It’s still composed of 4 main loops (about 40 miles) that alternate between mountain bikes and horses depending on the day of the week.  Although I did see a few hoof marks and a couple of horse trailers, I get the impression that there’s much more biking these days.  The biggest change since my last visit is the road to the campground is now paved and a bike washing station has been added at the trailhead. The trails are still in great shape and the facilities at the Forest Service campground are excellent.  The trails are technical enough to entertain experienced riders but still accessible for beginners.  As the saying goes, it’s “fun for the whole family.” The campground usually fills up by Friday night, so arrive early if possible.

It’s such a treat to be at a campground where almost all the campers are active.  With 42 sites, there’s probably an average of 2 to 3 mountain bikes per site.  And with Fontana Lake and the Nantahala Gorge only minutes away, 1 out of 3 sites probably has a kayak or canoe as well.

Next up on this summer’s “to do” list for mountain biking: the Allegrippis Trails at Raystown Lake.

Thinking that more traffic would be heading south early in the day, I decided to begin the ride on Route 13 and head up to Exmore. Although I’d driven this road numerous times, I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice wide and smooth shoulder all the way to Exmore. It was almost like having a designated bike lane. After wandering around Exmore and taking a little side-trip down to Willis Wharf, I topped off my water bottles and began heading south on Route 600 (Seaside Road). This road parallels Route 13 running through quiet farmland with little traffic and no commercial facilities whatsoever–so make sure your water bottles are full.

The wide shoulder on Route 13 combined with the quiet solitude of Seaside Road makes for a nice cycling loop.  Continuing further north to Accomac, it would be quite easy to put together a 90 to 100 mile ride.  And if you need a bit of motivation near the end of the ride, there’s a classic Crab Cake Sandwich waiting for you at Sting Ray’s just a couple of miles north of the park!

The wind really kicked up during the night and it was still averaging over 20 mph Saturday morning but I had planned on a long bike ride so I got out early and headed off to Manns Harbor. It took me 32 minutes to cross the 5 mile long Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge over to Manns Harbor. I actually had to pedal down the high-rise just to keep moving. Heading east, however, over the old Manns Harbor Bridge back to Roanoke Island, I cruised along at 25 to 30 mph and covered the 2.7 miles in 7 minutes (including a stop for a flagman and some maintenance workers). In order to get in 50 miles, I headed down to Wanchese before finishing a grueling 7 miles into the wind back to Oregon Inlet.  I ended up with 55 miles in just under 4 hours – my longest ride of the season.

REV 1.5 at Sunset

After a taking a cold shower, drinking a cold beer, and relaxing for little while, I drove back over to Manteo and pick up my 8th lighthouse stamp for the Roanoke Marshes Lightstation. The wind was still up so I grabbed the REV and hit the beach at the campground for some more quad line flying. The afternoon ended with a beautiful sunset as well.

Beamer IV 2.0

Sunday was a bit calmer so I headed down to Oregon Inlet with the Beamer 2.0 for some power kiting. I haven’t had much opportunity to work with the quad line power kites (just too windy for my taste) so I decided to just stay with the 2 meter.  As it turns out, I probably could have flown the 5 meter but the 2 meter was still able to give some good pulls.

Since the campground was practically empty on the “C” loop, I was able to fly the REV for another hour before breaking camp and checking out right at noon. Another great weekend on the Outer Banks!

Kiteboarders at Cape Hatteras

I ventured a bit further south this weekend and headed down to Cape Hatteras for a weekend of biking, kiting, and kayaking. The weather was great – clear, cool and windy! This brought the kiteboarders out in droves and literally filled the sky with kites in all the popular locations.  I camped at one of my favorite sites – the NPS campground at Frisco.  Even though it’s an ocean-side campground, it has sites that are located far enough up the dunes that you can get a view of the ocean from your site. Several nice boardwalks provide easy access to the ocean and the beach is nice and wide. After setting up camp, I hit the beach and spent a couple hours flying my new Revolution REV 1.5.  What I fun kite! Unfortunately, I snapped a spar and now I’m anxiously awaiting for the replacements to arrive.

Flying the Prism 3-D in the camp site

I got out reasonable early Saturday morning and biked down to Ocracoke (with a nice ride on the Hatteras/Ocracoke Ferry, of course.)  The wind was out of the south so I got the hard part over with in the morning.  While in Ocracoke, I picked up a new National Park Service and US Lighthouse Society passport stamp, had a snack, and then headed up to the beach across from the Ocracoke Pony Pasture for a little kite flying.  After about an hour flying the Snapshot 1.9, I headed back up to the ferry terminal got back to the campground around 2PM.  The rest of the afternoon was spent flying a variety of kites.

This is why it's called "Alligator River"

Sunday morning was still pretty windy so I spent about an hour flying the Snapshot 1.9 before breaking camp and heading over to Alligator River for a little paddling. There’s a nice set of “paddling trails” there and I was hoping it would be a bit less windy.  Unfortunately, the wind was still pretty stiff on the lake so after a couple of miles along the shore, I took the “red trail” back to the launch site. Along the way, however, I did slip up on a ‘gator. As usual, I was almost on top of him before realizing it wasn’t just a floating log. I quickly backed up and eased a bit further from the shore and was able to drift along beside him for about 30 to 40 yards (keeping a safe distance, of course) before he submerged. I’d guess he was about an 8-10 footer.

On the way home, I stopped at Jockeys Ridge and gave the Beamer IV 2.0 a try.  It was still windy so after an hour of getting my butt dragged over the dune, I packed up and headed home.

