Mountain biking, eating and tasting beer in Asheville, NC

It’s the perfect time of year to ride in the Pisgah National Forest!

Working and doing online classes at Odd’s Café in West Asheville. Good coffee at a very decent price and great atmosphere. Dogs everywhere! We loved it.

FOOD!! Hole donuts (made fresh in front on you!), Asheville sandwich company’s shoestring fries and Chai Pani (Indian street food).

West Asheville art and delicious ice cream at The Hop.

The Oysterhouse (West Asheville): dusted and fried oyster with blue cheese and lemon zest; Fish and chips.

Wicked Weed Brewery and beer tasting at the Funkatorium.

Avery Trail in Pisgah.

Just like Bend, OR, and Boulder, CO, Asheville, NC, is among the top cities where everybody wants to move. And for good reasons. It is surrounded by world-class hiking and mountain biking trails, and has a definite liberal vibe with a big LGBTQ+ community, a strong local movement, a big artistic and musical scene, over 30 microbreweries (in a town of a little over 90,000 people! That’s a lot of beer drinkers per capita!) and amazing restaurants with tons of vegan/food intolerance options. Oh, and it’s super dog-friendly (coffee shops, restaurants, trails, etc.).

Needless to say, the city is bursting at the seams. Obviously, we were here during one of the busiest times of the year (fall colors), but I heard locals say that the traffic has gotten simply insane in the last few years. 

Even if the cost of living is not cheap and there is definitely a housing crunch in Asheville, it is still about half of the cost of places like New York City and the Bay Area. However, the economy is mostly service-based and poverty and homelessness are rampant. We saw lots of people sleeping in their cars in parking lots at night and lots of squatting spots around town.

It’s easy to forget that we are in the South, but stepping out of town reminds you quickly that you are indeed not in California. 

Downtown Asheville is very cute, but parking is no fun. Get there early or be ready to be patient! West Asheville is really a fun laid back neighborhood that can be a good option on busy nights to avoid downtown.

FOOD AND BEERS

Here are a few of the places we loved:

The Oysterhouse - Good beer and delicious and affordable food in West Asheville. The girls ordered fish and chips and they had 3 pieces + fries for $12!!

Hole Doughnuts - Simply the best donuts ever. Made fresh right in front of you. They have 4 flavors per day and drip coffee. That’s it. When you do something well, there’s no need to expand your offering. It’s a very cute little spot, but you might leave smelling of donut grease!

The Funkatorium - It’s an off shoot of Wicked Weed Brewery, where they serve their sour and funky beers, along with some tasty food. Try their fried sweet potato burger and their arancini as an appetizer.

The Hop - Great ice cream, not too sweet, lots of vegan and sugar-free options. There are 3-4 locations across town. If they have their Bees Knees flavor, try it!

Odd’s Café - in West Asheville, very good coffee at a reasonable price, beautiful place where to work. The Asheville Sandwich Company is just next door for a quick meal (they are known for their Banh Mi and shoestring fries)

 Goodwill outlet in West Asheville 

For next time (or for you if you go!):

-The Wedge Brewery

-Thirsty Monk Brewery

-Chai Pani - Indian Street Food (they don’t take reservation and there’s often a long wait, so plan accordingly). Things to order there: Sev Potato Dahi Puri, Pani puri, Bhel puri, Butter Chicken Thali and their Mango lassi.

-White Duck Taco (River Arts District Location)

-French Broad Chocolate Lounge - They offer 30 min tours for $6 per person (including a chocolate tasting). We wanted to try their liquid truffles as per our friend recommendation.

And more breweries recommended by our friends from Live Small Ride Free:

Highland Brewery, Green Man Brewery, Hi-Wire, Burial, One World, Asheville Brewing Company, Sierra Nevada (in Mills River), and Oskar Blues (in Brevard).

MOUNTAIN BIKING

 There is so much riding in the Pisgah National Forest! There are tons of ways to connect trails and it is possible to do very long rides. One thing that might surprise some is that a lot of the up tracks are gravel roads. All the good riding is South of town.

Bent Creek area

The biggest issue with Asheville is that there is no cell signal at the trailheads. We are used to park the bus at a trailhead and take turns riding while part of our group works or do school. Being on the East Coast is much trickier schedule-wise for us. The closest trail network from town is Bent Creek and is therefore always busy. We were quite surprised to find the parking lot full on a Wednesday morning. It really reminded me of Boulder, where it seems like nobody works and just hang and have fun.

A few of the trails/rides not to miss at Bent Creek:

Green’s Lick (fast flowy downhill)

Ingles Field Gap Loop (in MTB project)

For an easy exploration ride, check out Pisgah Area SORBA Beginner’s Loop (in MTB project)

For a longer ride, check out Bent Creek Epicito route (in MTB project)

Where to sleep in Bent Creek/West Asheville :

Lake Powhatan Recreation Area is right in the middle of the trails, but the signal is spotty. We were able to work from the Big John Loop (1 to 2 bars 4 G LTE).

