Welcome to Asheville, now go home.

I don't know what my problem was today, had a much lower tolerance for people than usual.  This being Labor Day weekend, it seemed like everyone from Ohio to Florida had ended up in Bent Creek Experimental Forest.  Now, I'm all for people getting out in the woods and enjoying the sunshine.  It just seemed like a majority of the people out there were unintentionally out to kill me.  So what was I doing in the woods?  Well, trying to ride my bike without ripping my face off.  Ever since I had started mountain biking, I have been the king of flats and mechanical problems.  I used to have to carry a day pack to haul around all the tools and spare parts I needed to make it through a ride.  People used to stop riding with me after they started realizing how terrible my luck was.  "Uh aren't you a mechanic?"  yeah "Why does your bike suck so bad?".  *sigh*.

Soo.. the greatest invention for me aside from fixed gear mountain bikes (less moving parts for me to destroy) was the development of tubeless tire systems.  But isn't that high end racer technology?  Funny you should ask, as per usual I chose the ghetto way of converting to tubeless.  Would you expect any less from a guy that rides a bike called dumpster bike?  Anywho, I had converted my wheels back to tubeless and had decided to go on a longish ride from rice pinnacle to mills river and back, making sure to find plenty of rocks and roots to try to dislodge the tires on.  Ever since my friend Tina had a tire unseat during a race, forcing her to use her face as a brake, I've been leery of running tubeless since I love to ride my rigid singlespeed the same way I ride my downhill bike.  I'm happy to report that despite my best efforts to get the tires to burp, I didn't lose a pound of air.  Hooray!

Back to my rant, the things that DID try to kill me were 2 riders hauling ass down Wolf Branch and failing to yield any room to the uphill rider (me), 1 rider deciding that since I was going slow up the top of Ingles Field Connector, that it would be ok to go ahead and drop in and then lock up the brakes to slide into me, 1 Ford Excursion hauling ass up wash creek on MY side of the road (jackass, go back to Ohio) and finally 1 gigantic tour bus style RV that forced me off the road when the huge vehicle decided it was ok to use both lanes in the hairpin turn (where the hell did they think they were going to turn around once they got to where they were going?)

So yes, I love Pisgah,  when I leave WNC it is the one thing that I always miss.  Today I just wanted to get lost in the woods.  Yes, I know that I would have been better served to ride in the Brevard side of Pisgah, but I really didn't want to have to sit in the car for and hour to go ride my bike.  I know, I know, ride more, bitch less. I realize that the reason that all these tourists come to Asheville, is because it's amazing.  I guess I'm just selfish and don't want to share.