Pisgah Epic

Our pri­vate shut­tle will meet you at the Asheville Region­al Air­port and dri­ve the group to our hotel in Bre­vard. If you are arriv­ing by vehi­cle you can check-in after 3:00 pm.

We’ll enjoy a meet and greet and cock­tail hour at this hotel this evening.

We’ll start today with break­fast at the hotel, then shut­tle to our first Pis­gah trail ride: Cove Creek and Daniel Ridge. This is the clas­sic Pis­gah warm up. It starts with a gen­tle climb on sin­gle-track to the Cove Creek trail­head. Cove Creek is a nice grad­ual climb for a few miles along a clas­sic old school con­tour trail into the forest. 

We’ll turn onto what was once For­est Ser­vice Road 225, now main­ly sin­gle-track, and fol­low this rolling trail through the for­est to Daniel Ridge. Then we can either descent the cov­et­ed “rocky side” of Daniel Ridge or take the not-so-smooth “smooth” side down. A mile on grav­el gets us back to the rolling sin­gle-track back to the car. 

After break­fast at the hotel, we’ll pack up and hop in the van to head into the Pis­gah. After a cou­ple miles of pave­ment along the David­son Riv­er we will turn off and start a ~5 mile climb on for­est ser­vice road to Buck­horn Gap. 

A few miles of back­coun­try con­tour miles will take us across Buck­horn Gap trail to South Mills Riv­er trail which con­tin­ues along the South Mills Riv­er to the start of the famous Squir­rel Gap trail. “Squir­rel” is per­haps some of Pisgah’s most quin­tes­sen­tial old school sin­gle-track dat­ing back to the great depression. 

The 8 miles across Squir­rel bring us to the boun­cy tech­ni­cal descent on Mul­li­nax trail down to South Mills Riv­er. After cross­ing the riv­er, we’ll have a cou­ple miles up to the Turkey Pen park­ing lot where the van will be wait­ing with plen­ty of cold beers. 

We’ll eat break­fast at the hotel and then we’ll take a break from the roots and rocks of Pis­gah and head over to DuPont State park for a big loop tak­ing in all the best trails. We’ll hit all the high­lights like Ridge­line, Burnt Moun­tain, Lau­rel Moun­tain, Airstrip, Cedar Rock, and Big Rock (slick­rock of the east). The rid­ing here is gen­er­al­ly less tech­ni­cal and faster rolling with short­er climbs.

After break­fast, we’ll head to Avery Creek and Ben­nett Gap. This is a locals’ favorite that hits some of the burli­est stuff out there but starts with a nice warm-up on a grav­el road. We’ll roll out from the hotel and after cou­ple of miles on pave­ment start our 5 mile climb up Avery Creek Road to the “Club Gap” trail. 

Club Gap is one lung-burst­ing chunky mile to the start of the locals’ favorite DH run of Avery Creek trail. Avery has recent­ly been reworked with added fea­tures (rollers, berms, rock moves, and gaps) all the way down to the creek some 5 miles below. 

Back on Avery Creek Road, we’ll climb back up a cou­ple more miles to the trail­head at Ben­nett Gap. Ben­nett Gap has some of the tough­est lines in Pis­gah and a cou­ple of rock moves that are Expert+. Ben­nett con­tin­ues down a few more miles with some rooty drop sec­tions and a cou­ple of tough climbs (hike-a-bikes). For those who sim­ply can’t get enough, we can add anoth­er ~3 mile climb up and tag on the low­er “black moun­tain trail”.

Today is a mix of old-school Pis­gah and new-age trail redesigns. The ride starts with a grav­el road climb up to Spencer Gap trail. Spencer starts steep then backs off with some nice fun rolling ter­rain and small­er rock gar­dens. At the top, it’s a fun row­dy descent on the recent­ly re-worked Spencer Branch trail with hip jumps, berms, and plen­ty of flow. 

At the bot­tom of the descent, we roll some undu­lat­ing for­est road a cou­ple of miles to Fletch­er Creek trail. After a short climb, there’s an all-out fast and flowy sec­tion to the bot­tom of the road. Then we’ve got a cou­ple of miles to climb back up to the Trace Ridge park­ing lot where we’ll ride Trace ridge down the moun­tain and across North Mills Riv­er to the park­ing lot.

Today is an Epic ride — one that will leave the locals who hear of it drool­ing. Usu­al­ly, you have to pick either Heart Break Ridge or Kit­suma unless you’re pre­pared for a mon­ster grind between the two. Lucky for us, we have a shut­tle so we’ll get to do both trails with­out the extra pain. 

We’ll get the added bonus of start­ing the fun from Mount Mitchell, the high­est point East of the Mis­sis­sip­pi, and drop­ping all the way down to Old Fort, NC at the base of the Appalachi­an escarp­ment. This is the mag­ic of an all-inclu­sive moun­tain bike hol­i­day. You get to do such deca­dent rides such as this.

For those who want it all, we’ll shut­tle from Black Moun­tain to Mar­shall, NC and Bai­ley Moun­tain Bike Park. This is a shut­tled-access bike park fun for all skill lev­els. For those who do not want to ride, you can tour around the streets of vibrant Asheville. We’ll all meet up at the hotel for a cock­tail hour before cut­ting folks loose for explore the many restau­rants, bars and brew­eries the make Asheville so unique.

THIS IS A GROUP DINNER NIGHT, RIGHT??

When it’s all over, we’ll pack up bikes and enjoy one last break­fast togeth­er in Asheville before start­ing Asheville Air­port drop-offs.