ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
Golf bags lean up against columns at The Homestead's stately portico like the pillars of the establishment that their owners are.
Dozens of golfers - fit, tanned, khakied and polo-shirted - mill around, impatiently waiting for a chauffeured ride to the one of the resort's famed golf courses. A suntan lotion's coconut scent snakes through the air.
Suddenly a many-miled van pulls up, emblazoned with an Outdoor Adventures sign. Loaded on the back are knobby-tired mountain bikes. Sometimes, it's pulling a trailer piled with canoes and kayaks.
Out of the driver's seat hops a rugged-looking guy in a T-shirt, shorts and well-worn sandals. Guests of The Homestead line up.
Double take. Huh?
Mountain biking? The recreation of choice by landlocked surf bums and Generation X rockers? The grimy, gonzo means of transportation preferred by Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski? A sport whose participants prefer a thirst-quenching cold beer or Gatorade to single-malt scotch?
At the staid, grand dame Homestead? Where the tip on a roomy suite can set you back more than $100 a night, and the suite itself can cost almost a grand, including meals and tax? Where a jacket and tie are required for dinner?
Yes, the muddy sport of two-wheeled trail rebels who prefer rocky, rutted paths to smooth pavement has filtered its way into high society.
Not only at The Homestead, but also at the similarly famous (but separately owned) Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
Club Resorts, which assumed ownership of the ailing Homestead two years ago and has sunk $15 million into it since then, is branching out its recreational opportunities.
You can still play golf until you drop, shoot clay pigeons, indulge in a bit of croquet, take tea in the afternoon and top it off with a hot springs spa experience, a gourmet meal and one of 4,000 bottles of wine. Watercress sandwiches - with the crusts deftly removed - are still on the Homestead's lunch menu.
But for guests bored with the notion of smacking around a little pitted ball on grass greener than their lawns at home will ever be, for well-heeled folks hunkering for breath-taking views and a little heavy breathing at high altitudes, for those who don't mind getting their feet (and seat) wet in the Jackson River, Tracy Asbury is there.
An exercise physiologist by training and a veteran white-water rafting guide on the New River, Asbury opened shop at the Greenbrier in 1994 and at The Homestead in 1995. First came mountain biking. Canoeing and kayaking are new this year.
Friends and associates told Asbury he was crazy when he started Outdoor Adventures, which contracts exclusively with the two golf resorts. But almost since day one, he's had more business than he ever dreamed of.
Asbury started off with 18 21-speed Specialized mountain bikes at his Greenbrier location, but he's had to beef up the number to 30 over the past two years. His shop at The Homestead had 20 bikes when he opened last year. Now there are 24. This year, he's even had to import mountain biking talent - from Utah - to handle the trade.
Well-heeled folks, it seems, are eager to check out a bone-shaking run down one of The Homestead's 100 miles of trails for rates that range from $25 to $75 per person. Never mind the mud, the rocks, the ruts, the occasional tree across the dirt path.
Asbury smiles.
"I can tell if they had fun by how many bugs stick in their teeth," he chuckles.
Other organizations are involving kids in the act. Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia, probably the premier ski area within easy driving reach, has branched out into mountain biking as well.
The resort offers a five-day Junior Mountain Biking Camp - at $475 inclusive - for youths age 12 to 16. (This year's camp runs Aug. 4-9.) In its promotional literature, Snowshoe calls mountain biking "one of the fastest growing sports in Virginia." |n n| The rich "are different from you and me," F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. That is probably true. Take mountain biking at The Homestead.
Although Warm Springs Mountain looms ominously above Asbury's shop at The Homestead ski lodge, there is no thigh-burning, lung-bursting, tortoise-paced climb to the peak.
Outdoor Adventures drives there.
After that, it's mostly downhill.
"We tell them, this is your trip, you have fun," says Asbury, a sometime mountain bike racer and former trainer at an exclusive Duke University diet and health spa. "We try to take all the worry out of it for them. None of our rides are so vigorous that I'd worry about taking anyone who shows up."
"It's not challenging in terms of terrain, but it's a real pretty ride," he explains at the onset of a 12-mile ride, the longest ride the company offers.
Mountain biking is definitely not Rhea Spratt's idea of a good time. She and her husband, Wesley Spratt, are at the Homestead to golf - another notch in the Milwaukee, Wis., couple's personal quest to play the links in all 50 states.
