The Dirt Bag Cup, Day 2:
Western Assault on the Kanawha Trace
Saturday, Sept. 30

Staying at Paul and Kim's was GREAT. They have tons of room and are great hosts. On Saturday morning Joey and Greg cooked waffles, Paul cooked bacon, and we had delcicious coffee before heading to the start of a long day in the saddle.

It was a really long day in the saddle (6:03 pedaling time for me, with a total ride time including stops of about 9 hours). The 47 miles we rode came slowly and would take a lot of typing to describe accurately. Here are some highlights:

> Extremely steep hike-a-bikes (in some cases for me, because of my wimpy arm muscles, these were "drag-a-bikes")
> Deep ravine crossings
> Fifty bazillion barbed wire fence crossings
> A couple electric fence crossings
> Rain
> Getting lost
> Getting yelled at while accidentally trespassing
> A scary spider
> Beautiful waterfall
> Nice rock formations
> A disgusting huge snapping turtle
> Some fun parts and some not-so-fun parts on the Kanawha Trace
> Some fun bench-cut singletrack on the Adahi Trail

Wet, muddy and tired, those of us who were staying at Paul and Kim's returned to their house clean up and enjoy dinner. While we were gone lots of other Athens folks had arrived. To our delight, they had dinner cooking when we got home!

Click on the images below for larger images and captions.