Bull Mountain

I may have mentioned this before, but this winter has been absolutely horrible. I was sick for two months, broke my rear wheel, have had endless trouble with my back brake, and it seems like every time things aren't totally broke, it's been raining. I did get a good ride in at Allatoona last weekend though, and one a week before that at Pinelog, and one really good ride this past Monday before it rained again all week. This past Friday I was feeling cooped up, so I got some gear together and headed up to Bull Mountain Friday night. My plan was to truck-camp Friday night, ride all day Saturday, camp somewhere north of there Saturday night, then ride directly back Sunday morning and be home around lunch time.

The first part of it went pretty well. I have such a collection of gear that I was able to throw together some truck-camping stuff, food included, in like 15 minutes before heading out the door. My bike is just always loaded, and my pack actually still had all the food in it from some previous failed attempt at an overnighter. Despite the 5-o'clock traffic, I made it up to the Jake lot in good time.

The equestrian camping area seemed pretty busy, so I strolled down that way to see if I recognized any of the trailers, people, or horses for that matter. Sadly no though, not a one. When I got back it was really starting to cool off, and just starting to get dark enough to want some light, walking around outside.

I blew up my mat, got all my gear situated in the back of my truck, and cooked some dinner - veggies and chicken. So good. I didn't manage to get any photos of any of this. It somehow didn't occur to me. I also watched a couple of movies on my phone while cooking and eating, so maybe the fact that my phone was busy influenced my subconscious. I don't know. I didn't get any photos though.

I fell asleep around 11 maybe, and some hours later somebody else drove into the lot and parked like one space away from me. I was the only car in the entire, enormous lot. Why would they park that close to me? I could see the guy moving around in his truck, from the light of his phone. At first I thought maybe he was also truck camping, but after like 30 minutes he started up his truck and sped away. Like hauled ass away, urgently, kicking up gravel.

No idea.

My sleeping pad had deflated a bit, so I gave it a few breaths, fell asleep again, and woke up the next day at like 10AM. Kind-of late, but no big deal. I had all day, and no specific plan.

There were a few cars in the lot when I woke up. It turned out that one of them was Scott Hanson. I talked to him later. Mine was the only other truck in the lot when he'd arrived. Heh. He rode right by me as I slept. The guy parked nearest to me was getting going right as I got up. His wife was running in the Georgia Death Race. He was going to meet her at the Bull Mountain Lot some time later in the day, and figured he'd ride his bike until then.

I cooked some potatoes for breakfast, got dressed, and got moving.

It was tricky figuring out how to dress, and I kept second-guessing it. I had frost on my front window when I woke up, but in the sun, it felt quite warm. As soon as you'd get into the woods though, the temperature dropped precipitously, and it was more windy than usual. I guess with the trees not being leafed out yet, the wind made it well into the woods too. You'd be riding along, sidehilling around some bend, and the wind would just hit you in the face like you were on the road. I alternated between baking, freezing, and getting windburn, all the way to the Bull Mountain lot.

At the lot, there was, indeed, a checkpoint set up for the Georgia Death Racers.

I talked to a couple of folks about it while I was there. They'd started at Vogel State Park, the checkpoint there was at mile 50, and there were 20 more miles between there and Amicalola. Goodness. That sounded impossible.

Part of the impossibility was just because it was a run. I'm useless running. At my absolute best I was good for about 6 miles. Six terribly slow, painful miles. The other part was just that so far, I'd had a pretty bad day. I'd felt fine rolling out of the Jake Lot, but any little bit of climbing had just eaten me up. I'd had to sit back and spin everything so far, and sometimes that spinning had turned into grinding. I felt dehydrated, but I'd put away an entire Nalgene bottle during the night, and a good bit more after breakfast. I also felt a little stuffed, so maybe I'd just eaten too much. I wasn't sure, but I didn't feel good, and I hoped I'd wake up and push through it over the next few hours.

That didn't happen though. Not in the least. Climbing Bull just got harder and harder. My bike felt heavy. My pack felt heavy. I had to walk a bunch of little rooty sections. The trail was extra rough after all the rain though, and it was still "early", so I kept at it.

