Weekend Two at The Crash Pad!

We planned a long weekend of riding around staying in Chattanooga, TN at the Crash Pad hostel.  The first day we wanted to hit at least 4 hours at Raccoon Mountain, then head down to Dalton on Sunday to ride the Pinhoti trails west toward the border.

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Everett wanted to stay and study for his last final, which was Monday and work at the bike shop, so we dropped him off at the shop on our way out of town.  Then it was a straight shot up the hwy to Raccoon Mt., where Jansen was sure he got the cold side of the car as we were changing.....brrrrrr.

Jansen tried these new Duro tires.  We love the reverse skunk look they have.

The views were spectacular, as always.

Fun rock drop-offs.

I always love the way this little part of the trail looks.  It feels like you are on another planet.

It was getting pretty dark on the trail as I came around a corner and Chattanooga's lights came into view.  It felt like the whole town was decorated for Christmas.

We only have a little cheap camera, so I couldn't get a great picture of moon over the city, but it was pretty cool.

After our ride we hit Greenlife for some yummy dinner.  The pizza was awesome!

Dessert was a snowman.

Chattanooga was having some sort of holiday celebration and as we drove down main street we saw storm troopers, wing fighters and lots of other characters with no less than 10 Santas.  (it was hard to tell which one was the real one)

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We got a good night's sleep at the Crash Pad and in an odd coincidence I found the same group of young climbers, that I had visited with the last time we stayed at the hostel,  were there again this weekend.  We got up semi-early Sunday morning and drove down to Dalton, then out to the boon-docks to park at the lot for the start of our ride.

The three of us rode together for the first section of the trail and shortly came across this water crossing......Shey said  "sh**, I forgot about this.  It's not really a problem in the summer."  Socks and shoes off and a careful crossing over slick, mossy concrete.

It was freezing, but luckily our legs/feet went numb pretty quickly.

So, 27 miles of great trail that looked barely ridden and service roads.  Lots of climbing in the beginning.  Three sets of sofa/love seats. (we have decided to start taking pictures of all the sofas we see unloaded on the side of the road/trail as we ride...we may make a coffee table book, look for it soon on Amazon)   Amazing views.  More seriously amazing views!  Very happy to have Snickers in my pack.  Worried I had lost the trail several times, but never did.  Everyone back before dark.

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Some vegetation attacked Jansen.

All in all it was another great weekend of riding with the family.