Farewell to summer

Passenger!

two's company

Blue Ridge

January 27th, 200 miles. When hobbies collide

Cold, but happy.

Billy and I rode our bikes to Carter's Lake Dam, one of our favorite flying spots, to slope soar but this time was going to be different.    We flew the dam from the WRONG side !!!! It never really warmed up as expected, but  a good day of flying.
Video of Billy flying here.
I would consider it a success, I think Billy agrees.  I like trying something new, figuring out what WON'T work and maybe figuring out what WILL work.  Not typical dam flying but there was some weasel to weasel contact and weasel to pilot contact.  Here is my report with some observations.  Wind forecast was out of the east about 10 mph.  Didn't take a wind anemometer but if I had to guess it was a little less for most of the time but there were a few short burst that probably got over 10 mph.   We started out with minimal success,  I landed a foot from the water on my first throw!  I actually thought it went in the water because it went just out of sight behind a large log where waves were coming to shore.  More throwing and retrieving followed.  Wind was kind of off and on.  Every turn was "earned", body English, sweet talking, just barely breathing on the sticks to turn.  With enough trial/error the flights got longer, the lift seemed to be very narrow and directly over the guard rail.

I think part of the initial problem was once down to guardrail level I kept trying to fly the dam and I attacked it similar to the big side by continuing to fly and hoping for some lift but 95% of the time if you got below the guardrail there wasn't much saving or working it back up.  It almost seemed as flying in sink,  many times I got down to that level and tried to work close to the face but just ended up dragging the tail and pigging around till the inevitable "landing" occurred.  After some more flying we got a little better.  Later in the day I think we got careless and started landing out frequently but the wind was still moving across the water pretty good?   What gives?  We had been talking and inching closer which put our flying just a few feet out past the guardrail.   Took about 10 steps back and WALLAH sustainable flight again.  With some testing the lift was pretty narrow and pretty much on top of the dam between the guard rail and the double yellow line.  I had planned a long route for riding but we ended up spending most of the afternoon flying at the dam so we took the same road back home.   Highway 136 was a nice road and would probably be even better in the fall.  We have had some cold weather lately and there was still a lot of salt on the road which made for an extra cautious ride to and from the dam.

Route

December 9th, less than 200 miles

Billy and I tried to do a ride today but the weather did not shape up as expected.  The forecast was to be warm and overcast.  We meet at Riders Hill but it was a lot wetter than the forecast predicted.  About 15 miles before arriving it started getting damp and misty and upon arrival there were puddles and rain coming down.  We waited around for a while trying to work up the motivation to ride but the weather wasn't showing any signs of improvement.  After it was clear the weather wasn't getting any better we decided to go for it.  We made it to Neel's gap but the weather was so wet and foggy up there that it was NO fun.  We pulled into the parking lot of Neel's gap, didn't even turn the bikes off and decided to call it a day because the ride up was terrible and visibility was very low.  I took a detour on the way home because as soon as I started going south again the clouds opened up to blue sky's and warmed up.  route When I got home it was nearly 70 degrees and sunny in December!  This was about 180 degrees from the weather I was just in an hour or two earlier and 85 miles north.  Oh well, probably would have been completely different riding day if I had gone any direction but North! 

November 11th 240 miles

Today I rode with a group of 3 other people it was myself, Billy, Randy, and Stacey.  This is the first time I've ridden with anyone other than Billy so I wasn't sure what to expect.  Randy and Stacey ride quite a bit and travel with there bikes to TN, NC.  They have put around 10,000 miles on their bikes in a years time which puts the few miles I've logged, around 1,000 miles thus far to shame.  It's also pretty impressive because they haul their bikes on some weekends to locations and then ride from there for a day or two so the mileage is not from interstate riding but actual twisty road riding.

We all met at Riders Hill to start the day off.  After some quick introductions Randy was happy to lead the pack for the day since Billy and I are not in the habit of discussing/planning a route before we ride.  I'm writing this two months after the ride so I can't recall all of the route.  Additionally, I was just following and not giving too much thought about where we were riding but I think this is most of the ROUTE.