Mat & Amie Levine

Our friend, Eric, took us on a nice bike ride yesterday.  It was a perfectly clear day for a ride with long distance views.  Which we had lots of, but none of the pics I took did it any justice.  What you don’t see in this picture is Mat changing his 3rd flat in 2 days.  He’s back behind me.  Eric went off this jump while I tried to capture it.  (Mat had two flats on his ride the day before with Eric, so he’s now a pro at fixing a flat.)

We’ve been enjoying some wintery weather out here to get us acclimated to our trip out to Utah!  It’s been chilly w/ a tad bit of snow…just enough to cancel work Friday morning until noon.

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Thanks to mapmyride.com and google earth we could check out the ride we did.

The leaves are turning right now, so it’s a bit more colorful!  As you can see in the below pictures.

Mat is riding the log…he has a much better sense of balance than I!  It was a fun day with beautiful weather and mellow riding, except for the last half hour of downhill.

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We went on a beautiful ride out in Bent Creek.  It is amazing that the fall colors are still going on and it is still so vibrant!  This is the nice mellow road ride to the beginning of the trail.

Mat at the start of the trail…about the only time I can get to the front of him in order to take a picture!  We had a great ride even though the temperature high was only 42 degrees.  At the end of the ride, Maddy still cooled herself off by sitting in every creek and pond she came across!

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Yesterday was a beautiful fall day.  Mat and I headed out for a bike ride and as we started the climb it was nice and cool with a lovely mist.  We kept on climbing for about an hour or so (those w/ stronger thigh muscles have been known to do it in about 30 minutes) and we got to the trailhead for Greens Lick.  It had the most signs ever at the trailhead warning people about the difficulty of the trail.

As we started going down I felt like it was awesome!  Out in this area, the trails are so smooth and this did not disappoint.  It was so smooth and it had woop-di-dos and berms and it was really easy to get alot of speed.  I was enjoying myself so much that I went over some woop-di-dos and was getting a wee bit of air and kind of liking it.  So I let myself get more on each one and then realized I had ALOT of air and braked and landed.  I think I tried to ride it out because I recall thinking “oh, it’s gonna be okay, just straighten your tire” and wobbling and then going over the handlebars and rolling.  After sitting still a moment and realizing nothing was broken, I got up and looked down and saw I was bleeding.  I’m a wimp so really I just wanted to sit down and cry, but that wouldn’t help me.  So, I got my shaky self on the bike and rode down to where Mat was riding.  He asked if everything was okay since I was smiling brightly with tears in my eyes.  So I told him about my crash which amazingly enough didn’t crush the sunglasses in my pocket!

I regrouped for a minute and then we finished the trail.  Which was awesome.  We got out and it seemed like such a short ride that we decided to ride back up to 5 points, which we had passed by earlier on the way to the Greens Lick trailhead.  We rode our bikes back up for another 45 minutes or an hour and then rode down another sweet trail.  It is so smooth out there.  I love it.  Maddy was pretty exhausted by the end of the day.  She was getting to the point where she was even letting me go in front of her!  Mat had a good time, too!

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Yesterday we rode our bikes along the Laurel Creek to the French Broad river near Hot Springs, NC. It was a beautiful day. The trail is in the shade, so it is a nice place to be on a hot summer day AND there are loads of swimming holes. This is the second time this summer we’ve gone there. Biking down the trail made it to be a very quick trip! We checked out the remains of an old town, Runion, and then on our way back we stopped at a couple spots to take a swim. At our last spot we swam in, we jumped in and played around and noticed that some people were looking at something on the opposite side of the river.

One family, mentioned as they were walking by, that there was a big copperhead snake over there. They just wanted to let us know so that Maddy wouldn’t go mess with it. So, of course, we had to check out this snake. We swam across the river and looked at it sleeping down below the trail. It was pretty big. Then we decided to head on our way. So we went to gather our stuff to leave - and as I picked up my baseball hat I saw another copperhead just curled up about 2-4 inches from where my hat had been. My heart was racing and I backed up and said to Mat “umm, come check this out.”

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The weather forecast did not look good for our Friday ride. There was a brief conversation of whether we should cancel or not since the forecast was “SEVERE WEATHER FORECAST” and the radar had it sitting right over where we were going to ride. As I was loading up the car w/ everything - we were going camping afterword - it downpoured on me and there was lots of lightning. But, we decided to make the call at the trailhead and when we got there it was dry…and it didn’t rain the whole time.