Suspension Bridge over Jackson River

After arriving around noon on Friday and setting up camp, I hopped on the bike for a little exploring.  I wasn’t expecting to go too far so I didn’t bother with maps or GPS.  I wound up on the single-track section of the “Hidden Valley” trail which parallels the Jackson River.  It eventually connected with some double-track and seemed to continue on indefinitely – so after 5 miles, I turned back, crossed the river on a suspended bridge, and returned to the campground for a beer.

Road leading to Hidden Valley Campground

Saturday morning I decided to ride the actual “Hidden Valley” loop described in the book “Mountain Biking Virginia” (ride #35).  It’s a nice 15 mile loop that begins on Forest Service roads before connecting back to the double and single-track that I rode the previous day.  Some of the single-track was a bit too technical (rocky, rooted, and unforgivably perched on the side of the mountain) for my tasted, so I wound up walking about a half-mile section.

On Sunday, I headed over to the Buena Vista Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway for the “Blue Ridge Dirt Ride” (#40 in “Mountain Biking Virginia”). It’s a nice 15 mile loop on on Forest Service roads with only the last 3 to 4 miles on the Parkway. As you can see from the elevation profile, the ride starts with a 1000 feet descent over the first 4 miles.  Now that’s “commitment”.

A great time spent with old friends, good mountain biking, and topped off with some fresh trout cooked on the grill. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

• Creating the route in Garmin RoadTrip (or BaseCamp) but having to use a 3rd party site to convert the GPX file to a CRS file should not be necessary. They are both Garmin formats, after all. GTC should accept a GPX file or RoadTrip and BaseCamp should export in the CRS format.
• I discovered after my ride that you can adjust the “course time” by a percentage by pressing the “Power/Light” button.  It would, however, be nice to set edit the course time or average speed of the course within GTC.
• I created the course with no real regard for where I would begin and end (mostly since I didn’t, at that point, know where I was going to park). It would be nice if the Edge would ask if you wanted to set the finish to the current location (as you “entered” the course). If you rode the same course, but started from different points, you’d need to have multiple versions loaded.
• It would be nice if you could adjust the displayed data fields in the Virtual Training Partner and Map pages.

Being somewhat analytical, I obviously enjoy being able to review the heart rate, speed, cadence, elevation, and temperature data. In fact, I’m seriously considering springing for an ANT+ enabled power hub. It’s pretty amazing to consider that this type of data collection and analysis, as recent as 10 years ago, was reserved for the elite or Olympic caliber athlete.

I started off the morning on Jockey’s Ridge flying the Quantum.  With good wind and hardly another soul on the dunes, two hours went by in a flash.  I then slipped in to Kitty Hawk Kites to drop a little cash, grabbed a burger at “Five Guys”, and then headed south to my favorite big beach – the south side of Oregon Inlet just behind the old Life Saving Station.

Against my better judgment, I got out the HQ Beaver IV 5.0 for a little excitement.  After getting my butt dragged around for about 20 minutes, I packed it back up and switched to the smallest kite in my collection – the Prism Micron.  The wind stayed pretty brisk so I even flew the Snapshot 1.2 for a while.

The temperature was steadily dropping so I packed up and headed back to Jockey’s Ridge for one last session.  Unfortunately, the afternoon winds were dying down and they just weren’t quite enough for the Micron.  I didn’t have enough time to switch to the Quantum so I called it quits and enjoyed the beginning of the sunset before heading home.

Once again, another great day on the OBX!

Saturday morning was spent on Jockey’s Ridge once again flying the 1.9 meter power kite.  Around noon it started to get a bit crowded so I headed back to the campground, put on the running shoes and went out for a little jog.  I’m not sure that I didn’t do a bit more walking than jogging – I never really got comfortable on the beach.  There wasn’t very much packed sand and the off-camber shore just didn’t sit well with my calves.  Later that afternoon, I headed over the Oregon Inlet Bridge where there’s a huge open beach area just east of the old Life Saving Station (which, incidentally, is apparently being renovated) and flew the HQ 3.3 meter kite.

Sunday morning found me back on the beach south of the Inlet for another couple of hours of flying. First with the 3.3 meter until the wind picked up and I tuckered out – and then a final session with the 1.9 meter.  Even the Snapshot was pulling me 4 or 5 feet down the beach.

After packing up and checking out of the campground, I parked just east of the Washington Baum Bridge and did a final 20 mile ride through Roanoke Island before heading home.

Beautiful weather, nice bike rides, lots of fun with the power kites – a great start to the 2010 summer season.

Fortunately, we got an early start Saturday morning because we weren’t really that close to the trailhead nor was it particularly easy to find from our direction.  We eventually pulled into the Berry Hollow parking area, loaded up our packs, and hit the trail.  The Berry Hollow fire road, after a little less than a mile, joins the Weakley Hollow fire road to begin the typical Old Rag loop hike.  Fortunately we chose to hike the loop in the clockwise direction as the most challenging section of the climb is from the northern parking area to the summit.  Beginning at about 3 miles and a low point of about 1000 feet, you climb steadily for 4.5 miles to the summit at just over 3200 feet. This is a challenging climb in any condition but add a half inch of ice and the summit becomes a real struggle.  Neither of us brought crampons (chalk that up as a lesson learned) and there were several scrambles that would have been considerably easier (and safer) with them.   The descent is an easy 3 miles dropping 1700 feet back to the trailhead for a total hike of just over 11 miles.

With its proximity to northern Virginia, this is one of the most popular hikes in the Shenandoah National Park and even in January, there were probably a hundred hikers scattered throughout the loop.  I can’t imagine what the crowd would be like during the Spring or Fall. Regardless of the season, I highly recommend this hike.  But, if you have the option, avoid the crowds check it out during the winter – just be sure to bring the crampons!