My brother, Nabil, was down yesterday so I threw an impromptu ride together on his behalf. I wanted to show him Heaven or Hell. Larry and Martin came over to help ready my bike which is still having issues. Once we thought we had it back together, we headed out to Mont Alto State Park. About 50 meters into Park Trail, I realized I was in for a rough ride. My chain was jumping, shifting poorly, loose hub, etc. - you know same as HO-fest and the Stoopid 50. I hobbled up the buckets, broke a quick link, fixed it, then Larry and I took Staley over to upper Turtle. Nabil and Martin rode Charcoal Hearth over to Staley. Larry let me sample his SS 29'er on the climb up Turtle to Wayne's Highway. Survey says: incredible. Had to climb out of the saddle because of the set-up - which meant fast. The big wheels were awesome, throw some gears on there and wow! I broke my chain again going down the Middle Narrows, this time we didn't use a quick link and it was much stronger for the duration. Lee's Rocks over to Heaven or Hell. The Gate was unrideable for me given my gear situation but everyone else rides it. Nabil rode it clean on his first attempt - something noone else has ever been able to do! Martin was liking HorH much more this time than his previous run.
Nabil rides the ramp (above).
Nabil at the foot of the ramp
Larry tries the lower level of Hell, how many levels did Dante say there were? 
He almost makes it - but not quite. Taking advantage of the horsepower on this ride. We stop to build a little optional rock thing about half-way down that I have been thinking about for awhile. We have a blast riding pretty much everything else clean. The lower section by the river is all rideable, a little obscufated in places but several of us clean it.
We session a bit at the final river crossing. Nabil survives what could have been a horrible crash down the rocky stream bed and gets back up to clean it on some ridiculously high route with a 90 left-hander in front of the cliff face.
At the end, we play on some recently cut logs near the mushroom pavillion, wish we had brought beers, and reminisce about the fine riding we just had. I go home and later, after dinner, purchase a whole new drivetrain.
3 comments:
HandH looks clean did you do some trail maintanance or just riding it more??
Josh
Both. We did some work, including an extension, but mostly people are riding it. Several have said that it is one of the best pieces of singletrack in Michaux. How about that?
Check out the MBM blog for more pics of HorH.
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