Wilson Creek Gorge NC Gravel Weekend
The plan - Hastily organize a long weekend trip to celebrate Nick’s 50th trip around the sun. It’s not his birthday yet, but major milestone birthdays should be celebrated all year long. Only five of the group could get together on short notice so Nick drove with Ray from Ohio and Adam, Mike and Wes drove in from all over North Carolina.
Nick’s story - Finding myself solo for four days while the family went to New York I figured it was my chance to get some camping and riding in. I was initially looking to head north to avoid the heat, but couldn’t find any good adventure gravel within a 6 hour drive of Athens without heading south or east into the mountains. I finally landed on North Carolina, and after trying to put together a bikepacking route with an insane amount of climbing, Ray talked me down into doing a basecamp in Mortimer and a couple more reasonable routes for someone who isn’t riding every weekend. It also turned out that the heat wasn’t an issue… the weather for this trip was about as ideal as you could get.
Mortimer Campground - On Friday we setup camp and did some sightseeing in the Wilson Creek Gorge and then made dinner. This leads me to our cooking setup in camp. Adam brought his Camp Chef stove with carbon steel griddle. Game on! We had smash burgers on Friday night. For breakfast we used Bojangles biscuits with fresh eggs from Wes and bacon for sandwiches. After we hiked on Saturday night we had brats on the grill and Sunday morning we enjoyed breakfast burritos. Pro-tip - The lights on the outside of the bathroom/shower house were a little bright so we dampened it with a custom cover.
Nick’s story - My standard camp fare is oatmeal for breakfast and rice and beans for dinner, but I was more than happy to let Ray and Adam take the wheel on food. It resulted in some interesting gastric sound effects on the climbs the next day, but fortunately not as bad as Adam’s… (us English majors call this “foreshadowing.”)
Saturday route - Pineola - Reverse
Why is it called Pineola - Reverse? When I mapped out this route the original idea was to climb up Roseboro Rd. and then take the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) over to Pineola Rd. and then bomb down. Who doesn’t like an almost 15 mile downhill? When I sent the proposed route to Shane Cooper at Defeet he sent it back and said reverse it. An almost 20% consistent grade for the second half of the climb is not that appealing for most. So the reversed route is a long mixed grade climb through the rhododendrons on Pineola up to the BRP over to a screaming downhill on Roseboro.
Temps were in the 70’s to start and didn’t really get too hot even with the full sun. We climbed up Pineola in a steady and slow pace only to stop for nature breaks (looking at you Adam) and snack breaks. We regrouped along the way and made our way over to the BRP. Traffic was light but constant as we made our way to the Lost Cove Cliffs Overlook with our packed lunch. We jumped back onto the BRP after lunch and topped out at 4000 feet elevation before dropping down to Roseboro and back on the gravel. Adam and Mike were on full squish mountain bikes and they went first. Wes’ lunchbox kept popping off and ended up in the rear wheel the second time. He also lost a bottle on the washboard further down the hill. Nick and I stopped halfway down to allow a large group of overlanders to pass us on their climb. Roseboro has one climb toward the end and then back onto Edgemont Rd to finish it out.
Before heading back to camp we made a left to head up Edgemont to the famous Coffey’s General Store & Museum. Lots of regional memorabilia including fly fishing history is located here. There are some baked goods, cold drinks and snacks. We sat on the porch enjoying cold drinks and ice cream before finishing out our ride. Wes had to head home after the ride because of a prior commitment on Sunday. I also met Scott from Athens GA who was riding the Gorge to Gorge route from bikepacking.com.
Nick’s story - Knowing that we had a long steady climb on Pineola to start out I didn’t try to break any records and just locked in a steady, sustainable pace early. With only a couple harder kicks the climb was remarkably enjoyable— nothing that kills you or makes you miserable, just a nice workout in some pretty woods. A few glimpses of views through the trees led to many comments from Ray about how awesome the ride is when the leaves are down, which is great except that we were there in the middle of August. I had considered bringing my mountain bike instead of my gravel bike on this trip, and the descent on Roseboro definitely would have been more fun on the mountain bike. I was a little jealous of Adam and Mike getting to really shred that downhill.
