Day 2 - Asheville NC annual mtb road trip #4

Day two.  Dupont.
Time was spent perusing the internet the night before and we decided to set our sites on the Dupont state forest IMBA epic ride.   We'd ridden Dupont a couple time before and knew that it was a labyrinth of great trails.  The map looks like two plates of spaghetti dumped into one bowl so while we knew that we'd be spending a bit of time looking at the map, we figured following a known MTB route would provide the best blend of time spent, distance covered, awesome trails seen.

..we were incorrect.

Unfortunately we can't recommend the IMBA epic route.  At least the first third.   The first  quarter or so was especially lame.  Uninspiring trails,ankle deep with leaves (presumably because they're seldom traveled) and piles of sticks, branches and whole trees across the trail.  
Joanna rd in particular was total ass.

If you look closely you can faintly see the OBR in this shot.  The trail is a straight line between the camera and him with a bzillion downed trees in between.  This was about as bad as it got but the rest was really bad also. We did more throwing our bikes over trees than throwing legs over bikes for 40min or so on Joanna Rd.
Even without the downed trees Joanna Rd would suck as  the track is an eroded, rocky, washed out stream bed.

with 75 intersections over 33 miles there were a LOT of map checks.

After we got off Joanna rd things improved substantially.   We rode a logging road for a bit (thankful just to be pedaling) then onto Turkey knob where things started to look up.  Soon after we hit Airstrip, (woot!) Reasonover Creek (zoom & woot!) and a bunch more really fun pretty trails.

Around the halfway point of the IMBA epic we realized the time lost to Joanna rd and to map checks wasn't going to allow us to follow the whole route as intended so we started to interpret the route a bit more liberally while still hitting some of the highlights like Bridal Veil Falls and High Falls.

I've no idea of the mileage we covered, definately not the 33miles intended but it was about 4.5 hrs on bike and my calorie counter read over 4600 calories so I tried to do some mental math and failing at that just asked Craig about how many burritos that might be.  ...his response confirmed that we were on the same wavelength.




Destination dinner-time was Mamacitas where I had a drunken pollo borracho burrito (drunken chicken) that was so big it actually looked like a swaddled baby.
Craig had something at least as monstrous but I'm not sure what it was. He was doing his best woodchipper impression on that burrito though, with eyes rolled back, gnashing great teeth and low growling noises so I wasn't getting too close..

Despite the sketchy beginning to the ride, the day was a resounding success.  We were bummed that the IMBA epic had a sketch start, and I think they added trails just to get mileage on the sheet but it wasn't necessary.  Dupont has lots and lots of great riding and truly stunning scenery so it seems to me there's no need to pad the resume-odometer by including marginal trails.