Joey's Bogus Adventure...

Sunday Mandi, John and I headed over to Glady WV. The plan was to ride the Highfalls trail up to the Allegheny Trail. Rail the Allegheny trail over to almost Durbin and then head back on the West Fork Rail Trail. We did just that but there was no railing involved. The trail was super slow rolling with loads of blow downs, a couple active timbering sites and one super steep climb after another. A ride that we estimated would take at the most 5 hours took 8! We took nowhere near enough food but lucky for us there was a supported hike going on Sunday. We rolled into the hiker pit stop over near Gaudeneer and they were pretty blown away that we were trying to ride this particular section of the Allegheny in one day. The hikers were taking three days to hike it. Anyway they had food! We loaded up on snackmix and pretzels and headed down the trail. The last 4 miles was the hardest part of the entire trail. Lots of downhill hiking through big totally unrideable misserably big rocks surrounded by the biggest nettles I have ever seen. The only thing indicating any type of trail was the fact that it was blazed. The last half pretty much screws up the entire trail. The rest of the trail was hard and slow rolling but at least it was rideable for the most part. We popped out to the West Fork of Greenbrier waded across and got on the railtrail of the same name. We had 17 miles to go to get back to the car. We just put are heads down and hammered, by hammered I mean about 12 miles per hour. I bonked pretty hard about 5 miles from the car and John and Mandi waited up and drug me into the finish. We picked a few apples at the trail head pigged out and headed home. This particular secton of Allehgeny Trail is 18 miles of continous singletrack with several gnarly downhills and lots and lots of climbing. Overall its a good ride except for the 2 miles of downhill hiking at the end. Will I ride again, probably, after the memory fades.

Peace, JOEY.