Monster X Mash

  We did the Mash, we did the Monster Cross Mash......

                                                               Happy Halloween

  To celebrate Halloween and my Birthday, Joel and I, once again, headed west for another cross bike adventure.  We had almost decided to take it easy this weekend and do a nice local ride, but Friday night I was looking over an awesome course I had mapped out and was suddenly inspired to go for it.  I checked with Joel and he was in.  We both agreed we needed to try harder to get out of town earlier.  We were loaded, gassed up, and rolling by 8ish.  We reached the parking lot in record time.  It was basically all interstate and a smooth roll.

  There was a nice fall chill in the air when we got out and Joel built his bike up for the ride.

Here is the course:



  The ride is a metric century covering right about 62 miles taking us through the counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, and Rockbridge.  I decided to alter the starting point from my original map.  I figured we would dive right into the biggest climb while we were fresh, and also this was the nearest and most convenient point to pick up the course.  Why drive another 20-30 minutes when we could be riding?  The parking lot is right off of I-64 at the Goshen exit, a little west of Lexington.  There is a nice scenic drive that goes up and over North Mountain with some of the best views in VA.  I had driven past this treasure for years on my way to Douthat State Park and didn't even know it was there. 
  Anyway, once Joel finished building his bike, we started grinding up the scenic gravel climb.

  The grade was fairly steep, but after a few miles we had reached the ridge line and were treated to awesome views to the north and south.  We found a path that led to a sweet overlook.

                                                       Lake Robertson to the southeast.

Big House Mountain.

  A little further up we picked up some single track, North Mountain Trail.  This is one of the sweetest rocky ridges in the state. (perhaps the world).  I had hiked this with the family before so I was already aware of the rocky cliffs and endless views. 

  We were tempted to ride the whole trail through to Longdale Furnace, but with lots of hunter trucks parked in the area and in the interest of time, we only rode a mile out and back on the rugged rocky ridge.  It turns out riding rocks on the cross bike is a blast.

                                         

                                     

After saying goodbye to the awesome ridge, we descended the northwest face of North Mountain down to the Longdale furnace area.  This was a crazy fast, curvy descent on relatively smooth gravel and we passed a car on the way down.

  At the bottom, we rolled the flat pavement of Rt. 60 for a few miles past Longdale Furnace.  The traffic wasn't bad and you couldn't miss us in our hi-vis jackets.  We had fooled around quite a bit up on the ridge and decided we had better knock out some miles.  Our next turn put us on a nice paved back road that crossed the Cowpasture River and had a couple of short, steep climbs and descents.  The Cowpasture joins the Jackson about a mile or so downstream to form the mighty James River.  We crossed over Rt. 220 and followed the James for the next several miles.  The scenery, which started out great, remained that way for the entire ride.  It was very quiet with almost no traffic.  If not for a few hunters wandering around, we would've had the place to ourselves.  The terrain varied greatly and  after climbing a bit, we were always rewarded with a nice downhill.  In fact, we always seemed to come out on the better end of the deal.  A brief roll down 220 brought us to a nice store where we took a break and re-fueled.  After our stop, it was back to dirt and gravel for the next several miles with a few long and steep climbs followed by fast descents.  I entered a couple of turns a little hot on the gravel and did some drifting.  Nearly ate it but kept the rubber side down.  The scenery remained excellent and we always seemed to be following an awesome stream.

Big House and Little House Mountains.

                               A really cool steel bridge and old mill brought us back to pavement.

A few miles brought us past Collierstown onto Big Hill Rd.  The name of this road concerned me a bit.  Soon enough, of course, we got to see where it got its name.  A super steep climb had us standing, barely turning the cranks.  It was tough on 50 mile legs but we both stuck it out and made it to the summit.  We were rewarded once again with the steepest, fastest downhill of the ride.  After turning onto the final leg of the ride, we were met with one last grueling climb to the truck.  This one got pretty steep also and it took some will power to stick it out for a few miles. 
  Aside from ending on a climb, the ride went extremely well and we both really liked the route.  This is definately one to do again and again and I would like to drag along some more company to share this awesome ride.