Somewhere, maybe about halfway up to the Y, three riders passed me in the other direction. They looked like they were having fun. "Yeah, if I just push though this rough patch, I'll be having fun like them, all the way down Bare Hare." It turned out one of the guys descending was Doug Urquhart (who's name I hope I spelled correctly) but neither of us recognized the other at the time. Ha!

I actually stopped at the Y for like 5 minutes. My chest felt like it had when I went to the hospital last year. Like my heart just wasn't getting enough O2. I knew that the trail mellowed out though, the higher you got, so I kept going. I made it to The Great Rift.

Which I had to walk. But, hey that's always hard to climb, right?

Then a little while later I had to walk some other little bit that I was confident I'd never had to walk before.

Had I gotten less sleep than I thought? Maybe I'd actually tossed and turned for hours without realizing it, and only gotten like 4 or 5 hours of sleep? Maybe, but I'd done that a dozen times and still felt better than this. Nutrition, maybe? Maybe chicken and veggies aren't a good pre-ride dinner? Maybe potatoes aren't a good breakfast? Maybe. But I'd done both of those, many times before, with no problems at all. Maybe they're not ideal meals, and maybe they were a factor, but I've never had two less-than ideal meals hit me this hard. If it was nutrition, I ought to bonk after a few hours, not after less than 1.

I stood there contemplating the problem until I felt better, tried to ride one more hill with the same result, and gave up.

I didn't know what the problem was, but whatever it was, I'd have a miserable day pushing through it, and I wasn't in the mood for that. I figured I'd head home, regroup, maybe go for a local ride later if I felt better, or maybe the next day.

At that point, even the downhills were taxing. At some point, my front tire slid out, then caught. It threw me against the bars and my back wheel kicked way out. I have no idea how I saved it. It was pure instinct, but I saved it. I literally walked every little climb in the woods, and almost gave up and walked on the road.

I got home at about 1PM, fell asleep over and over in between phone calls and texts, grabbed some food around 7, fell asleep again, and woke up at 12:30 today. Somewhere in there I checked my temperature, and I had a slight fever. I'd had swollen lymph nodes in my neck all week, but I'd just chalked it up to allergies, as I had no other symptoms. Apparently I was sick?

Whatever it is, it's not round 2 of the megacrons:

Some random cold, I guess, that saps your energy, but little else.

I spent a few hours eating lunch with the kids and taking Sophie back to school, but otherwise slept most of the day today too. I did grab some dinner around 6, and I've been up since then, feeling marginally better.

Hopefully this passes quickly. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Allatoona

About a week ago it hadn't rained for a couple of days, and Allatoona was actually open. Given how I'd unsuccessfully tried to ride there the previous weekend, it seemed like a good place to go, so I got all my stuff together and headed up there.

Unfortunately, though it hadn't rained in long enough for the trail system to be open, it had rained enough to flood out various parts of it. Rusty Bucket, for example, was completely closed.

At least some of the other trails appeared to be open, but everything was a bit damp. No bombing downhills or railing corners. It was a better day to explore than to shred, and as that had been my plan last time, I figured that's what I'd do.

There's kind-of a roadbed that follows Allatoona Creek from County Line Road north until it just ends at a bend up by the lake. Though I'd ridden the road itself, I really never explored to either side of it, south of the bridge at least, and I'd heard that there was a new trail down that way.

Getting to it was somewhat challenging though.

Everywhere I went there was standing water. There were, fortunately though, several different paths to take, and with a bit of backtracking, I managed to find a manageable route.

There were several side trails to the east. The first just led to somebody's house. The next was an actual trail though, and led to a school. At the back of their running track, there was even a gateway and signage.

Nice!

The school turned out to be Frey Elementary. It and Durham Middle appeared to share the same general property though, and might have shared the same PE facilities. When I rolled out of the woods, there was a family out there enjoying the sunshine, running on the track, and playing on the playground. We waved at each other, and I explored the property a bit.

To the north there was a bus depot, with a million buses parked inside the fence.

A paved trail led around the side of Durham to the front lot, and there were various roads, car lots, and bus lots around both buildings.

