Elliot's Knob

http://app.strava.com/activities/53953556

On Sunday the crew headed out for an epic ride or should I say hike in the Shenandoah area.

The gang rolling down the road.

The ride starts with a nice flat road ride down the valley to Deerfield, VA.  Once you turn off the pavement you start the climbing with a roughly 6 miles long climb. It is at least a gradual climb with plenty of beauty to see.

 At the top you turn to the left and just keep on climbing. Now its grassy double track with some flat sections and some steep near hike a bike sections.

The view from the top

Finally you reach the top at 4,463 feet one of the highest mountains in Virginia. It's also one of the only places  this far south that you will find spruce trees.  At the top is an old fire tower which now houses some telecom equipment.  The wind was howling and the temperature only 60 degrees so we didn't stay to long.

The bikes hanging out

Me chillin at the top.

From the fire tower we turned down Chimney hollow trail. Finally we got a descent after 20miles of pedaling with the next 4 miles being mainly downhill. Of course this single track was full of rocks so by no means was it an easy. Once we hit the next road we crossed straight across and the climbing began once more. It was 2.5miles of grassy double track with three super steep climbs called "The bitches". These climbs were 15-20% grades and went on for what seemed like miles. I managed to make it 3/4 of the way up the first two before walking but couldn't clear any of them.  Most in the group just started hiking at the bottom since it was more effective then trying to ride.

A picture of "bitch" #3. Pictures never show how steep things are!

Finally after all this climbing we got the reward we were after with a three mile single track downhill back to the road. We all agree that while a beautiful ride with some fun sections it's a once a year ride due to all the hike a bike.