After our ride, we hiked to a shelter to sleep. We wanted to stay at the shelter so if it rained we would not have to stay in our individual tents. The weather was wonderful and we had a great time roasting marshmallows! We hiked out Saturday morning and went to breakfast at a delicious cafe in Black Mountain…we ate so much that when we got home we couldn’t really do anything we were too full.

We checked out the first Shindig on the Green for the summer. There were a ton of other people checking it out as well. There were tons of amazingly talented people there playing. We wanted to take out the camera because it is a fabulous opportunity to take photos, but the forecast was for rain. We had parked several blocks away and when it started feeling like a storm was gathering we told our friends good-bye and started walking. Well, we didn’t get very far before it downpoured on us. At first we were running in our flip-flops getting drenched and then we realized that it was pointless, we couldn’t possibly get any more wet than we all ready were.

Our rain barrels are happy and full now. Our garden is also loving the good soaking it has gotten the past several days. Before that we were having a dry spell. Mat took these nice pics of our flowers.

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While out at Mat’s parents we walked down to the river on the property and went exploring up the river. We were going to try to spot a rare plant on our way down, but there was WAY too much poison ivy, so we just walked in the water. Here are some pics from the walk.

We also went on a beautiful bike ride out in Dupont State Park where there was some different types of terrain. We rode up the side of a waterfall on some slick rock after riding some regular single and double track trails and roads. We also pushed our bikes under a waterfall at the top in order to cross the creek/river. It had some awesome views. (Sarah and Mom, this is the same park we hiked up to with all the waterfalls, just a different area.)

Our garden is doing great. I spent the afternoon weeding it yesterday. Seems like if you don’t weed for a couple of days, the garden is full of them! I planted sunflowers at the top of the garden and the are starting to bloom. Sunflowers are so cheery!

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This week our Friday ride people decided to ride out near where Mat’s parents live.  Which made it kind of nice, so I just had to meet up w/ Mat 2 miles down the road to carpool up to the trailhead.  While waiting for Mat to call to let me know I should head out, I was reading a blog that my brother and his wife love…and that day’s entry was about eating a bug on a ride.  (I also find the blog quite entertaining.)

After getting setup at the parking lot we started riding down the road to the trailhead and I’m pedalling along enjoying the day talking to Mat and a BUTTERFLY flew into my mouth.  Obviously, I tried spitting it out at the same time I was trying to “avoid” it which involved me taking a sharp left and ending up in the gulley at the side of the road. 

The guys riding behind me were nice and polite and pretended like they didn’t even see it happen.  Meanwhile my husband, Mat, was busting a gut laughing so hard. 

He said “Next time, try the brakes.” 

I was using the brakes, BUT I really wanted to avoid the butterfly that was all ready inside my mouth and that required serious action.  

I am sorry to say that I didn’t have the frame of thought to analyze if the butterfly tasted good or bad. 

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So, the prediction was 50% chance of thunderstorms and rain. We decided to chance it and headed out for our weekend ride. I was excited, Mat was stoked, and Maddy was just happy to have her head out the window for the ride out to the trailhead.

Once we got to the trailhead, it looked like it had just rained, but that we might get lucky and not have it pour on us. The ride was fun at times and very challenging at times. My most stellar moment was walking my bike across some mossy, slimy logs and slipping off into the creek.

I was so worn out by the time we got to the gravel road to ride back to the car, that I couldn’t even pedal my bike up the very last hill.  But Maddy, she kept on running ahead of us!  I went to bed really early that night!

Tags: Laurel Mountain, mtn biking

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Mat and I took advantage of the beautiful spring weather and went on a great cross-country bike ride. After some road climbing and single track climbing we got to the downhill portion which was a sweet ride! Not too technical…just fun times! I was riding my Gary Fisher hardtail which was awesome and light. I was getting thrown around by the roots and rocks on the trail - which made for my own fun adventure - while Mat was enjoying his cushy ride!

Can you tell we are having a good time? Maddy just runs and runs while we are biking…so this is a well deserved rest.

It was definitely over too soon.  We love that we live in an area that allows us to have such a variety of recreational opportunities!!!!

Tags: mountain biking

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