Southern Cross

Check it out...

This past weekend, for the first time in like 6 years, there was a number plate in the trunk of my truck.

And it wasn't just lying there. It was associated with a registration, my registration, for an actual race.

I'd signed up a month or more ago, but it was still kind-of surreal checking in at Montaluce the night before. Not just because of how long it's been, though. I'd wound around on some obscure backroads to get to the property, navigated some even twistier, pitch black, roads on the property, parked in the middle of nowhere, and trudged up an unlit hill, drawn to the dim glow emanating from a tent near the top, and found Kathleen Tokuda and Lisa Randall just hanging out all casual behind a table.

All right then.

"David Muse..."

(scrawl scrawl scrawl pack)

Bam! I had a bag full of swag and a number plate.

It was startling. Like deja vu. Like I was reliving a memory from a past life.

I'd be racing the next day. Or so it would appear. Still didn't seem real.

But, I went home, got some rest, got up the next morning, grabbed some Waffle House, made the mistake of having half a glass of coke with it, drove up to Dahlonega, and followed a much more direct route to the winery.

The weirdness was even more striking that morning. I knew like half the guys volunteering. Hadn't seen most of them in 6 or 8 years. The sun was still low, and the temps were steadily rising. I was a little excited. It was familiar, but not too familiar. Like a repressed memory.

So weird.

But that wasn't the only strange thing. The Southern Cross is a strange event. It's not a mountain bike race. It's not a cyclocross race. It's not a gravel grinder. Not exactly, at least. I mean, it is all of those things, but it's not really any one of them. It's kind of a gravel grinder, but it predates the term, and most of those are held on comparatively flat courses. This one boasts 6000 feet of climbing. The fair-weather route contains some singletrack, but only a mile or two, and that's like 4% of the total distance. So, it's not a mountain bike race, per se, but about half of the field rides it on a mountain bike. It's definitely not a cyclocross race, but the other half of the field rides it on a cross bike, or on a gravel bike, which is also a thing now. In years past, there was a run up at the start, with barriers, but they're mostly gone now...

Whatever it is, I was signed up, and it was race day, and I'd better get ready.

I ran by the start/finish to see if there was any day-of stuff that I needed to do.

Nope. Just a riders meeting at 9:30, and the start at 10:00.

I ran into Mark Baldwin a few minutes later. He was spinning around, starting to get warmed up. As I followed suit, I met the guys parked to either side of me. One was from Anderson South Carolina. The other was somehow involved in organizing, coaching, etc. of the Piedmont College mountain bike team, as well as the local NICA team. He and his son were both racing, and his son was apparently really damn strong.

Baldwin introduced me to two of his friends from Cartecay Bikes. One was named Jeff Harris, and the other's name I have forgotten because I'm really bad with names.

Spinning around, warming up, I ran into Joe Urbanowicz, who I'd never met in person before. He'd emailed me with some questions about my trails site, and I'd emailed him back. This happened a few times. Then we both apparently heard stuff about each other through mutual friends, and were both rather excited to finally meet in person. 15 minutes later I ran into Scott Hanson, who was spinning around with Joe. I could describe our pre-exsiting relationship in almost the exact same way, and it was equally cool to meet him too.

We all assembled for the riders meeting...

...and it got really warm standing around, so I quick, last-minute shed my base layer and knee warmers.

I had to pee real-quick before getting lined up for the start.

And then two or three agonizing minutes ticked by before it was time to get moving.

Again, the deja vu... This vague memory of some weird experience leading up to the start came to mind. And then it struck me, automatically - some kind of involuntary focus. My wandering thoughts retreated. The only kinds of thoughts I could sustain were about the road I was standing on and the people around me. If you could call them thoughts at all. I'd forgotten about how that happens, and it was amazing to get hit by it out of nowhere like that.

Go!

The roll out was neutral-ish. Lisa led us out in her truck, but we were moving. The pace was pretty quick and little bridge groups kept forming to try to keep from getting too split. I was putting in more effort than I really wanted to that early in the ride. But that's how it is. ORAMM was always like that too. There's not much you can do but try to keep from getting dropped or split, and if you have to push harder than you want, then that's just what you have to do.

Fortunately, there are some good descents on 28-1. I managed to keep from blowing up before hitting them, recovered, and actually felt really good as we started to climb Winding Stair.

A couple of cars passed us in both directions.

