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WCU's Railsback to repeat bike trek for scholarships
 Western Carolina University faculty member Brian Railsback will re-start a fund-raising tradition for the university's Honors College when he begins a two-day, 110-mile bicycle ride for pledges from Western's Cullowhee campus to the top of Mount Mitchell.
Funds raised through the ride will be earmarked for the Honors College's scholarship fund for academically gifted students.
Railsback plans to leave the WCU campus early Wednesday morning, Oct. 27, and follow U.S. 23-74 from Sylva to Balsam Gap, where he will head north on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He hopes to make it to Asheville that night, and then follow the parkway past Asheville and on to the summit of Mount Mitchell, – at 6,684 feet, the highest peak in the East – on Thursday, Oct. 28.
Railsback initiated a series of fall pledge rides to raise money for the Honors College scholarship fund shortly after he was named acting dean of the college in July 1997. He completed a lone ride to Mount Mitchell over three days in November 1997 despite encountering rain, fog, snow and lightning en route.
Three students joined Railsback for an October 1998 pledge ride, with the group pedaling from Cullowhee to Mount Mitchell in two days. The third annual ride in October 1999 included Railsback and five students attempting to bicycle all the way from Cullowhee to Raleigh – a 409-mile trip – over five days. The bicyclists completed about 140 miles of that trip before pulling the plug because rain and dense fog made conditions too dangerous to continue.
Railsback left his leadership position in Western's Honors College in 2000 to become head of the university's English department. After four years in that role, Railsback came back to the Honors College as interim dean earlier this year after Jill Ghnassia, who had served as dean since 2000, decided to return to a teaching position in the English department.
Railsback said he plans to use the same trusty mountain bike that carried him on previous pledge rides during the upcoming trip. "Same old guy, same old bike," he said.
The Oct. 27-28 ride will be a solo venture ending with, Railsback hopes, a celebratory gathering involving Honors College students at the top of Mount Mitchell followed by a Halloween party at Western's Reynolds Hall.
The 45-year-old has been training for the pledge ride since his June reappointment to the Honors College by riding his bicycle from his home high in Cullowhee's Tilley Creek community to Western's campus, and back – a 15-mile round trip that includes 1,800 feet of climbing. The ride to Mount Mitchell, however, involves cumulative climbing in excess of 10,000 feet.
"When I came back to the Honors College, it was just terrible getting up that mountain," Railsback said. "And it still is."
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