This week I'm on vacation in Asheville, NC with my lovely wife. We drove up from home Sunday afternoon after the ugly weather and checked into our hotel. The room, or should I say suite, is much larger than I expected and the hotel has all the amenities including both a hot tub and dry sauna, both of which are very important considering one of the purposes of this trip.
The idea was first and foremost to get out of town on our first vacation just for the two of us in years. We decided on Asheville because I'd heard is was a cool, groovy town with lots of culture and great scenery. I also wanted to do a climbing camp. My wife was initially dubious until she found that Asheville may have more yarn and knitting shops per capita than any town in the Southeast (except, maybe, Savannah). So we had a great destination and I had to get my climbing legs back from the cleaners after Cheaha and get ready to go.
The post-Cheaha legs weren't so good. It was fortunate I had planned a recovery week after the century as my legs ached until Thursday after tackling the steep, steep middle climbs of the ride. So after leading the line at graduation and seeing the Weiss' with their new son, Elliott, and hiding out from the tornado warning we finally left the homestead and immediately hit high winds and cold weather. So, Sunday evening was lost as was Monday, at least in terms of riding. We did get to see part of funky Asheville and enjoy Barley's Pizzeria (and the very excellent French Broad Brewing Alt-Bier on draft and their incredible Pepperoni and Andoulee Sausage calzone).
So Sunday and Monday were given over to testing rides on the trainer. The one good thing I learned is that over the last month my FTP has gone up by about 10 watts. I've definitely felt like I was able to ride at a higher level at Cheaha than the 300 watt level I had tested at previously and the 20 minute TT test showed that I was able to ride in a hot, unventilated environment at about 315.
Finally, this morning I was able to ride out west of Asheville up something called Hooker's Gap (the first climb in the picture) and then up to Newfound (the second climb) and then out in the country west of there until returning to Asheville. The ride was hard but the scenery was really beautiful. In some ways it reminded me of growing up in Oregon with the mountain meadows and narrow, winding back roads. What was different was the number of small settlements scattered throughout the countryside and the lack of evergreens replaced by hardwood trees. The descent down Hooker's Gap was absolutely unbelievable and I definitely need to learn how to go downhill on a road bike. Of course, if I knew the roads it would have gone better.
The plan for tomorrow is to recover and then I want to try and do some sort of ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway. If I go south I have to climb Mt. Pisgah and if I go north I have to climb Mt. Mitchell. What a choice. Still, I did come down to climb I I'm thinking that the Parkways won't have killer grades so it may be a long, slow TT effort to climb up Mt. Pisgah. The question is whether the weather will let me. Anyways, between now and then it's some recovery and more enjoying the atmosphere of Asheville. I took a couple of good pictures on the ride and I'll try to post them here tomorrow.
Thanks for Reading.