At one point, a very strange thing happened. I didn't notice at first, but then I did, and triple-checked, just to be sure. There were four of us in a row, all on Litespeeds! What are the odds?

A couple of us orbited each other most of the way up the climb, and steadily caught and passed other riders. I actually felt really good at the top, but wondered if I'd put in too much effort, too early in the race. I was following my instincts, but they were admittedly rusty.

At SAG 1, I grabbed a banana and a Clif Bar and I don't think I even clipped out.

The rollers across the Springer Mountain Ridge felt a lot better than they had a month or two ago, whenever it was that I was last up there. One guy behind me was joking about "We just came through a gap, how can we still be climbing?" Actually I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, but I didn't have the energy to explain it. Not sure how he had the energy to ask.

Toward the end of the Winding Stair climb, I'd picked up Jeff Harris (Mark's buddy that he'd introduced me to earlier) and we leapfrogged all the way across the ridge. It wasn't exactly friendly sparring either, there were tactics. We had plenty of legs for the terrain, and were legitimately trying to defeat one another. Ha ha! I was totally getting my money's worth!

I also got my money's worth bombing down off of Springer. My God! It had rained all week, but it was dryish the day before, and all night. The road was firm and dry, but not dusty. Perfect tread. Couldn't have been better. With no leaves on the trees, there were long lines of sight too. Barely feathered the brakes. Terminal velocity. All the way to Doublehead Gap. I don't even want to know how fast I was going. I can pretty confidently say that, on that bike, I could not have gone faster.

Again, Jeff and I leapfrogged most of the way down. Shred, shred, shred.

I managed to catch him on the pavement over to FS58 and drop him and some other riders on the rollers before climbing Noontootla.

It was in there that the bad decision to drink part of a coke that morning finally caught up to me. I'm super sensitive to caffeine, I'd been having to pee over and over pre-race, and kind-of having to go since just after SAG 1. It was getting pretty bad about then, and less than a mile up Noontootla, I had to stop and relieve myself for real. Probably only lost 2 or 3 minutes, but it seemed like forever and it took me the rest of the climb just to catch one of the guys in the group I'd been in, and he'd fallen off of the back.

I felt a little weak climbing Noontootla. It was still a tempo climb, but I've definitely felt better, even when it's not the first climb of the day. Not long after my nature break, a mildly overweight guy caught up and managed to stay with me for like 2 miles. At some point I started wondering if he was on an e-bike. He was just amazingly strong for how he looked. I did manage to pull away, but not nearly as quickly as I expected.

Another guy in a black and orange kit, I think on a Specialized, was back and forth with me most of the way up too. He dropped me on one of those last three kicks before the top. The second one hurt and my calves even started twinging.

I grabbed another banana and Clif bar at the SAG and spun over the rollers to Coppermine. From there on, I almost only passed people. Like 20 people. But there was this one lady I'd passed bombing down to Hightower that came flying by at the quarry and dropped me so fast that it was upsetting.

The descent off of Cooper Gap was almost as much shred as the descent off of Springer. The apex of every turn was a little worn in by all of the riders ahead of me, and you could really rail it. I did hit the brakes a few times, but again, I doubt that I could have ridden it any faster, on that bike.

I passed 5 or 6 guys on cross bikes, but there was this one guy about 100 yards up, also on a cross bike, that there was nothing I could do to close the gap on. I was amazed how well he handled the descent on that bike.

It's rollers to Hightower Church Road, and then you're just on pavement back to Montaluce. My 30-11 was weak on the pavement. There were a lot of times when I was completely spun out on flat, and just couldn't go any faster. I was actually happy whenever I could see a little climb coming.

I guess happy might not be the right way to put it. I had that long, slow burn going. That "body screaming for you to stop" kind of feeling, but where you actually do have plenty of legs, you just have to ignore the urge to not use them. It had been a long time since I'd felt that. I'd forgotten even what it takes to get to that point.

We entered the Montaluce property on some little side trail, dropped down to a creek, which I actually dismounted to cross, and ran up the other side. Not just in the spirit of cross, but because though the creek looked totally rideable, the other side was a mess of footprints and screamed "dismount!"

There was also a single barrier on the last climb.

Just one. And it was kind-of flat leading up to it. I really felt like I could have hopped that one, but dismounted anyway, this time just in the spirit of cross. The guy manning the table offered me a shot of beer to finish with, but that just sounded like a terrible idea, and I declined, hopefully politely.

