Come out and join Gainesville SORBA as we celebrate Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day!  If you have a kid that can ride a bike, bring em on out to Chicopee on Saturday, October 4th at 10:00 AM.  We’ll have group rides for all abilities plus water, snacks and a SWAG drawing for some cool stuff.

The group camping trip went great! We set up Fri. nite and had a great salmon dinner. It was a comfy 67 degrees and all slept well by the fire. Woke to hot coffee, sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, then rode Bear Claw cw, River loop cw, where we picked wild blueberries,and quartz loop cw as well where we found a blackberry patch and ate and even brought some back some for the pancakes Sun. morn.We finished blasting down Thunder Rock Express, had lunch then headed a few miles down river and up to Chilhowee. Talk about rocks as well as every other terrain that can be encountered. Hiked to the cool waterfall then back on the bikes. Johnny and Norma headed down to Bear Creek/Pinhoti Sun morn. and Steve, Robi and I rode Tanasi again only in the opposite direction, all backwards except Thunder Rock that is. Going down T.R. is the best ten minutes of your life with your clothes on. We gathered maps and pics to use as models for Chicopee as this is one of the best trail systems we’ve ever seen.

We had a small but industrious group at the work party today. We managed to finish up the Beginner Trail. This means we’ll be closing the bottom of Rocky Way soon! Lunch at Barberito’s then we rode out and checked out some of the new advanced trail.

On the ride back Robbie almost hits a deer! Two doe moved off the trail but didn’t run off. We all stopped and watched as they contently foraged. One was probably no more than 25′ from us. The other was a little more apprehensive and kept her distance. It was a nice end to a long day! Continue on for pictures!
Continue Reading »

We had a great ride up and around Winding Stair Gap! Don’s Florida bunch finally got some mountain riding in. The much needed rain kept us off the single track and the weather was chilly but the sun came out and all had a good time!We put in 23 miles climbing the fireroads and enjoying the great mountain views.At the top we ran into several SORBA racers riding in Cartecay Bikes chili cook-off including our very own Johnny and Norma. David Blalock led us most of the way on his new Independant 29′er…sweet ride!

Well, it was Barry, Wendy, and myself for the Bull Mtn. ride. We did, however, run into Johnny Garner and Norma Rainwater out on the endurance training ride and run. Here are some pics. I know, I didn’t take enough.