Sorry I’m getting this up a little bit late….I’ve been trying (as you can probably see) to update the site a bit. I know I’ve been slack as hell, but those of you that have kids and work too much will understand when I say I haven’t had the time. Anyways, Dustin has been sending in some ride reports and will now be updating the site whenever he wants. If anyone else would like to be able to post up stuff just let me know and I’ll set you up a username and password so that you can post stuff without sending it to me to do.  Ok…now onto some riding….

Matt and I were supposed to get our lazy asses out and ride some pedal bikes the other weekend….buuuut, Matt had to “work”. I guess I could have gone for a solo ride, but my transportation isn’t all that “safe” at the moment….my jeep has some steering issues. So I didn’t feel like driving the almost 2 hours to wilson’s in my junker. Next option? Go for a moto ride. Being in Statesville now I’m almost closer to the Virginia Highlands area up around White Top and Mount Rogers. I’ve been wanting to go explore up there so thats what I did. I left out about 7 am on Saturday morning headed for Virginia. It started out super foggy……foggy enough that i was having to wipe my face shield off every 30 seconds or so. Pretty much all the way to the VA line it was really foggy. I live right off of HWY 21, so I just took that north to HWY 221 S then turned up HWY 113 to VA Hwy 58 right around Mouth Of Wilson, VA. I was running low on gas before I got to VA, but I still probably had 40 miles till reserves, so i figured “ahhh there will be a gas station up there”…..30 min. later, no gas. I remembered that there was a station where HWY 16 meets 58. Cool, no problem right? I pull in, and “NO GAS” sign on the pump. Shit…..I’m thinking next gas station will be in Damascus. I went up to the porch where a local was sitting. He informed me that there was another station just a mile or so up HWY 58 towards Damascus. Ok, Great!….Well, It was more like 6 miles, but there was indeed a gas station…with gas.

After grabbing a quick snack I headed up towards Whitetop Mtn. I had seen that there was a road that went all the way to the top of the mountain that offered some pretty awesome views. I had the general area that it was, but just had to do some putting around until i found the road. Once you get up top, it is pretty amazing as you’ll see in the pics. I’d like to camp up there this fall. I can only imagine the sunrises and sunsets with this kind of view. The road goes allll the way to the top where there is a radio tower area…..somewhere around 5500 ft. elevation.  I hung out here for a while, but not too long, because I still had a long way to go.

I headed over to Damascus, and turned down HWY 133 down to Shady Valley. I passed through backbone rock, which was pretty cool. I then headed down through Mtn. City, Back through Boone, down to Wilkesboro, and back down HWY 115 to Statesville. According to the GPS the trip was around 8 1/2 hours with a moving time of a little over 6 hours. Total mileage was 265 miles. My ass hurt after that one. Overall it was a good ride. Weather cooperated,  and I got to see some new stuff. Here’s a few pictures.  Some are me trying to be artsy fartsy….Enjoy.

Text & Photos By Dustin R.

Some surprises are good…and then again some are bad.  Catching some extra time on the spur of the moment to head out and ride defiantly qualifies as one of those good surprises.  A couple weeks ago C-Los, Steve-O and I took advantage of our good fortune and headed up to Sugar for some downhill runs.

The closer we got to the mountains the darker the sky became and the sinking feeling set in that we might be in for a major slop fest on this one.  This was one surprise we had not counted on.  The temperature was 66 degrees at the base when we unloaded the bikes and the top of the mountain was nowhere in sight.  As we ascended up the lift into the thick mist surrounding Sugar we immediately felt the rain begin to fall.  Rain gear in place we unloaded and met up with Jeff Moore, Stan Moore and company to head down for the first run.

Everyone took it easy the first run down to get warmed up.  As we picked our way through the rock gardens and mist I could see the sunlight start to break through the trees.  By the time we hit the base of the mountain the rain was out and the fog had lifted…yet another good surprise for the day.  From then on it was fast and rugged runs on nice and tacky dirt with little or no dust to choke on.  The trails were in good shape with little debris.  The only exception was the filled in creek gap this time around.

The last run always arrives too quickly and before we knew it the day had passed us by.  Tired, hungry and happy we rolled out and headed back down the mountain with everyone stoked off of a solid day of good riding. Here’s a handful of pictures below.

Yeah yeah, It’s been how long since anything new was on here? Funny what kids do to your free time man. Anyways, BBA is back in town and has been teaching Necker and I a bit of Dual Sporting technique….if thats the right term. Here are some pics from a few weekends ago at some stuff Necker found out by his house. Mostly logging roads and some singletrack stuff we found…and a cool section of trail that actually ran down a creek for a ways.

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