday ride. Although when I called it I wasn't thinking we would actually ride up Black Mtn Trail. The only time I have ridden it I climbed the fireroad only to go down Black Mtn. Well, Bruce had a different way to ride it so Chris B, Callam and I followed. It started intense enough as my blood was pumping 100 yards into the trail. As soon as we start heading up we see a creek crossing equiped with a gap jump on one side coming off the hill. Nothing too big but it was a good 10-12 feet across and a few feet down if you didn"t make it. Now, I had not been on the bike in a week and hadn't even started to warm up but I felt the urge to jump it. I headed up the trail about a 100 feet thinking I would do a practice run to check the line, speed, etc. but at the last minute committed and sailed into the air 7 ft above the creek going way too slow to clean it with ease but luckly only cased the other side with my rear wheel suffering no real damage. With my heartrate pumping I proceeded to see if I could make it come out of my chest byclimbing every thing possible as we headed up Mountain with one gear to choose from. Once we hit the ridge we decended Buckhorn Gap to the Pink Beds up Club Gap back to the ridge and headed to Bennett Gap to finish off the day with a great decent. After a good 4 hours of serious riding in Pisgah I decieded to call it a day and took it easy on Saturday night as my fun that day was had on the trail.

Sunday was Chris Benents B-Day and there was a party at the bowling alley to celebrate. Pitchers of beer, some bowling balls and good party was on. Met a couple of cute ladies that were interested in going to hear Maceo Parker and my decesion to hit the Orage Peel later that night was made. Pedaled home, grabbed some food and pedaled to the show thru crazy headwinds. Holly funkin funk. Grand Pianoramax openned the show and these guys threw down. A little spoken work with some badass beats. Check em out! After a killer openning band, Maceo and crew came out and got the funk on. It was like watching a master at work pulling out all the stops with a band made up of some of the most bass ass funk musicians still alive. The set was great and they played for what had to be 2.5 hours. Give the drummer some, as he cranked out the whole set never taking a rest while the rest of the musicans got to do a little rotation. Great show and one that should have me riding high on the funk for the rest of the week. As my friend Nicole said, "he needs to play every Sunday". It sure would make the rest of the week alot better. Jamie P is heading this way on Friday. We are hitting I-9 for a factory tour and a session on the Pump Track they built behind their building on Friday afternoon to kick it off, damn I love bicycles. If anyone is up for getting down this weekend bring the funk, party at the Crow's Nest on Saturday night and rides all weekend. Word.

In case you need a little more funk in your day. hit me again...

Jut

2 comments:

Unknown said...

wow, I envy a rider who can ride up Black Mtn. We mistakingly tried this route on our first Pisgah trip. Lots of walking and cursing! Later we learned about the Clawhammer method of getting to the top and bombing down.

I need to get back to that next of the woods for some riding! Can't wait to check out your pad and new town!!

ExtrmTao said...

Yo Yo, That is a tough gap fo sho.

The only person I have seen hit it, committed with an undying passion about 6 feet past the gap and still made the turn. . . somehow.