Great Eastern Trail - Bicycle Route

The crew starts out on the New River Trail

Chris drops in on a sweet section of the Highlands Horse Trail

A little singletrack break on the Iron Mountain Trail just south of Skulls Gap

Kelly rolls along on the Iron Mountain Trail south towards Damascus

Just got off the Trans Iron Mountain ride with Darrell Prillaman and his crew. They orchestrated a three day ride that started on the New River Trail and ended in Damascus, VA. The route is very nice and looks to be our best Great Eastern Trail Bicycle Route connection to get around the GET bike unfriendly zone of Peters Mountain and the AT. From Blacksburg you can head into Pandapas Pond, cross the New River (not a good legal route on Walker Mountain yet), so you can ride back roads over to the New River Trail. The NRT connects to the Highlands Horse Trail (a few sections are not open to bikes). The HHT connects to the Iron Mountain Trail that drops you into Damascus, VA "Trailtown USA".

SOOOOOOOOOO nice!! (thanks for the extra pics Kelly)

Great Eastern Trail Build On Carr Mountain

What a great feeling creating a new long distance route along the East Coast that will be open to bicycles unless the route is already closed to bikes such as in Wilderness Areas or National Parks and even in those places we will have out ride around routes.

The Carr Mountain Trail connects the Lee Ranger District and the North River Ranger District in Virginia's George Washington National Forest.

Great Eastern Trail

The Great Eastern Trail south of RT 55 is in fantastic shape.  Pat, Sue, Tim, Posner, Nate, and Tony headed out there a few weeks ago to scout out the trail and ride the County Line Trail, to Pond, to Little Stoney--the climb up Pond is nasty, especially when it's hailing and thundering. 

Great Eastern Trail

This weekend is the Great Eastern Trail build on Carr Mountain. My bike club the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition is heading out to assist. We have Rich Edwards of IMBA Trail Solutions who has advised on route layout coming out with us too. We also have Terry Slater from our local USFS office coming out to volunteer on his own time because he thinks this project is so neat - how cool it that!

 

Tom Johnson of the PATC has his brain trust attending as well. Mark Gatewood who maintains most of the trails in the Ramsey's Draft Wilderness area and Lloyd MacAskill who is one of the GET visionaries and a long time PATC workaholic.

 

The Carr Mountain trail looks to be a wonderful section of the GET Bicycle Route as it develops. I think it will be looking as amazing as this section of the GET Bicycle Route does on the County Line Trail about 50 miles north of Carr Mountain. Carr Mountain Trail is one of 2 missing segments in the central section of this already ridable 150 mile section of the GET Bicycle Route.  

Stokesville Douthat Stokesville Trail Mission

Carpenter and T Brown pulled the load up onto Middle Mtn and then we slid on south to brush and clear Fore Mtn. Trail. Now we have a goal for day 1. We gotta ride it all the way out to the southern end of of Middle Mtn. on Fore Mt. Trail.

This is the wide open trail ready to roll

Grand Tour Training!

Darrell Prillamen or Dirty D as he is known by his compadres' on the grand tour circuit gets busy doing step up's at Chrisscottistan

he is a one day classic ace

and a certified and bonefied trail tuner

the day after tuning this trail Darrell took it to his homies with his mortal class victory at the Dragon's Tale 40 miler in New Castle, VA

The "Tail" was soooo sweet, that the "Tale" has become an instant "Classic"

Jeff Schalk has done his preperation again for 2009 - as he blasted the course right quick!

Carp and Kyle played out a nice memorable finish as Kyle's cramps let Mike rip the final singletrack uncontested for 3rd.

Dirty D came through like a champ after doing trailwork all day prior to the event.

Misty Tilson rode herself hard all day for victory while Whitney March overcame some bike issue to make it to the finish in 2nd place

Nice work everyone!! - Brock, Aimee, Ben, Anne, Skip, Doc George, Debbie, Jeff, Ryan, Mike, Kari, Adam and last but not least Charlie Sloss for the wonderful area to hang out all weekend on Craigs Creek. Huge props to the local shops East Coasters and Just the Right Gear for getting together and providing participants one of the most tasty post race beverages we could have hoped for and for rewarding the key volunteers with some shop credit for helping to pull the event together to showcase the trails and the cycling community to all.

Dragon's Tale Mission

it was a brutal day in the rain

it rained all day

the trails will still be riding great

check out this new trailwork backpac set up

its a hybrid blend - Jansport/daKine

thanks Matt Smith and Wilderness Voyagers in Harrisonburg