Another (free) option is the Cracker Barrel in West Asheville on Crowell Road. The nights were pretty quiet even if the lot is not exactly leveled. 

Brevard/Pisgah area

We found one great spot right by the Brevard trails and the Hub bike shop where we could park the bus and ride right from our door. It is a huge parking lot (look up Walmart Brevard on Google Maps), but it is forbidden to spend the night there.

From there, it’s easy to ride the Black Mountain Trail and the Thrift Cove/Sycamore Cove Trails.

For longer, more challenging rides, this is the place. Here are a few trails that shouldn’t be missed:

Squirrel Gap Trail

Laurel Mountain/Pilot Rock trail

Avery Creek Trail

Trace Ridge Trail 

Where to sleep in Brevard/Pisgah:

Davidson River campground (in the Pisgah National Forest): signal is spotty, but we found out that sites 1 to 11 had good enough signal for work.

Dispersed camping in the Pisgah National Forest: free, no signal, right down the road from the Davidson River Campgrounds (check iOverlander for exact coordinates). First come, first serve basis, 14 nights maximum. Right off the road, but have a fire pit and some with picnic tables. The road is pretty quiet at night. There are some beautiful spots by the creek for smaller rigs and you can ride right from your site.

Walmart Hendersonville: that a good 20 minute’s drive away and is pretty noisy (a street runs through the parking lot and people love to drive fast there!), but it’s free and there is good signal.

Dupont State Forest

Then, there is Dupont State Forest, where the trails are more beginner-intermediate friendly. We loved Ridgeline and Hickory Mountain Loop, but there are many more to ride in that area. We wanted to ride Cedar Rock (the only slickrock in the area) and Reasonover Creek Trail.

This is by no mean an exhaustive list of all the trail areas in Asheville, just some of them that we rode in the most visited areas.

The other sector we didn't get to ride is Mill Creek. It is located between Bent Creek and Brevard. Our friend recommended riding the Fletcher/Spencer Trails there, but we didn’t have time.

 A lot of this great information comes from our friends at Live Small Ride Free. We are always incredibly thankful to get recommendations from local, but Ching’s super exhaustive list made our time in Asheville really incredible.

What to do and where to eat in and around Victoria, BC

The Parliament.

The Royal BC Museum.

The Royal BC Museum has many life size exhibits. Here: a salmon cannery and an authentic village.

Miniature World.

Miniature World.

Munro’s Books and Habit coffee shop.

Agrius and Fol Épi.

The best fish and chips are at Blue Fish Red Fish (well-worth the line!).

Jordan River Regional Park campground is only $15 June-Oct or $10 Nov-May and right on the ocean. There is no Canadian cell service (no Bell), but 3 bars 4G LTE Verizon on our American phone, however it fluctuated a bit. I posted my full review on @campendium
It's a bit out of the way but the perfect place to be far from everything and to go hiking or kayaking.

Juan De Fuca Trail

Our birthday hike tradition continues with this beautiful hike on the Juan De Fuca Trail that leads to an isolated beach for my 41st birthday.

Mystic Beach.

Discovering Victoria has been so much fun thanks to all the great recommendations many of you gave me. I'm so impressed by how green most of the restaurants and coffee shops are! No straws, all compostable containers and utensils, compost and recycling on the premises, locally sourced ingredients. 

We really fell in love hard with this city and the whole area. If we had to pick a place to settle down in Canada, it would definitely be our first choice… if lodging was affordable (which it isn’t). I can officially announce that we have decided to stay on the road at least for another year (as long as the bus doesn’t die on us…). We had said that we would not make a decision until we come to Vancouver island. Our time here has been incredible and the girls got to rub shoulders (and race with) very strong and pro riders. It has allowed them to see how our lifestyle gives them the flexibility (in terms of school schedule AND moving around) to keep progressing in the racing world - something all 3 want to do. After talking with many kids who go to school and race, our daughter who was curious about going to school changed her mind. We have a pretty exciting summer and fall ahead of us, and I can’t believe I will finally get to visit the Magdalen Island, where my dad’s side of the family comes from!

But for now, we are headed North to our beautiful Yukon!

Romping around the Bay Area without breaking the bank

Carmel-by-the-sea

Riding in Fort Ord.

Delicious Humphry Slocombe ice cream in Oakland.

Tartine Bakery

Beautiful San Francisco houses on Valencia Ave in the Mission District.

Our first year on the road, 6 years ago, we did cities, museums, paying activities and organized campgrounds most of the time. We quickly realized that it wasn’t sustainable for our limited budget… Fast forward to now, we very rarely pay for campgrounds, only do free activities and go to the restaurant once every two months. However, we couldn’t pass on San Francisco. We had spent 10 days here in 2015 and our dear friends who had been living in the Mission District for decades showed us around to many cool spots. I reached out to Liza for her suggestions for ways to explore SF, Berkeley and Oakland on the cheap.

