Black Mountain to Morganton
17.7 mph average speed
41.1 mph maximum speed
3:23:19 ride time
59.90 miles
about 3600 feet of climbing
Today we awoke to beautiful weather. The sunrise over the mountains was gorgeous. I had breakfast at the Y's campus and met Tim, Doug, Jon and Gary (who rides 1200 miles/year in Michigan!) at the coffee lady.
There was quite a bit of climbing at a fairly steep grade. Doug (below in a blue jersey and white helmet) has a GPS on his bike and he said that we were hitting 6% at times. Most of the steepest climbing was in the first third of the ride but shorter hills continued along the entire route. I did fine on the climbs despite my concerns about the cassette on my bike.
Our little group stayed together until the second rest stop at which point Gary decided to ride back so that he could add more mileage! Jon, Tim, Doug and I completed the rest of the day together.
The third rest stop was in Lake James State Park. We rode along the top of the dam and the view was spectacular. Unfortunately, we also had to deal with the rolling hills around any lake.
Tonight, I am planning on "indoor camping" in Morganton. We are planning to see a bluegrass band called Cherryholmes. The Morganton camping area is shown below. A tent city was set up on a baseball field (upper left), luggage is piled by one of three luggage trucks (lower right) and shower trucks take center stage.
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