Saturday, November 26, 2011

Best Ride on the West Side

(electric neon purple light saber effects!)

I have found it!  If Ross decides to ever run the ride contest, I have the winner.  :)

The video is just a piece of it, from just west of the intersection of Old Charlotte Pike and Buffalo Road (I pulled off onto Buffalo Road to set up this clip) to a bend on Sears Road that starts back northeast, just after descending several hundred feet into the valley.

This is the map for the whole ride. Yes, there's some doubling back, but that is to avoid the more boring parts of Sam's Creek Road and River Road (while some of both are unavoidable, the parts those routes get you to are worth the price of admission).
 
About 90 minutes of riding, and I added 20 minutes to take photos and generally dick around. Details:


1.) Wiley Pardue Road. Home of "The Duck." Norm thinks it's too rough, and on 10" wheels, maybe it is!  But on 16" wheels, no problem. The longest, most-fun road I know of, locally. It's in Cheatham County, btw. I was introduced to this road by Matt Barker.
2.) Dry Creek/Gibbs Road. New route for me, today. A great way to avoid some boring Sam's Creek/River Road riding. Man, this is a nice ride!
3.) Little Pond Creek Road. It doesn't last long, but it's an exciting ride.
4.) Sears Road/Old Charlotte Pike. Another new route for me, today, and it's a twisty, hilly ride. Awesome!
5.) Old Charlotte Pike. Mini "tail-of-the-dragon" riding, and between that and the southernmost end of section #4, what made up the video above, riding east to west.

Trust me: #2 and #4, y'all are gonna thank me for finding.  :)  The Trace has nothing on this stuff.

I can't tell you how jazzed I am to have put this one together after only three attempts at finding "the best ride on the west side." I think most of you will agree, this is a good way to blow a couple of hours when the weather's nice.

Tech details: Camera was a Canon Powershot A1200, mounted on a cheap tripod, mounted horizontally with bungee cords at the front of my P250's floorboard, with the camera sticking out to the port side about 12". I was cautious on left-hand curves, as I was really afraid of losing the camera.  :)  Map by MyTracks for Android.

Bike tech: Around 2:23 in the clip, I realized I was having vapor lock issues, as I slowed for that gnarly curve. You can really hear it as the bike nearly stalls at exactly 6:00, as I turn right from Old Charlotte Pike onto Sears Road. That's why I ended the clip where I did -- I had to shut the scooter off to pop the fuel cap, and that's what I did right then and there.
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