under contract

We are under contract for the property we found in Black Mountain,
NC. Jennifer and I could not be more excited about this!! I don't
have a really good picture of the land, but the shot included here
should give an idea of the deep woods feel it has. We are considering
building a round house from Oregon Yurtworks, you can visit their
site at www.yurtworks.com
We have till mid December to make sure all the standards required to
build are met, then we close! Yea for us!
I went to visit the property with a friend yesterday, and we brought
our road bicycles for a ride in the area. We saw no less than 20
other cyclists while we rode in Black Mountain, and I'm not talking
about some dude on his way to the grocery, I mean serious cyclists in
full regalia. That's out kind of town!!

land deal today

I have not blogged in a while, I know what a slacker. Well, there is
a good reason, we have been busy putting together a land deal in
Black Mountain. OK, that has not taken up all of my time, I am still
a slacker with the blog. The land is 10 miles from Downtown Black
Mountain, and has everything we want: 2 creeks, mountain view, flat
homesite, 5 acres, and best of all....... no neighbors! The bottom of
the land borders a 175 acre land conservation easement, so we are
hoping that no houses will ever be built there, although you could
not see them from the homesite anyway. Mom came out and looked at the
property and really seemed to like it. Bill Reinert came next and
pointed out some really cool options we had not considered.
The area seems to be ideal for cycling, and we are going to give that
a try today with Brian Burns. All in all Jen and I are really excited
about the prospect of building our own private house in the woods. We
both understand that it will be a challenge, and we are bound to
argue about the details, but we have always been able to work it out
in the past, and compromise. I'll post pictures soon.
TC

We made it!

I plan to put a complete write up with pictures and background on my
website, but until then here you go! The Tour de Tuck ended up being
105 miles long with over 11,000 feet of elevation gain. It took just
over 8 hours, and every bit of energy I could muster. I must admit
that I did not think it would be possible to finish when we signed up
for the ride. I trained hard, it made me feel great, so I trained
even harder. The first shot is of us at a field full of Christmas
trees in Little Canada (Jackson county) about 25 miles from the
finish. The second shot is of Jen and I at the finisher party. I
already want to do it again!

Pizza!!

Tonight we are having pizza! This is a special oatmeal whole-wheat
crust with olive oil, garlic, tofu, fresh basil, and tomatos. YUM!
The ride is soon, we only have one more day to rest up. We are both
bursting with excitement.

The ring of hades

Today was our final training/scouting ride in preparation for the big
TdT ride next Saturday. We rode the ring of hades from downtown
Sylva. Here are my stats: Max 46.6 mph, Ave 14.1 mph, Dist 74.01 mi,
5:13 in the saddle, and 6664 feet of climbing. This was really the
best ride I have done all year. The weather was perfect, the route
was super, and the group worked well together. Jen and Deb are really
impressive, I am pretty slow still. Charley's creek was a nice
challange with a 16% grade that lasted for just over half a mile. It
hurt, but my new cranks are made for for it. I must say I am sold, it
is the way to go. The shots are at Richland Balsam, on the way to
215, and Charley's creek. The scenery on Charley's creek is really
beautiful. So much so that you don't even realize you are suffering.
The three of us gave today a thumbs up. Let's see what we say next week.

I've gone compact

Well, after quite a bit of thought, I decided to put a compact
crankset on my bike. With the 34 tooth front and 27 tooth cassette,
it is 34 inches of chain. In layman's terms, that means I will now
have an easier time of it on the climbs. My intent is to remove the
16 on the cassette, and add an 11 tooth. That will give me a bigger
gear than what I had on here before. I bought the crank used from a
nice guy in town, so if it doesn't work, I can return it. Everybody
tells me I will love it, we'll see. I'm going to go give it a try
today, and tomorrow I'll test her out on 6000 feet of climbing.

our strange cat

We have one strange cat, Andrews. Today he got into a gym bag that
was lying on the floor, and refused to get out. Jennifer carried it
around the house to see what would happen, and he just stuck his head
out the top to see where we were taking him.