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FREAK RACE SERIES







I’ve been drumming up Rocky fork as a legit mtn bike destination for some time now. I used to get up there with my best high school friend and dad a reasonable amount back in those days. With a recent land acquisition Rocky Fork was again thrust into the news and it seems finally this pristine area is now under the watchful eye of some people who won’t develop it. Abby and I took off for a day to do some exploratory riding in the old stomping grounds.
One thing I failed to recognize is that in 10 years a lot can change on trails. New ones are opened and old ones are allowed to revert back to a more primitive status or disappear completely. The latter was true of much of my childhood memories for the day, but now I have a good feeling for the lay of what is still a viable option and what is not for riding. I’m hoping to lead some folks around in a month or so to check out what the area has to offer. One word of caution I will offer is that Rocky Fork is not for beginners, especially some of the older trails. I become intimately familiar with what a true rock garden and creek bed riding is by the close of our riding. Flowing single track and easy riding are not hallmarks of this primitive wilderness’s trails system. That being said the ride was a blast and the lush forest was a welcome change to the norm.

Which in some place has become the creek as the trails has been so eroded that it's actually lower that the level of the creek bed.
We finally turned off of the creek trail and headed up to the ridge. It's called the stairway to heaven here for a reason. This steep grade is probably not ridden/ hiked much because of it's difficulty and as such had lots of overgrowth on it.
We finally cleared the wet areas where the nettle was prolifically spread and enjoyed a few miles of ridge riding before dropping into the next water shed area.
This was interesting we saw plenty of fresh bear scat and prints, but never the bears. My parents on the other hand had a close encounter with a bear when our dogs treed a cub and the mother nearby became very agitated. They had to run for about a mile to get away from the area and luckily everyone was ok.
First order of the day was to look a flight patterns and try to sit where the birds were coming in. Hard to find spots when every person that hunts in Knox county converged on the fields. It was unbelievable to see and hear the number of shotguns.
We eventually settled on a thin line of trees bordering the large main fields and a back field where some guy was using a "roto dove" decoy.
An hour or so in...Ahh smell of cordite and a little blood means things are going well. We held our own against the onslaught for a few hours.
Dove hunting is mostly waiting followed by intense sessions of biological bombardment which inevitably involve a few "Kevlar" birds and lots of laughing.
Boogy soon learned where all the fetch fodder came from. We also found out that he is definitely not gun shy...falling asleep once between volleys.
The tat arm warmers are once again back in season in the morning commute.
Every now and then I find myself riding across the giant Alcoa ped bridge. Sometimes I forget how nice it is living near a river.
Lots of Herons out below getting breakfast.
I lost against both a fleck of frame rust hitting just right and the rain.
Sometimes you start in the rain...but there's a bright side to every commute.
Ok some more than others.
I always follow the signage.
Everyone got crunk afterwords...Phil.
After not having a lot of time over the summer to stretch out and relax a few weeks back Abby, Boogs, and I ran off for her B-day weekend for a little R&R at the beach for 3 days. We had lots of fun and got a much needed reprieve from the somehow busy components of our lives. We're fortunate enough to have a place to go where there are few people and lots of nature on the Coast so it's even more relaxing. Here's some photos from our trip...
The clouds made for lots of neat contrast. In a deeper tidal pool like this I had a closer than I would have liked encounter with a Bonnet head shark that brushed up against my leg. Some mom on the beach was squawking at her kids about a shark but people usually confuse them with dolphins around the island so I didn't give it a second thought. Should've listened to that mom...
In the spartina salt marshes I did a little sampling and took some grass back to one of my colleagues on our floor for research purposes. He's looking for lignocellulosic degraders of lignin and I supplied him with many pounds of spartina after wading through thick marsh mud and cutting a few trash bags worth for him. It's drying out on the roof of my building now as I type.
Funny/neat Dolphins stories...We saw some Dolphins wrangling fish up and forcing them onto steep banks of the spartina marshes. It was really amazing and I unfortunately didn't get a picture of them doing it. Pelicans would in turn also wait on the shore where the breeches were occuring and would get anything the Dolphins missed. The banks were steep enough that the Dolphins could kick and roll back into the water. The lower tidal creeks seemed to concentrate the fish for them as well. Above is a baby I'm assuming was learning the pod trade.
This is what I thought that mom was squawking about but it was in fact a shark not a Dolphin fin as pictured here. This Dolphin came over to our shore and was quite curious about Boogy. You could see it rolling on its side to take a look at him. I jokingly asked Boogs "what's that?!" like I always do to get him excited and the unintended consequence was that Boogy tried to retrieve the Dolphin, which was now about 15 feet off the shoreline. He jumped headfirst into the tidal creek and I thought for a second Boogy was going to be killed by flipper, as Dolphins can be quite brutal when provoked.
The biggest chicken tractor we have seen in some time. This one had about 150-200 Rhode Island Reds in it with shaved beaks. If I ever have land and a tractor...I will build on the these suckers. It was massive.


