I stopped by the post office this morning to clean out a week's worth of mail to find my new issue of Bike Magazine.  I have really enjoyed the subscription to this magazine and after seeing the September/October issue I have one more reason to shout, they have dedicated this issue to east coast trails, yes!

The article written by Graham Averill is an excellent account of a 3 day adventure riding the trails of Pisgah and Dupont State Forest.  I have ridden many of the trails that he describes in the article and his account of hike-a-bike climbs or grown over forest roads is spot on.

I saw the first image of the article and immediately said, "that's the end of 5015 where it runs into Bradley Creek Trail!"  That road is a very overgrown forest road that isn't marked at the bottom, so we climbed it with this question in the back of our heads "are we on the right road?". 

That day was a weird one, Bradley Creek Trail begins across the creek and you get to it by going through a campsite.  How we actually found that trail is a miricle.  Bradley Creek has no less than 12 creek crossings and some of which can be deep, and that was before we got rain.  On the way up 5015, back to the car, Stephen ran over a bright shiney new thumb tack that gave him a flat about a mile from the car.  If you knew how overgrown that road is you would understand that no one would need thumb tacks out there, and it was probably placed by a bike hater. 

The article takes a different trail at the bottom of 5015, but Bradley Creek was a short part of their ride anyway.  If you have a subscription to the magazine I hope you enjoy this new issue, and if you don't, pick up a copy because it is full of east coast nods.