Monday, March 28, 2011

the back-up plan

How many more camping trips are going get rained out before we get a dry one? After this weekend we are well past due for a dry weekend. Melinda and I left home early on Thursday in route to Dupont/Pisgah hoping to get in some extra trail time in before the rest of the crew rolled into town on Friday. Our anniversary was Friday and there is nothing more romantic than a mountain bike themed camping trip.
The weather forecast when we left town was showing a 40% chance of rain for Saturday and nothing else. I knew I would be in SORBA meetings for a large portion of the day Saturday so I wasn't too disappointed but things changed rapidly. I checked the forecast again later that evening and the percentage shot up to 70%, not looking good.


We made the most of the dry weather and headed out for the trail head as soon as we got things situated. Moonshine and Jackson made they're first trip up Cedar Rock and I think they were impressed with the views.


Friday Melinda and I hit the trails again realizing there was a good chance it might be our last chance to ride for the weekend. The weather was almost perfect and the trails were in awesome shape.


Saturday as expected we woke up to the rain. Anthony, Andy, Rick and myself got up early before the ladies and drove into town to register for the days events. This whole trip was centered around the SORBA, Southern Mountain Bike Summit. Anthony and I have been in the process for a few months now to get our local club, NTMBA affiliated into the vast network of clubs that make up SORBA. This weekend at the board of directors meeting we were to be voted in making that the last step in the process.


We showed up late, checked in and grabbed a couple of danishes and bagels off the breakfast table and snuck out the back door before the morning classes started. A majority of the the morning's material was stuff that we had already experienced so we were just there for the important stuff like free breakfast.


By the look of the skies it appeared as if the rain was there to stay so rather than hang around a soggy campground we rounded up the ladies and headed to the local coffee shop for breakfast #2 and hung out until time for our meeting with SORBA.





As luck would have it we made it to the meeting just in time to score a free lunch and grab some seats in the back row in case the meeting was slow and I fell asleep. Since I'm the president of the club I was expected to stand up introduce the club and give a brief introduction. Of course Melinda suggested earlier in the week that I sit down and write out my speech on paper but I opted to wait until the last minute to throw something together. My rough version was drafted in my head on Friday in the truck as Melinda and I drove home from the trailhead and the final touches were applied as I sat on the throne Saturday morning after multiple cups of coffee. Yeah I guess you can say I was slacking a bit but when it comes to speaking in front of a big crowd I always get nervous and end up saying whatever comes off the top of my head anyway. A month or so ago when Anthony and I went on Channel 5 news, Anthony kept trying to get me to throw in the word jellybeans somewhere randomly which I did not. So when I was called upon during the board of directors meeting to speak for our club I did manage to throw in a NASCAR mention but nothing about jelly beans and it did get a few laughs and we did get voted in so no harm done.


After the meeting was over it was still raining but just barely, I was wanting to ride so I mentioned to Andy and Anthony that we should go anyway but unfortunately all of Anthony's riding gear was in his car, in Asheville with the girls who were shopping. I don't think he believed me either when I told him he would be fine riding in jeans.


Since we could not ride and the girls were gone shopping we decided to do the next best thing. Drink beer at the local bike shop.




Yes, The Hub in Brevard serves beer, not just any old beer but local craft beers. We rolled into the Hub joined the required private membership, which was free and spent the afternoon the best way we could think of considering our situation.






Slowly as time went by more and more folks from the summit trickled in, I guess we weren't the only one's with the same idea. A bike shop that serves beer is an awesome thing and a bad thing all at the same time. It's cool for obvious reasons but also bad in the sense that too many Pisgah Stouts almost caused me to walk out with a sweet set of Industry 9 wheels priced at a little over $1000. Yeah that would not have been good.


We did take a bunch of pics but I haven't had time to sort though them much less upload any but hopefully tomorrow.





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