Dalton Pinhoti

Taking another crack at the backlog. How did my life get so busy? It doesn't feel busy, but then I look up and days have gone by.

Back in, goodness..., March, I rode the Dalton Pinhoti with a really good crew - John, Mark, Marc, Erick, and, amazingly, Scott! Me and Scott have exchanged GPS data for years and years, infrequently run into each other at various events, but never actually ridden together. It was really great to finally get to ride with him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The day started with eggs and a bagel at the house.

I don't remember how I ended up with wheat bagels. That's not something I'd generally have. I want to say that Indi left a bag of them at my place, somehow... Man, that was a long time ago.

At any rate... After perfect breakfast, I drove my ass up to Dalton and met all of the guys on the side of the road up there, as one generally does when riding the Pinhoti.

We got all dressed up, and struggled to cross the road. There's a big hill, and you have to either cross the road at the bottom of the hill, and ride the wrong way up the road to the trail, or pass the trail, climb to the top of the hill, and then come back. If you try to cross where the trail actually is, then you can get surprised by cars coming over the hill. Or, I guess, more precisely, you can surprise people who are coming over the hill. We ended up doing a mix of both, and then, of course, someone drove over the hill, got super confused, slammed on his brakes, and laid on the horn.

Woohoo! Confusion!

I remember feeling good at the beginning of the ride. The first kick up to the Pinhoti proper is usually tough, but I had an easy time of it.

Not as easy as Scott though!

That would be a trend, all day. I mostly felt pretty good, and could usually push the pace, but Scott was effortlessly faster. Man, he's just so strong!

Sadly, I don't remember too much about the ride, except that it was generally fun, we were moving pretty fast, didn't stop much, and I didn't have time to take many photos.

We did occasionally stop along the route, but very infrequently.

We did stop at Snake Creek Gap, which was the halfway point of our ride.

I made good use of the facilities there.

I want to say that I led the charge back to Dalton, and rode super well until Dug Gap Mountain, upon which I suddenly began cramping and despite having all the energy in the world, just could not keep moving. Pretty soon I was way off the back, and just suffered, alone, for the last 6 miles or so.

It might as well have been 50 miles for how bad it was.

I eventually managed to push through the cramps and felt ok when I got back to the car, but it was embarrassingly bad.

After the ride, we ate somewhere in Dalton. I wish I could remember where, because I remember it being a pretty nice place, with pretty good food. Might have just been Olive Garden or something though!

While sitting there, someone noticed blood on my arm.

I'd brushed it against a pine tree earlier and more or less forgotten about it, in my stupor.

I love riding with those guys, and getting to ride with Scott was a privilege.

Those were the days...