Bent Creek (Asheville, NC)

On my last day in Asheville I decided to take a solo ride at Bent Creek. The idea was to take fire road climbs to the peak of Hickory Top followed by a scorching downhill on Green's Lick Trail, but my ascent was interruppted by some wrong turns and mistaken trails. I basically ended up hiking through overgrown and underused trail in order to find my way to the top. Once at the peak I took a short ride to the beginning of Green's Lick Trail, the main attraction.



The hard work was immediately rewarded, however, as soon as I pointed it downward and picked up some speed. The trail was phenomenal! It was as fast as you could dream with bump after bump sailing rider and bike into a near-perfect landing just before the next hit. Every corner seemed to have a berm or wall-ride to keep me rocketing towards the bottom too. I reached a rhythm of sucking up about half of each jump and soaring towards the next, landing just long enough to setup for another. The trail was about a mile and a half, but was over in what seemed like seconds. I cut my tire on one of the rocks near the bottom and had to throw in a tube in order to get back to the bus. I took the Lower Sidehill Trail on the way back which offered a bit more excitement and soon after that I was back to the bus and on the road to my next stop - Atlanta, Georgia.