On a recent Friday, the self-described golf junkies decided to take a relaxing break on the Jackson River for one of Asbury's canoe trips. At late June river levels, the Jackson's waters are mostly calm, punctuated with some easy Class 1 and Class 2 rapids.
But on the drive back to The Homestead, the Spratts' ears perk up listening to some other canoers' account of a mountain biking jaunt.
"They take you to the top? That's the way to go," Rhea Spratt says. "Hell, if I can coast all the way, that's great." |n n| Along the spine of Warm Springs Mountain, we are far from The Homestead's subdued and leathery library, and miles above its dining room, where a classical pianist woos the morning diners making their way through a yards-long breakfast buffet of gleaming silver serving trays.
The pines are getting a little scrubby at roughly 4,100 feet above sea level. The mountain is so quiet it's eerie. We're just down the road from Ingalls field, the local airport, and about a half mile away from the entrance to Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson's $1.17 million, 11,000-square-foot weekend home, his "little place" in the mountains.
Asbury is leading us on the "Tour to the Springs," Outdoor Adventures' longest, most scenic, and most vigorous trip in its Homestead itinerary. It ends in Warm Springs with a soothing dip in the public baths along U.S. 220.
Depending on the speed of the rider, it takes 2 to 31/2 hours to travel the mostly-downhill 12 miles to the town of Warm Springs. The guided trip costs $75 per person (the cost of the baths included) with a Homestead-prepared lunch, or $70 without the food.
Outdoor Adventures also offers self-guided trips, where it outfits clients with a bike, helmet, tube, pump and a map. Those range in price from $25 to $40. They also rent bikes for $10 hourly, $25 per half-day or $40 a day. For children, bike trailers and one-wheeled trail-a-bikes which attach to a parent's bike are also available.
In mountain biking lingo, trails are grouped by their width. The easiest are fire roads, wide, relatively smooth cuts through the forest that pose few hazards for riders.
The most difficult are the "single tracks," which at their narrowest may be little more than footpaths that snake between trees, over rocks and steeply down mountainsides.
Most of this ride's trails fall somewhere in between - "double tracks," which are narrower and generally more overgrown than fire roads.
They sport more rocks and ruts than fire roads but are wide enough most of the time for two cyclists to ride abreast.
This is no wind-cutting glide ride down Mill Mountain. But if you like to do some bouncing, don't mind sloshing through a puddle or two and dig the great outdoors, you're going to have a lot of fun.
"We play on the mountains," Asbury says.
The trip is downhill, but thankfully not steep. Sunlight cutting through the thick trees looks like a continuous strobe as you bomb down the trail. The never-ending bumps make your triceps feel as flabby as an old woman's good-bye wave. Your eyeballs seem to want to bounce out of their sockets.
There are plenty of stops along the trails. Asbury's got the most scenic overlooks scoped out, and he guides guests to them. He's even hidden a picnic table here and there.
About 10 miles later, the endless vibrating machine grounds to a halt, and we emerge onto Virginia 39, for a smooth but curvy two-mile descent into Warm Springs and the awaiting bathhouses, octagonal structures which are national historic landmarks.
In the men's, we shuck our clothes and jump in the 6-foot deep pool.
The naturally warm, uncommonly clear water is perfect for buttocks that have had one trail bounce too many, or arms rubbery from a ride that sometimes leaves you feeling like your hands have been glued to a jackhammer.
Not every mountain biking experience ends like this one.
Then again, few of them begin with coffee poured by a waiter in a tuxedo, a gourmet breakfast to classical music and a van ride to the top of a mountain.
This, of course, is biking at The Homestead.
LENGTH: Long : 175 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN Staff 1. Evening at The Homestad findsby CNBguests' mountain bikes locked up on the front porch (above). 2. Many
of the resort's mountain-bike tours finish at the natural warm
springs (left).
3. Tracy Asbury (left), owner of Outdoor Adventures, the outfit
that runs the resort's mountain bike and canoe operation, sits atop
Warm Springs Mountain. Some cyclists opt to be ferried to the top of
the mountain by resort staff. 4. Asbury and a client (above) steer
down the Jackson River near Hot Springs.
5. Wesley Spratt (left) of Milwaukee helps his wife, Rhea, cool
off after a canoe trip on the Jackson River. 6. The couple, who were
spending several days golfing at The Homestead resort (below), had
decided to try something different.|