One thing that caught my eye though, as I was riding out to the main road, was this port-a-potty just sitting off in the woods. I probably wouldn't have seen it in the summer, but the trees still haven't really leafed out yet, and I noticed it as I rode by.

I didn't immediately see a trail leading to it, so it was a little odd, but a little more exploration straightened it all out.

Back toward the schools, I noticed another trail gateway.

A gateway to the Gary Jordan / Karan Wood Trail, apparently.

Interesting!

It looked like a nature trail. There was a kiosk...

...and various little posts with signs on them labeling things.

As elaborate as it was though, it didn't look like it had gotten much use in recent years. There was a huge tree down about 30 yards down the trail, and the surface was really leafy.

There were various outdoor classrooms along the trail. Eg. the Old Oaks Classroom:

I guess I should say "along the trails" as there were multiple different trails.

Ahh, the port-a-potty.

From in the woods, it was easy to spot the trail that led to it. In fact, it even led up to the road that I had been on earlier, but deadfall right up by the road had obscured it.

Oh yeah... Classrooms. There was the Windmill Plains Classroom:

And the Creekside Classroom:

Which, instead of benches, just had this overgrown trailer hulk.

There was also the Anderson Gazebo Classroom:

All of these seemed to have seen better days.

The trail around that gazebo was chewed up by some machine with tracks, and after milling around a bit, I found a dingo parked nearby. The tracks actually led to a much more modern looking trail, with tire tracks on it even. I figured maybe that was the trail that I'd originally been out looking for. Maybe it wasn't complete yet, thus the dingo.

This turned out to be the case.

But more about that later...

There was an Amphitheater out there too:

And it appeared to mark the end of the nature trail loop.

There was a very distinct loop from one of those gateways to the other. There were a few side-trails, like the one to the port-a-potty, but the main trail seemed to just lead from classroom to classroom.

After exploring all that I headed back to Allatoona proper and kept exploring to the south. There were plenty of footprints and tire tracks to follow, and they ultimately led to this sign.

A-ha! That looked semi-official. This must be the place.

About halfway up the first climb, I was overtaken by a guy on an e-bike.

Yep. This is the place.

The trail led up to the top of a hill, where I found another "classroom":

Though this one was unnamed.

Then it wound around a bit and passed by a couple of "artifacts", lets call them.

I was first treated to my second favorite thing to find in the woods. A toilet:

But, nearby, lay two of my first favorite thing to find in the woods. Boats!

IDK, this might not actually be a boat, but I thought it was at the time:

This is definitely a boat though. Definitely:

Boats. Way back in the woods. I know they were just dumped there, but it's always funny to me.

Another toilet!

I literally laughed out loud seeing that there was a second toilet out there.

While taking that photo, I noticed some duded downhill from me, standing in the trail, watching the guy on the e-bike down below both of us. He noticed me right as I got moving again. We waved, and I rolled down to say hi. Turned out his name was Tom (I think, I'm bad with names) and he was out working on the trail. He'd just rock armored a turn and was curious how well the e-bike guy was able to negotiate it. The dingo was also his. He'd tried to use it earlier to do some drainage work, but the ground was too soft, and he was doing more harm than good just moving it around, so he'd parked it and got some hand work done. The name of the trail was apparently Fern Gully, and though it wasn't officially open yet, it was reasonably well known by the locals, and even up on some trail sites.

The e-bike guy had apparently cleaned a switchback just up the trail, but I wasn't so lucky. It was just too slippery still. When I came back down the hill, I ran into the same guy again, working near that Sorba sign that I'd seen earlier.

Past all of that, I passed through the Fern Gully classroom:

No doubt where the name comes from.

The trail was pretty good. Easily as good as the rest of the trails out there. It had a bit of exposed rock on it too, and was maybe a bit rougher than some of the others, but that might have to do with it not being finished yet. I'm looking forward to adding it into the Allatoona Big Loop though.

I rode Wildcat on the way out, just to do something else, then I headed across the road, rode half of Turtleback, screwed around in the bike park for a while (which was surprisingly dry), hit Echo a few times, then rode out. It was a pretty good day, actually. My bike was completely covered in a thin film of mud, but otherwise unharmed.

