Backward Mutters

Soul-shattering. Every year as I prepare to do Mountains of Misery I remember how hard it was last year, or at least I think I do. I always fall victim to understatement. For example, I’m mocked by my friends (and duly so) for saying that the climb up to Mountain…

So how miserable can a bike ride be? Well, pretty miserable. I had forgotten about how hard the climb up Mountain Lake [pictured right] was for a clydesdale such as myself. In talking to my friends who I talked into riding it with me in 2006 my answer to the…

You know, I’m probably the last to figure this out, but there’s a double entendre in “Mountains of Misery.” On the one hand we might understand it as the mountains in which or of which there is misery. But what just hit me is that it’s really MOUNTAINS [as in…

Der Jan and Big Red worked on their mountain base by riding their velos up to Hanging Rock and Sauratown Mt. The 10 mph headwind up to Stokes County made it slow going on the way up, but the return payoff was awesome! This picture of the backside of Moore’s…

I’ve been passing honeysuckle on my rides, and I was reminded of a piece I wrote back in 2004 after a 14 year hiatus from the bike. Here it is in its entiriety. Well, I did it. I mustered up the courage to climb back on my bike. Granted it…