And that was it.

Yay.

My calves, in particular, were killing me, for some reason. Probably a bike-fit issue, but I had the bike fit, years ago. I haven't gotten any taller. My seat post hasn't moved, according to the sticker. I'm riding the same pedals. My shoes are from the same manufacturer. It's possible that the seat itself has collapsed. Who knows?

At any rate, I spun around for a few minutes just to be sure my legs wouldn't cramp, before collapsing on the grass for an indeterminate amount of time.

Mark showed up at some point. He'd been done for like 20 minutes when I finished. Jeff finished a few minutes after me. He'd started cramping after the descent off of Springer and never totally recovered. Turned out it was moot that we were pushing each other, we were in different age groups. Dangit. I'd forgotten all about that.

(Mark on left, Jeff with his back to me, Mike Palmeri to the right of him)

I was filthy, but there were somehow guys in mostly-white kits with no dirt anywhere on them. Like 6 or 8 different guys. I can't imagine how they managed that. Mark was even joking that they'd changed kits.

No idea.

How'd I do? Oh yeah, there are iPads on a table, under a tent, with near-real time timing on them these days. No waiting around for times to be posted. Ha!

Ohhhhh!

50th out of 77 in my class. 166th out of 284 overall. Not even top half. Mark did finish 20 minutes earlier.

Damn. That's embarrassing.

Well, maybe. First race in 6 years. First race of the season. Mountain bike (with a 30-11) on a gravel/road course. Maybe not technically embarrassing, but it definitely stunk up the place.

Moe's was catering, so I grabbed a taco/fajita thing, and Mark brought me a coke. The taco thing was delicious. The coke tasted like chemicals, but I still craved it like it was crack cocaine or something.

I didn't stick around for long after the podiums, and other than divining my way out to 400, had an incident-free drive home. I did have to lie on the couch for a couple of hours before my legs quit burning, but even that wasn't too bad.

I'll have to think a bit about what I could do to improve things. Hydration, nutrition, preparation, and sleep... I'm sure there are plenty of things to tweak. I'm not sure what the next event is, but I'm already looking forward to it. I hope it's soon.

River Line Park

In keeping with my recent trend of writing about rides that I wouldn't normally write about...

While tooling around River Line Park off of Oakdale Road during a local ramble, I ran into this historically significant thing...

I mean... It doesn't look like anything when you just take a photo of it, but it's apparently a "Shoupade" - a fortification used by Johnston's men during the Civil War, part of the River Line (from which the park derives its name) and designed by a guy named Shoup (from which it derives ITS name).

More info was available on the sign that accompanied the work.

The other interesting thing on that ride was hearing these two guys talk that were walking the trail around the park. One guy was trying to tell the other guy a story, and the other guy was laughing so hard that he couldn't easily pay attention. Then, the first guy (telling the story) started laughing, and couldn't get through a sentences without cracking up. This went on from the point I noticed them, until they were far enough away that I couldn't hear them any more.

Seemed like they were having a great time. I couldn't remember the last time I cracked up like that, and it was really fun to watch.

Nickajack Park

A week and a half ago I got super sick. Like, water pouring out of every part of me that water can pour out of, for 7 hours sick. Like, 6 and a half pounds lighter the next day, couldn't keep water down, and had to go to the hospital for IV fluids sick.

Terrible.

Then, it rained for a week and a half.

Today was the first opportunity to do anything outside. I had an invitation to get in some good gravel miles with Justin and Glen this morning, but we had COC tickets for last night, there were three opening acts, and no seats. My legs were pretty shredded when I got home at 1:30, and there was no way I was going to make a 7am start time in Heflin.

So, instead, I slept in and did an extended local ramble today, including a little spin around Nickajack Park.

Turns out there's a rusty old footbridge at the back of the park that crosses the creek and connects with the school on the other side.

The school has a baseball field and kind-of a football field, but it made me wonder if at some point they used the park for tennis and basketball.

It was a neat find. I'm sure someone knows the story. I'll have to ask around.

Coyote in Vinings Estates

Me and Sophie were up in her room the other day when we started hearing all kinds of howling outside.

Coyotes.

They howl all day and night, and the local dogs like to join in too.

Then, about 5 minutes later we saw this guy walk down the hill behind the house.