Saturday evening hike - Table Rock in Linville Gorge
After the ride we decided to head over to Linville Gorge to hike up to the top of Table Rock to watch the sunset. Getting around the mountains in NC reminds me of visiting WV. As the crow flies the distance looks short and reasonable. But the crows didn’t build the roads so double or triple the time you think it will take to get around. Table Rock is about an hour drive from the campground and we made it just in time to climb up to the summit to watch the sun drop down behind the mountains. We headed back down off the mountain and back to camp for a late dinner of brats with chips & salsa. We also enjoyed a nice bonfire.
Nick’s story - The sunset hike sounded like a great idea heading out but I immediately had two regrets: that I didn’t bring a sweatshirt and I didn’t bring any food. Both proved not to be an issue, although some snacks would have been nice since we didn’t eat until about 10:30. Even with that the trip was worth it, although I will admit to being jealous of the person with a campfire we could see on the other side of Linville Gorge.
Sunday route - Maple Sally 33
Mike and Adam brought their motorcycles and headed out to explore the area as Nick and I jumped on the Maple Sally 33 route. I found the Maple Sally route back in February 2015 while searching for gravel routes near Charlotte NC when I was visiting family. Over time I met the Defeet crew and Luna Cycles (now closed) owners while riding in the Wilson Creek Gorge area.
This time Nick was going to experience the 10+ miles of constant switchbacks and the ride up the gorge. Temps were warmer than Saturday and got hotter and more humid. We stopped about halfway through to eat lunch in the shade. We saw 4 other cyclists on the route. Funny note: we passed my friend Shawn and his wife who owned the now closed Luna Cycles without recognizing each other. I also learned after getting back home that he and his wife jumped on our wheels on the Saturday ride until we peeled off on Pineola. Sorry we didnt get to connect Shawn! For most of my visits Brown Mountain Beach Rd is low traffic but that was in late fall and winter. During the summer the mountain beaches that line Wilson Creek are the perfect day trip for many people and we paid the price by breathing in a lot of gravel dust on our climb up the gorge.
Nick’s story - Even with not enough riding this Summer I felt great on this ride! Overall this route really delivers: a few steep kicks are challenging but nothing will kill your soul, and the descents give you plenty of time to recover. And man, are those descents worth it. I can’t think of a gravel route that was this much fun to just ride. I felt that it was a bit like singletrack with the curving descents, once again making me wish I had my mountain bike. But this route felt great on the gravel bike too. One fun side note: we ran into a couple guys one of whom had a 90s Trek 930 that he had converted to a gravel bike, which led me to rhapsodize for probably too long about how much I missed my long-lost 90s Trek 930. Ray hinted that maybe his bike was my bike, but we confirmed that his was a 1995 and mine was a 1994. Also, he was probably 10 years old when mine was stolen.
Bruce - the owner of Betsey’s
Sunday swim - Wilson Creek Gorge
As we rolled into the Mortimer area we passed Betsey's Ole Country Store & Cabin Rental and stopped to say hi to Bruce, the owner. As always he was in good spirits. If you are in the area stop by and grab some snacks.
As we rolled back to the campground we asked some locals where they would go to get in a swim. They pointed up the road and we realized it was just up the road from campground. We headed over and found a number of locals hanging out in Wilson Creek cooling off and sunning themselves. There were several deeper areas and a natural slide that was fun to try out. I stood in the water and watched the baby trout swimming around in the current.
After some time in the water we headed back to camp to clean up and then on to Blowing Rock, NC for dinner at Blowing Rock Brewing Company for dinner and a beer.
Nick’s story - I’m sure that the locals had a good laugh at the two 50 year old guys jumping off the rocks with the kids, but if you can’t have that sort of fun at any age, what’s the point of making it to that age? It also gave one of the kids a chance to “push” the old guy off the rock. I’m pretty sure that made his day.
Monday drive home - Defeet Clubhouse in Hickory, NC
After some coffee in camp we broke everything down and hit the road. Our route took us over to Lenoir, NC and then down to Hickory, NC. We stopped by the new DeFeet Club House located at 706 Main Ave NW, Hickory, NC 28601. We got a quick tour from Rob and he said that more bicycles are being added to their history section. All of their products were represented and they even have a cappuccino machine at the bar.