There are good spots to spend the night for free on iOverlander around Berkeley, but with all the bikes we have on the Westy, we decided to go for a campground this time (Anthony Chabot Regional Park). That is one of the downside of our current set-up… So with that expanse, we knew we had to be even more thrifty.

In Berkeley, we went to check out the amazing grocery Berkeley Bowl and had fun looking at all the cool produce, we checked out a few bookstores (Pegasus was great) and thrift shops on Telegraph Ave, and drooled over the menu of Chez Panisse and the Cheeseboard. If you want a quick meal on a budget, check out the food court right by the Imperial Tea Room, they have amazing sushis to go.

We went to have an early dinner at Vik’s chaat to beat the crowds. Chaat is Indian street food (and it doesn’t mean you eat it in the street here… it’s a big open area behind an indian grocery store). It’s very decently priced (not cheap, nothing is cheap here, but their weekday specials are the best deals, we got 2 of those to share and a few sides) and we discovered new-to-us food (do not skip the cholle bhature if you go!). We then bought what we needed at the store to make a delicious saag paneer at home the next day (for a little over 20$) and some more Indian fare.

We ended the night walking the streets of Oakland and tasting the ice cream at Humpry Slocombe (get their Blue Bottle vietnamese coffee flavor).

Another fun outing would have been to go to Ranch 99 in Richmond (about 20 minutes North of Berkeley, depending on trafic). It’s an asian mall with lots of cool things to see and eat - I hear the dim sums are great. I also really wanted to tour the St. George Spirits distillery in Alameda, but the tours were only on the weekends and children under 21 are not allowed on the premises. There is also Faction Brewing that sounds like a great place to enjoy a beer on an open deck (dogs and children allowed) and watch the city from across the water.

In San Francisco, we went straight to the Mission District to find a spot to park since it was Thursday and we walked around on Guerrero. The Mission was once a multicultural neighborhood of artists and intellectuals and is now an enclave for the privileged… It is still a beautiful place to visit, but it is also a pretty sad reality. Only white college-educated professionals with double income can *maybe* afford it… There are tent and tarp cities on many street corners (and even more in Berkeley and Oakland)...

We went into chez Panisse (one of the best bakeries) and quickly got out when we saw the prices (as tempting as their offers were, we cannot fork out 5,50 US$ for a pain au chocolat - that’s almost 8$ CAN - or 6$ for a *short* baguette!). We checked out Bi-Rite Market around the corner, but the prices were also too high for our budget (they sold the Chez Panisse Country loaf for 11$...) and went to their Creamery across the street instead where we shared a large size bowl (4 flavors) for 7,50$ (always share! That’s the best way to sample the good food on a budget).

We checked out some cool stores on Valencia, a used and new Scifi and mystery bookstore (Bordelands book), a really beautiful store selling *nomad tools* (mostly amazing journals, charging stations and cute slippers...), JF and I had a coffee at Rituals (the beans a very pricey, so we didn’t buy any…), I went to drool over all the Italian goodies (and Amari!!) at Lucca Ravioli Company (and only left with a jar of passata, I’m such a good girl). We then went to Buffalo exchange - a thrift store - where we found amazing deals. The girls really needed puffy coats and wind breakers and we left with a brand new looking REI insulated vest (19$), a Montbell 800 coat (22$) and a Nike windbreaker (12$).

We thrift about  85 % of our clothes (the 15$ is mostly bike shorts, sneakers and bike shoes). We are by no mean an example of anything… Heck, we still forget our cloth grocery bags way too often. When we lived in the farm, we were much greener in many ways, but I'm pretty sure our ecological footprint was still bigger there than on the road… Anyways, I’m very aware that the #vanlife is simply a new iteration of privilege, so I’m not gonna play holier than thou. We just thrift a lot, it’s good for the planet and good for the budget.

We had an early dinner of burmese food that was delicious. Again, we shared 5 dishes (2 were appetizers) that were simply amazing. If you go to Burma Love, do not miss their Platha & Dip, Nan Pia Dok and Rainbow salad (people rave about their tea leaf salad, but we were not crazy about it). The calamari melt was amazing but too greasy for my taste (my family loved it!).

We then headed to Japantown for desert! Japantown is a cool indoor mall (sprawling on both sides of Webster street over 6 blocks - we parked at the Safeway for free parking and got a few things from there). We had read about an ice cream and crepe shop (Belly Good café and crêpe) that made cute little animal face deserts and Mara really wanted one, so she did and we shared a few taro bubble teas (super reasonable prices). We had planned to sample the ramen at Marafuku, but we were not hungry anymore and everything was closing down.