Most notably, my back brake worked. After all of the trouble I'd had with it recently, I'd finally bought an entire new lever, hose, and caliper, and taken them to Glen the day before. The lever had been leaking, so we first just changed that, and it made almost no difference. It still felt like there was a ton of air in it, and it just would not bleed. It turned out that the "olive", that little piece of copper that goes around the hose and compresses into the lever, had gotten cocked sideways and was not only crimped oddly, but was also digging into the hose. It wasn't sealing well, and the hose itself may even have gotten a hole worn into it. Instead of just swapping the hose, we ended up swapping the hose and caliper together, as they were attached to each other and it was just easier to do that. After bleeding, the brake at least felt "like a brake". It didn't feel like I was just compressing air, but it still didn't really work. It was like maybe 50% of the stopping power I'd expect. I even rode around on one of Glen's bikes with working brakes to verify. TF else could be wrong? The rotor was super blue in comparison to the front rotor. Glazed maybe? I sanded it until it didn't look blue anymore, and that made a big difference. I still coudn't just lock it up, but it was way better. The pads were brand new, and still needed to bed in. Maybe if I ride it a bit?

Turned out yes. As the day wore on at Allatoona, the brake worked better and better. By the time I got off of the trail it felt like I expected it to.

Woohoo? We'll see. Given that thing's history, I'm not ready to declare it fixed just yet.

Pinelog

Earlier today, I had the urge to ride, as often occurs on Sunday. I actually had the urge yesterday too, but it was ridiculously windy. So, I didn't just have today's urge to appease, but yesterday's as well. I felt like riding at Allatoona, and specifically a trail that I've apparently never ridden there, so I grabbed a slice at Siracusa's, figured out that we'd apparently sprung forward last night, and hit the road in that direction. As I pulled into the lot, I could tell that I'd made a mistake. There were like 6 cars, total in the lot. It was a little cold - mid 40's, but not so cold that I'd think it would ward off the hundreds of folks that you'd usually find there on the weekend.

I checked the trail status on the web, and yeah, the trail was closed. Blankets was closed. Rope Mill was closed. Everywhere was closed. It rained, really hard, Friday night, and though it was super windy all day yesterday, which dried out the roads pretty well, the trails were still too wet to ride.

Dangit!

Time for Plan B.

I was kind-of up 75/575 already, so I considered heading up to Ellijay, but that would take a while. Pinelog was the next best option. Yeah! Pinelog! I hadn't been there in forever. The more I thought about it, the more that wished that I'd thought of Pinelog first.

A half hour later I was in the lot, getting ready to roll. I could tell that it was chilly, but the sun was out and as long as it was on me, I felt pretty good. So, I added a base layer, but no arm or leg warmers. There were several other cars in the lot when I got there, but they were all saying animated goodbyes to each other as I got ready, and they left shortly after. Another car pulled up though, and an elderly couple jumped out with some fishing rods. It seemed a bit cold to me, but I'm not much of a trout fisherman, so I figured they must know what they're doing.

It's been too long since I climbed anything that could reasonably be described as "a mountain" so I was a little cautious with the rollers on the way in. My rear brake maybe has 15% of the stopping power it ought to have too, so I was also a little cautious with the first couple of downhills.

I had my fitness and braking situtation pretty well figured out though, by the time I got to the Lewis Furnace.

There were a bunch of cars parked at the gate by the ford, and most of them had bike racks on them. Maybe I'd run into someone else later.

My plan was to spin a loop to the right around Grassy Hollow Road, come back in and spin a loop to the left over Pine Log Gap, through the old mines, out to the road, and back in through the city of White.

Not 200 yards up the road, I ran into a guy picking up trash with his dog. I actually ran into the dog first, a slightly overweight chocolate lab, named Lily if I remember correctly. Despite being soaking wet, that dog got so many scratches. I talked to the guy for a while actually. He'd recently seen a bear up near Grassy Hollow proper, which was interesting to me. I think I'd once before heard of a bear sighting out there, but only once. He said the DNR has recorded 22 sightings, and a few of the bears in the area are tagged. So, I guess Pinelog is, for real, bear territory. I guess that makes some sense, as one of the knobs of Pine Log Mountain itself is called Bear Mountain. He'd never seen pigs out there, and was surprised to hear about the dozens that I'd seen. It was funny, we both got to talking, and seemed to both realize right about the same time, that we actually had things to do, so we said some quick goodbyes and got back to it.

