Pisgah+

Waking up a 5:20AM is a bit difficult when you took a few too many Torpedoes to the hull the night before, but when it's not your ride plan, you do what you gotta do.  A strange three mile bike ride under a giant glowing moon later and I'm comfortably in Kangalangamangus's car headed in a westerly direction.  I haven't been to Pisgah since November, which is a bit unprecedented for me this time of the year.  Blame it on my toe, the Tour duh Charlotte assplorings, or just some sort of apathetic feels towards car travel.  Dunno.

So even tho the By:Stickel Meatplow V.6 has done nothing more than hang on the wall since my last trip, I decided to go this way:

I hadn't the chance to actually ride the new Minion DHR+ tire on super demanding trails yet.  Shit, it's got mostly road miles on it so far.  It was with much excite that I would be relearning my 1,000 yard Pisgah stare with all this meat up front.

Corwin's sorta-homemade remote lockout... I think that's a door spring.

I didn't get any images of Luther because by the time I got to the bottom of a descent, tossed my bike off the trail, dug around for my phone, pulled up the camera app... there went Luther.

Unreal sleeveless day in Pisgah in February riding a route I've never done before in such a way so much buenos.

The Minion DHR+ tire was pretty solid as far as downhill performance.  I could get away with a little more than I could with the Ardent 2.4, but I have to admit that I can feel the extra (almost) pound when climbing and cruising, along with the added rolling resistance of six PSI less up front.  That and I run a bigger than normal rear tire when I go plus up front, so there's even more weight and rolling resistance just so the back end can keep up with the front... sorta.

Piece of advice tho.  An almost worn-out Ikon 2.35 has a hard time keeping up with everything that an almost brand new DHR+ can handle.  Being cheap has its penalties.

Anyways, a much needed trip to Pisgah to help stoke the fire a bit.  I need to get back up there ASAP.  By the time we were hitting the good stuff on Horse Cove, I was finally breathing through my eyelids correctly on the descents.  Dicky getting his groove back for sure.

I can hear Spencer/Trace/Fletcher/Middle Fork calling my name.