Plans modified, but we made it to Asheville

Last night and this morning brought heavy rains to the Sapphire / Cashiers area.  We saw this in the weather forecast yesterday and decided we'd modify our plans if need be.  Much of the route that I planned for today was ridden by us yesterday coming into Sapphire/Cashiers, and it was REAL technical.  We both decided that we didn't really need to do this again, ESPECIALLY in the rain.  This morning we solidified our plan to just visit the best parts of the originally planned route.  To me, that was the two waterfalls.  In fairness, I only knew about one of them but learned about another one just a mile further than the one that I knew about.  So we planned to ride to the two waterfalls, which were "only" 15 miles from the hotel, then turn around and ride about 70 miles to the next hotel (the first 15 would be the opposite of the next 15 - out and back from the hotel, as Asheville was in the opposite direction than the waterfalls.

It was raining pretty hard when we went down for breakfast, so we checked the radar and opted to wait until 11am checkout time before being forced to leave.  It turned out to be a good decision.  We did get rained on, but nothing heavy.  The worst parts were the multiple layers of clothing that we put on expecting cooler weather, which caused us to sweat profusely, and the wet mountain roads.  These roads had sections as technical as the dragon, only WET.  It was tense.  I took it slow and safe.  As safe as possible anyway.  Fifteen miles sounds like nothing, but trust me, fifteen miles on these roads is like a 45 minute roller-coaster ride.  My first goal was to make it to our destinations alive.  We did that.  We met some other cyclists there...two guys on Harley's and a husband and wife on a Harley.  When the one guy saw what I rode down from Chicago on, he looked at me and said, "You're a better man than me".  Hahaha.   Here are some pictures and a video of the two waterfalls that we stopped at.  The smaller on is Bridal Veil falls.  The large one is called Dry Falls.  Watch the video to hear how deafening the Dry Falls are.

Here's the video:

Leaving dry falls to ride the 70 miles to Asheville, we turned back onto the road, with my cell phone in my pocket connected via Bluetooth to my headset barking out directions to me.  Let's just say the GPS directions are not always right.  This time it had me turn left onto a small road, then turn right up what initially looked like a road but it went STRAIGHT UP!  Once I comitted to the turn, I could not just turn around....I had to ride it out.  I rode up this VERY steep hill, thinking about Brian behind me and hoping he didn't follow me. Once I got to a point where I could stop, I was STUCK, at the top of this insanely steep hill.  I had to figure out a way to turn around without falling down.  My bike is so damn TALL with the wider seat, I have very little contact with the ground with my feet.  I'm on tip toes every time we stop.  If we stop on anything but completely level ground, I have to be very aware of how I'm going to put my feet down to stay upright.  With all my gear loaded, the bike is pretty top heavy.  That's how I fell over on it in Bridgeton.  There was no stopping it once it started to go down.  I could NOT afford to have that happen on this steep hill.  I didn't see Brian anywhere, which I was happy for him, but could have used his help to help me turn around.   I was SURE that I was going to fall!  But I slowly allowed my bike to roll backwards, until I felt the back tire hit something solid and stop.  This was good.  I had JUST enough room to go forward and try to turn around.  This was SUPER sketchy, and then coming down this steep, wet, rocky road (it wasn't truly paved), I saw Brian there waiting for me.  He told me later that he didn't know if he'd see me again. Hahaha.  It's easy to laugh about it now, but it was a TENSE moment.  Unbelievable.  I completely ignored the GPS after that and stayed on 64 all the way back to the hotel and beyond, which I knew was correct.  For the record, the GPS DID try to route me incorrectly several times.  Frustrating.

The ride to the hotel was rather white knuckled on wet roads through the mountains.  There were some turns that were marked "15mph" and that was NO JOKE.  Some of them were so long and twisted around so much, it's difficult to believe  that they didn't change our direction.  A single mile on these roads is challenging.  Complete concentration is required.  More than once a truck came into my lane around a curve.  At one point on our way out to the falls, a truck carrying what must have been garbage going the other way had a bunch of it fall out, into my lane.  A pair of pants, a can, and some other garbage.  Had I been there a few seconds earlier, it could have been ugly.  I know I've said it several times on this blog, but riding through those mountains is no joke.  It's been fun, but I have to admit that when we finally hit some straighter roads like what I'm used to, it felt relieving to just open the throttle and cruise comfortably at 65mph for a while.  When we stopped for gas about 13 miles from the hotel,  I had 70 miles on my trip meter for the tank of gas, and put in a little less than 1 gallon.  I'm not good at math, but know that 70÷1=70.  So the last TWO times I gassed up,  I got 70 miles per gallon.   Pretty unbelievable.

We got checked into the hotel in Asheville, then walked about a half mile to a restaurant called Stone Ridge Tavern.  They had GREAT burgers,and Brian tried a few local beers that he said were great.  Later we walked over to an outdoor mall where they had a field and stream store (kind of like a Cabelas), and some other outlet shops.  We also got a $1 ice cream from the McDonalds in the area and walked through the outdoor mall a bit before coming home.  Brian and I found our next vehicles parked there.

We also found something that you NEVER see in the Chicago area:

And just now got back to the room.  Here's the view out our window:

Now we have to figure out what the weather will be like tomorrow.  The only real plans that I have are to visit the DuPont State Forest.  Hopefully the weather cooperates.  After tonight, we spend the next two nights at the same hotel, which will be a nice change from packing up every day.