July 31, 2011 – Greenville, SC

Ride Paris Mountain Loop

Well, there were actually not pictures taken from our ride today .. I guess we were all tired from the last couple of days riding! Tom took this picture at the house of a visitor. We had many vistitors like him, not very talkative and not very active, but interesting.

We left the house about the normal time as it was going to be a recovery day The drive to Greenville was slow and had a lot of turns on smaller roads as there was no direct path between the rental house and Paris Mountain where we were going to ride. There also wasn't a lot of scenery so luckily it was a quicker drive than the trip to Georgia yesterday. We parked at the Paris Mountain State Park where we had to pay $2 each to get in. The system was interesting as there was no ranger on duty when we got there so we were on the honor system to put money in an envelope before we entered.

We parking in a lot near the entrance and started to get ready. There seemed to be a lot of mountain bike activity in the park and I think we were the only roadies there. When ready, we exited the park and rode the perimeter mainly along State Park Road until we reached the entrance to the climb. It was a nice climb, not too long and not really steep, but I can't really envision hitting the climb at race pace as they do in the US PRO Championships which are currently run in Greenville. Never mind the all the loops over the mountain.

As with a lot of the climbs, there was no sign at at the top or scenic lookout, so we continued over the top and descended. There was a line drawn on the road saying congratulations, you made it. Not much an accomplishment, but OK, thanks for the congratulations!

While there were no pictures taken, Tom did take his customary ride video while we were on the Paris Mountain climb.

After we finished the short loop and returned to the SUV, we headed into Greenville to get some lunch. We ate at the Carolina Ale House which was on a neat street in downtown that was loaded with restaurants. The area was a good place to walk around since the streets were all tree lined and the shade was welcome. The food was pretty good, we mostly all got burgers and a beer. Paul noticed that on wall above the bar was dedicated to George Hincapie memorabilia which was pretty cool.

After lunch we drive back to the house and everyone welcomed an early day for a change.

We had been pretty lucky at avoiding rain on our trips, but we did get a pretty serious storm just after dinner time tonight. There was some thunder and lightning, but the most amazing part was the wind and rain. I took this video out the front door of the house to capture the chaos!