Walking around, we could witness the Japanese "kawaii" phenomenon. Kawaii in Japanese translates roughly as "cuteness", and is a big part of the Japanese popular culture. Kawaii encompasses all the ultra "cute" creatures of Hello Kitty, Pikachu and the numberless anime characters, not to mention all the accessories with big-eyed, baby animals, pink hearts… So if you know Mara, you know she was all over that

One of the coolest spots in SF to see or photograph the Golden Gate Bridge is Crissy Field that you get to by driving through the Presidio (which also has some museums). Crissy Field is on the water and there is a narrow beach right there where you are so close to best close up view of the bridge. There is free parking and the beach is off leash dog friendly- it is just gorgeous. Also if you like fresh clams and oysters, the best place is Swan Oyster Depot- tiny place south one long counter and there is a line down the street to get a seat at the counter- usually an hour wait, but so worth it. Just fresh shucked clams and oysters, clam chowder, big hunks of sourdough bread and cold beer and wine! Also go for a stroll in the Golden Gate Park and drive by the Conservatory of flowers, one of the most beautiful building in SF, and head to the Huntington Falls and Stow Lake and ride the Carousel and visit the Arts Studio, where you can see stained glass artists and jewelers at work. There is a great used book library not too far on Clements called the Green apple books. Go see the Diego Riviera mural at the SF Art institute. You can roam the halls and look at studios. Don’t miss Burma superstar (lots of vegan and vegetarian option, the Rainbow salad was AMAZING). Check out Mission Dolores, it is the first Spanish Mission was created in 1791. It is San Francisco's oldest standing building. There are lots of amazing murals initiated by the Chicano Art Mural Movement of the 1970s and inspired by the traditional Mexican paintings made famous by Diego Riviera. Some of the more significant mural installations are located on Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley. In North Beach district, you can go to Lombard street (the world’s steepest and more crooked street in the world) and check out City Light Bookstore where Jack Kerouac and his friends used to meet for literature and poetry readings. Go to Caffe Trieste, known as the beatnik hangout of the '50s. Their home-roasted coffee is impeccable.

So that is to say: cities are never cheap, but there are ways to make then budget-friendly. Ask the locals you know (in person or online), focus on ethnic food (forget the pretty restaurants, go for the hole-in-the-wall places full of locals, Yelp is your friend). Spend time walking the isles of international markets and buy stuff to cook at home (or in your bus). Share to taste a little of everything.

Also note that our girls often offer to pay if they want something special. We don’t do allowances, but our girls have money from gifts and work they did. They are very reasonable (it’s not always been that way for all 3). They know that our lifestyle doesn’t allow us to splurge (and are very aware of our budget situation since Stout got sick), they also have a clear sense of what they need vs. want (and very little space to put it, be it clothes or books or else), so they choose wisely. And that helps.

Christmas 2018 in Tucson

The girls decorated this saguaro cactus for Christmas.

Mara made macaroons for Mathilde’s Christmas gift.

Our Christmas meat pies.

The most amazing 1985 Vintage Port. Our friends truly spoiled us.

That we drank with Stilton blue cheese, figs and dark chocolate. It was heavenly.

JF’s delicious Mascarpone orange chocolate pie (from Jamie Oliver).

Antonio’s delicious Portuguese cod.

And his wonderful flan!

Served in Pascale’s grandma’s ice cream bowl.

Leg of lamb for New Years served with a 2005 St-Julien. Spoiled. I tell you.

New Year’s Tiramisu.

Our traditional fireworks in the backyard!

Christmas morning donut making.

Aïsha’s truffles.

Our very sick puppy on Christmas morning.

As per tradition, we spent December in Tucson, parked in our dear friends’ yard, enjoying our time with them and sharing daily meals, playing board games, watching movies and riding bikes together. It is always a pleasure to slip back into our simple rhythm and to see our girls and their boys connect and grow together. It was heartwarming to see the girls go on bike rides with Antonio or Pascale by themselves and learn from them.

However, our celebrations were tainted with lots of sadness since our beloved Stout is very severely ill from late stage disseminated Valley Fever (VF), a fungus that is found in the soil in the desert. He likely contracted it in November and the fungus quickly spread everywhere in his body. He has heart failure from the VF and fluid build up around the heart, lungs and intestines. He has had seizures, which tells us it is in his brain too, and he moves with difficulty, which means it is everywhere in his bones. He has lost 17 pounds in 10 days. On December 26, we were pretty sure we were losing him. However, he responded pretty well to the treatment. He is on 4 different meds right now to try and control the VF, but the heart failure requires surgery, a very complex, pricey and risky surgery in which they remove the sac around his heart.

A friend has set up a Go Fun Me to try and raise money to pay for all the vet fees and possible surgery. If you can help even just a bit, we would be incredibly thankful. Here’s the link.