Creeks in NC

Day 2 in Asheville... Most important task for Day 2 was to get to a Waffle House. Art had been chatting up this Waffle House thing for about 800 miles of drive time in the car trip down. Every Waffle House sign was a major scenic attraction. Each siting brought forth another story about a Waffle Hose visit or a how Debby made the best waffles and generally if we are not eating waffles, we could never reach our true cycling potential. I googled Waffle Houses....8 bazillion hits. Strangely enough, there was a Waffle House just 1.3 miles from the rental house. We're off to eat waffles. We get there and immediately i'm reminded that we are in North Carolina. The folks are quite friendly, but folks smoke in eating establishments. Something we will have to get used to. Well Art announces that we are from New Yaawk and that we traveled all the way down here for waffles. The waitress seemd impressed because we got some pretty decent waffles soaked in warm syrup plus a care package of Waffle House calendars, Waffle House toy footballs and all sorts of Waffle House stuff. Cool.

But we are really down here to ride. We decided upon a relatively easy ride of 43 miles called Ben's Ride 43. It starts at the Liberty Bike Shop, where we go inside and again announce that we're tourists from New Yaawk and we show the nice young man at the desk this map... he smiles and says, " this is a great ride and i'm Ben". This too is very cool. We chat some and then we are off.

The weather is warm and sunny. The roads are busy around Henderson but as we progress further out of town the roads become quiter and always rolling. First we pedal along side Avery Creek, then Bent Creek. The scenery is interesting, with the woods just starting to bud fresh greenery, yet the tress are all still without leaves providing great views of the hills and we can spot houses tucked into the hills everywhere. Then its Hoopers Creek, then Powder Creek. Somewhere mid-ride we connect with a couple of guys from Cane Creek out on their lunch break. We learned that Cane Creek is located on Cane Creek Rd not very far from where we are staying. Towards the end of the ride we are treated to a stepped climb up Rose Rd. This climb was not too tough but it made us all work and sweat. It felt good to sweat some under the warm sun. I learned later that it snowed at my house back in NY. Oh well.

There are Awesome views everywhere. After about 3 and half hours we were back at Liberty, which is a very impressive shop. I love my LBS ...CK Cycles, but that Liberty shop was neat. I'm sure i'll be back there and i understand that they accept credit cards.

Back at the house, Art and i decide to traverse one more Creek... Cane Creek, the same Cane Creek that builds wheels and components. Plus, we wanted to scope out a ride that we could do from the house that would get us out of the busy area that we were in. We made it out to the shop but the roads were not all that great and we turned around to get some food. We did a good 4 and a half hours today. It was all good, no problems, mechanicals, or aches and pains! pretty good for a pack of old guys.