There are two tough climbs on Grassy Hollow Road, one right after the other. Both were freshly, and well, graveled though, and despite being loaded, I had an easier time than usual with both. I think the slight damp helped too. Those kicks are often difficult because of how loose they are. I managed to get a PR on the second, which made me wonder how Strava actually does it's PRs. Do you have to have at least 2 efforts on a segment to get a PR? Or, if someone creates a new segment, do you just get a PR the first time you ride it? If someone creates a segment on some section that you've already ridden, do your old rides retroactively get PRs? As a database-driven web-based application developer, I can imagine the pain in the ass it would be to do that, but I can also imagine exactly how to do it, so... ???

I passed the spot where the guy had seen the bear. No bear today.

There's this one spot that used to offer a really spectacular view of Little Pine Log Mountain, but the trees have since grown back in.

I guess that's good for the woods, but I'm also glad that I was able to enjoy it when it was cut.

You cross like 4 or 5 little rivulets on the way out, and I managed to keep from getting too wet, but it kind of made me happy to get splashed some amount. I've been riding a lot of local trails lately, and there are always bridges over water crossings on local trails.

When I got back on the road, I passed Stamp Creek Baptist Church...

...and its associated cemetery.

Once again, it's clear why churches have traditionally been painted white. The front face was just a blazing beacon in the early afternoon sun. The photo really doesn't do justice to just how bright it was, or how it stood out when it came into view.

I managed a slight front wheel slide as I pulled back into the parking lot off of the main road, and smirked when I didn't crash. Cuidado ai Dave.

Feeling like I had a solid grasp of my fitness and what I'd be able to get away with, I pushed a little harder on the rollers this time, but I think 4 trucks passed me before I finished the initial climb. I used to make a game out of trying to stay ahead of vehicles on those rollers, but there was no chance of that today. I did pass them all at the bottom of the first downhill though, and managed to stay well ahead of them all the way to the furnace.

So, ha!

Just past the furnace I had to stop for a minute, and got passed again by a red truck. We then leapfrogged each other like 3 times over most of the way up to the gap.

About halfway up, I ran into another guy on a bike. He'd just parked at the furnace, ridden up to the gap, and headed back down. We joked about how tough a winter it had been for both of us. Neither of us were really confident in our fitness, and we'd both been proceeding cautiously.

I passed a dozen little side trails on the way up. I recoginzed Sasquamish, which is also where that weird rock wall runs up the mountain. The rest were all familiar, but I couldn't tell you where any of them actually go any more. There was a time though, when I knew them all. Sadly, most were just old logging spurs, and they didn't go anywhere. The only mildly interesting one led way back south along the ridge of Little Pine Log for miles, only to end abruptly without connecting to anything else.

Just past the gap, there's a pipe gate. Someone was clearly frustrated with the DNR for keeping it closed too long into some season or other.

I love how someone scratched out the profanity.

With all the recent rain, the Bluff Mine Pond was overflowing.

It was actually higher than the level of the old rail cut, and pouring out the overflow to the bottom left of the photo. I could hear what sounded like a powerful flow across the pond; presumably water flowing into it, but there's no easy way over there, and I didn't feel like hacking through the brush for half an hour.

The water poured out of the pond, down a ditch next to the road, through a culvert under it, and off into who knows where from there.

Recent work on the culvert appeared to have dug up an old chunk of rail.

It made me wonder if there was more buried under the road nearby. As far as I can tell, the Bluff Mine was located at farthest extent of the old Iron Belt Line. That piece rail had been part of the very tail end of it all.

I checked out the Sugar Hill Pond too. It was right there, I mean come on.

