I was looking forward to riding this route up until Thursday morning when I woke up feeling an old spur in my lower back for the first time in years. I spent several hours in the car between then and the ride and found that my heated seats and lumbar support provided the best relief I could find. Instead of cancelling the ride, I did what I would have done anyway, except I was working on my back in the car while adventuring in the forest with my friends.

I have only ridden this route once, solo, and had been wanting to climb to the top of the fire tower, but was smart enough not to try alone. I was following the group as they looked up at it and looked like they were going to ride by, so I honked a few times and said Yo, we’re climbing that shit. We had a blast even though I still didn’t go past the third platform.

For some reason we sent the heaviest person first, and he made a comment about the tower swaying as he went from the third to fourth platform. I remembered that feeling from last time. As Merrill and Rick got to the fourth platform they pointed out that half of it was missing. That’s when I said I was good with going back down. I had already laughed so hard and the short climb up made my day.

Around mile 36 we got to OC Dobyne Rd. Starting there and for the next 10 miles there were some nasty ups and downs, getting into the higher teens of percent grade. I asked Rick at that point if he agreed that the climb to get to the fire tower was a big psyche out. He did. I think it was at this point that I decided to nickname this route Leg Day.

Rox had noticed that the last climb on the route was Perry Mountain. This was the West approach to climb Perry, which is long and gradual. It is the approach from the South that includes the Perry Mountain fire tower, which comes from Plantersville on the Mulberry Creek Beach Party route, that one is a little worse than any of the monsters climbed today. We’ll do that one again soon.

Once we got to the top of Perry and took a left, there were only a few miles of soft rolling hills on fine crush gravel roads through dense pine lined forest roads left. The ending subtly reminds you how good gravel can be after all the abuse.

I welcomed them in with cowbells at the end and asked them if there was any surface type they could think of that was not included on this route. The answer was no. It truly does have it all, today we saw everything from peanut butter mud to sugar sand, fine crush gravel to baby heads. Insane long descents to climbs that need a beer to describe.

Pics from today: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/c5qmnzfzwc96purctxl7f/ADoax9shU4fju2gvDSl0HKQ?rlkey=tlsoh0cnoj6jw6ydk5jj7l0eu&dl=0