Final Day of Montys Trip

The last morning I was going to rinse my bike off (because it was so filthy and muddy) and possibly change my rear tire (I brought a spare and wanted to get the tube back out of it because it makes the back feel sloppy). Bruce had some bike wash he wanted me to try, so I decided to use it and see how it would do. He told me to spray the whole bike lightly and then wait for 10 minutes. Well I was already behind, so I decided against changing the tire. I rinsed the bike off, dried it and lubed the chain. The wash did a pretty good job, however I don’t know if it was much different than simple green.
I was running a bit late for breakfast at this point so I ran in and ate a waffle and some fruit.

We decided we were going to ride the Pinhoti 3. Originally we were going to start at the bottom and ride up to the top, turn around, and head back down. A couple of the people wanted to get back relatively early so it was suggested we shuttle up to the top and ride down. I have never been shuttled to the top of a hill and somehow felt like we were cheating. I threw my bike in the back of Mitch’s truck (This was hard for me to do, but I tried not to think about it rubbing and scratching against the other bikes on the rough gravel road we had to drive down). At the top, a couple of us went up to the overlook and took a few pictures before heading to the trailhead.

We finally headed to the trailhead and got on the trail. I was lead to believe it was all downhill, but we climbed for a good mile before getting to the downhill section. This trail has a lot of switchbacks and was the most technical we had ridden. I had to put a foot down on a couple of the switchbacks that snuck up on me. The ladies at the MGB told us there was a trail that would bring us right back to camp from the Pinhoti and that they would put a sign out for us to find the turn. Somehow we blew right by it and rode all the way to the bottom. The last section of the trail was relatively steep, so we had a discussion on what we were going to do. About half of us decided to ride back up and take this trail and the others just rode back on the road. The climb back up felt really good and made me feel a little better about the shuttle ride. After about a mile we found the sign. It was an open house sign pointing down into the woods. I looked down the trail and it was a little rough, so I decided to lower my seat for safety. It was covered with leaves and was a steep descent down the mountain. I remember congratulating someone (I think it was Ted) because he had the bike sideways around one of the turns and the next thing I knew I was doing the same thing. This was a very enjoyable little section of trail and I am glad I chose to go back and ride it.

When we got back the ladies graciously offered to warm back up some of the spaghetti for lunch. I took a quick shower first and joined everyone. Shortly after we all packed up and headed home. This was a great trip and I believe they are planning a return trip in the fall. I would definitely recommend that if you missed this one to make the next.