It was unexpectedly tranquil. There was a very slight breeze making tiny, high frequency waves ripple all the way across the pond. The water level was super high, and there was a bunch of duckweed off to the right out of the shot. I ended up standing there for quite a while just enjoying the chill.

Just up the road I passed the Painted Rocks (well, that's what I call them), and once again, photos just don't do them justice.

Though the iPhone SE definitely does a better job than the 4s I was using the last time I took a photo of them.

Further up there was a pretty good blowdown across the road.

It looked really fresh, like yesterday-fresh. There were several more a few hundred yards further down.

The Cripple Creek Ore Bank had become a pond again. It'll dry up later for sure, but today it was deep.

Some time ago, I'd gotten a random text from Doug asking about the Double Chimney, and I sent him the location. He ended up not making it out to them, but I remembered the exchange as I approached the upper field, and it motivated me to go stomping around a bit. There's a bit of an old roadbed leading from the field directly to the chimneys, but there's also kind-of one running around the west side of the hill. I mistook the latter for the former, and got even more confused by a recent-ish blowdown just to the west of the chimneys, but I eventually found them.

I was concerned that the trees might have come down on top of them, but no, there were pretty good tangles to either side, and even some in front and behind, but somehow, not directly on them.

There's always a good view of Pine Log Mountain proper from one of the fields out there.

And, I guess another one across the lake, though I usually end up just looking at the lake.

There were fish hitting the surface pretty constantly. If you zoom in on the photo, you can actually see several sets of circular waves spreading out from near the middle of the lake.

I passed two separate hikers heading in as I approached the north gate. One guy seemed woefully unprepared. No pack, no obvious water. Just a phone in his hand and some earbuds. He couldn't even hear me heading toward him, even though I waved and said hello, and was startled to see me when he finally looked up. The other guy was hiking in with at least 60 pounds of gear. I couldn't tell if he was legitimately camping or just out for a ruck, but he was moving with a purpose when I passed him.

Chimney near the north gate.

There were three cars parked at the north gate. Two probably belonged to those hikers. The other had a bike rack on it. I hadn't seen anyone out there other than that one guy, so who knows what they were up to?

I took the road back around to the lot. Not having ridden it in a long time, it seemed a lot longer than I remembered. Another thing I hadn't remembered was that there's a Lauren Road that intersects, pretty soon after you get on the pavement. It used to always remind me of my niece when I'd see it. Back when I used to ride there a lot, I'd see her most weekends during football season at my brother's house. It's been a long time though. Seeing it again reminded me of all that, and it made me smile a little.

As I pulled into White, it looked like the local gift shop had turned into MAGA headquarters. "Jesus is my Savior and Trump is my President" was my favorite flag. I almost stopped to take a photo of it. I should go back and buy it, just to have it as a curiosity 20 years from now.

The road from White back to the lot becomes a wall where it crosses through Wolfpen Gap, then there are 2 rollers, or maybe three before it drops back down. When I used to ride there a lot, I'd try to tempo climb the whole set. If I could, then my fitness was good. If I couldn't, then I had some work to do. I was discouraged today when I had to sit back and climb the first kick, but then realized that I'd never ridden it loaded before as I headed into the first roller. Come to think of it, the last time I road unloaded was the Turkey Shuffle. I don't know if that's good or bad. I guess it's good for building strength, but maybe not so good for ripping singletrack or tempo climbing.

Near the top of one of the rollers, a guy passed me some classic car, a GTO maybe, with a really awesome flame job. Yellow, orange, and red, straight out of the 60's. My mental Jukebox cranked Slow Ride from Foghat right away. Which, I guess, is from the '70s, but whatever. He drove by slowly and waved, so I got a really good look at it. I was kind of on the rivet at the time, but it still made me smile.

I was still smiling when I passed Miller's Chapel...

...which didn't gleam quite so brightly, as the sun was starting to get kind-of low in the sky.

I want to say it was like 7:20 when I left. Or maybe it was 7:20 when I passed the Wendy's. Either way, it was later than I think about it being when it's still light out. Ha ha! No more having to cram mid-week rides in halfway through the day. At least until next Fall. Actually, I guess that's how it is every year.

Funny that I'm still surprised by it.