After my quick trip to Nashville for a Hell of the South pre-ride, I turned around & made the trip back to Syllamo for some MTB riding. Yesterday, I didn’t have time for anything long since there was a storm front approaching. So, I headed out for a quick trip around the Bad Branch trail. Several times, I found myself bombing down the trail with the song “Super Villain” (Powerman 5000) blaring in my head. Fun times! That loop is the final 12 miles of trail in the Syllamo’s Revenge MTB race, so I’m hoping to have it perfectly nailed by the time that race rolls around so that I can go faster while being kinda out of it at the end of the race.

Afterward, Turbo and I sat on the porch and watched the storm rolling over the mountains…

This morning (and most other mornings), the river was covered in a thick cloud. I never get tired of it…

Since there was a pretty bad downpour last night, I figured I’d stick to the forest roads. I put together a route that ended up not working as planned (surprised?!?). Here’s a photo of the road between Gunnar Pool and Barkshed, which first crossed Syllamore Creek (yes, I ended up putting BOTH feet in the water) and ended up being on private property in a cow pasture…

So, I ended up climbing back out of Gunnar Pool and taking a detour to get back to Barkshed campground where I wanted to take Barkshed Road to Push Mountain road… lo and behold, Barkshed Road was closed. I’m thinking “Sweet! No traffic!” However, it hadn’t been cleared since the ice storm- the first half mile or so was covered in downed trees, so I figured that if I wanted to be back to the car before dark that I’d need to turn back & detour again.

So after 2 kinda big detours (both involved a bit of climbing back out), I ended up with a little over 4 hours of riding. Time to head to the nearest non-dry county…