Just got back yesterday from a trip to Mulberry Gap, or as I like to call it, heaven. If I live a good life then hopefully I'll end up there when I'm dead.


I met up with the boys, Jeff & Thad, at Thads Hippie pad. A quick bite to eat, some coffee and 2 pisses later we hit the road. 234 miles and 32 food stops later and we made it to the bunkhouse with plenty of daylight to get a good ride on. We were greeted by our hosts Ginni & Dianne who treated us more like friends than customers.

We stowed our stuff and jumped on the bike to squeeze in our ride. Thad set the pace since he knew where he was going, and a brutal pace it was. Jeff & I were sucking wind at the top of the first big climb. We were both "feeling" the last food stop, which happened to be taco bell. We rode Pinhotti 2 out and then back for a total of about 16-17 miles. 3 mile climb to get up followed by one of the longest and most fun decents I've been on.

Back to the bunk house for some hot showers and some good home cookin'. I mean real good home cookin'. Diner was fantastic, we sat around a hot stove swapping stories and drinking beers and playing with dogs. Good times. I didn't even want to got to bed but I was pretty spent.

The next day after a fantastic breakfast we met up with Andrew, another one of the hosts, who we invited to ride with us. Andrew has only been biking for a short time but he's clearly in the right place and rode like a champ. Jeff were feeling better this time Thad was a little under the weather, but an under the weather Thad is still stronger and faster than a healthy Adam so the pace was not quite as brutal.

We rode to Bear Creek and did the loop there then rode Pinhotti 1 to the end then to Pinhotti 2 then back to the bunkhouse. We settled up and said our goodbye's and headed home. An excenllent end to and excellent trip. I can't wait till the next trip. I'll be heading back there as soon as I get the opertunity.

Yesterday I picked up Josh and we set out for Montgomery Bell State Parks for some single track action. Josh had just built up a single speed but decided to bring this geared bike(EX-9) too just in case. We hit the road heading south toward Dickson and the road was nice and dry and the ground was not too wet at all. About 10 miles from Monty Bell we decided that there hadn't been as much rain as we thought the night before. Josh had never been to Chickasaw Trace in Columbia so the decided to continue south and ride there instead.



We get to the trail head and get geared up. Josh locks his fancy EX 9 to the rack and truck just in case. We don't get a mile for the truck when his chain starts jumping off the rear cog. The tensioner isn't keeping the tension tight enough. We decide to head back and get his geared bike. We get back and realized the Josh forgot to bring his key. Looks like he's riding single speed. We pulled a link off of the chain and zip tied the tensioner to the chain stay pulling all of the slack out of the chain. Worked like a charm.

We rode one really fun lap then decided to switch bikes. I couldn't ride it. The gear was too tall me and the seat was too low and seatpost too short putting too much pressure on my knees. We swapped back and finished the second lap with smiles on our faces. We load up and head back to clarksville chatting about the ride.

It was a great day. Not too hot, not too cold. The trail was damp but not muddy or slick. Can't wait for the next one.