Sophie's seen them crossing the street while she's at the bus stop in the morning too.

Greenspace.

Yay?

Aska

Almost immediately after last week's Blue Ridge shenanigans, I invited the same crew (plus John and Justin) up to the Aska area to rip our legs off on the ridiculousness that lies up that way. Over the course of the next week, nearly everyone turned me down for one good reason or another, but Mr. O'Dea was still in, so we met at the Rock Creek Church in Cherry Log early(ish) Saturday morning, both ready to throw down!

The weather was a great deal less ideal than last week's had been. It hadn't rained a ton, but it was just barely above freezing in the lot, and would certainly be cooler up the mountain. Not absolutely terrible, but I'd really been hoping for more of those mid-50's. No matter though, we had a long climb ahead of us, and were grateful for that.

It's funny when you're grateful that you're starting out the day with a long climb.

We started up Rock Creek Road, passing horse farms and old houses along the way. There's one house up there that used to be painted fluorescent blue. A terrible paint job too, they got paint all over the windows. It's been repainted beige, but the windows are still blue.

Wild.

We took a slight detour at FS259 and immediately picked up Brownlow Gap Road. Or, as I should now call it: Old Brownlow Gap Road. I'd last ridden it ages ago, and it had just been closed. I don't mean permanently closed with a Kelly Hump or anything, but the gate had been closed, and a sign had been placed saying that it was closed to motorized traffic for habitat restoration, or something. This had been done some few weeks prior to riding it, and it was still basically indistinguishable from the other gravel roads in the area, except that it didn't have a fresh coat of gravel on it. It couldn't have been more unlike that yesterday. It had basically become the Hickory Nut, but with more deadfall, and less maintenance.

Eddie joked that it wouldn't be a Dave Muse ride if you don't end up in a section where you seriously have to contemplate backtracking. Yes, that is my reputation. Clark Neal would definitely agree with that. He's said something pretty similar on a couple of different occasions.

Only about 30% of the road was hike-a-bikey. The rest was difficult, but rideable. Still, we were pleased when we hit Rich Mountain Road, and even more pleased to descend off the back side of Stanley Gap.

Well, almost pleased. Eddie was pleased to have brought his puffy jacket because it was really, really cold on that descent, and even colder on the Aska Road rollers.

Somewhere on the first descent, Eddie had to stop to pump up his front tire, and then had to stop and pump it up again at Aska Road. It appeared to just not have beeen sealing well on the rim though, and didn't give him any more problems for the rest of the day.

We got some good views of the Toccoa along Aska Road, but nobody was out fishing that day.

Our next stop was the Turkey Farm Loop, up off Shady Falls road. We passed the Long Branch lot, and it was super full of cars. We didn't run into anyone on the roads though. I'd only ridden the Turkey Farm Loop like twice before. Once with John, and once with Billy and my Dad. The first time was only a few months after moving to Georgia from Louisiana, and I was surprised by the rolling dips in the road. I couldn't imagine why they were there except to give me something to launch, and I was super happy about it. I remembered that as I tore down the road yesterday, smiling about how I'd been so eager to catch air in the past, while at the time I was doing all I could to keep myself close to the ground.

My memory was apparently fuzzy though... We hung a left, missed the next left, circled a field, and ended up taking a trail down to where the Toccoa becomes Blue Ridge Lake.

Hmm...

Not exactly right.

Time to backtrack, and reinforce that reputation.

I'd replaced my chain and cassette two days earlier, as both were officially worn out after last week's ride. I'd opted for an 11-46 cassette, hoping to replace my 30 with a 34 up front, have bigger intervals, and have something more useful on the road and going downhill. Well, as fate would have it, the 34 didn't fit my chainring, so I was still riding the 30. As such, I had a pretty easy climb up from the lake, but Eddie wasn't digging it at all. I think he had a 9-46 in the back, but was still running the 36 up front that he used on some long ride. Maybe even from riding the Tour Divide. Whatever it was, he'd been talking about changing it, but never actually did, and it sucked on that climb.

Fortunately, the misadventure was short, and we found the trail that we thought might be the right one quickly.

When we started seeing ruins, we knew we were on track for sure.

The loop is called the Turkey Farm Loop because there were once turkey farms back in there. The more durable remains of the farms can be seen and explored. I'd like to go back on foot one day to do a more thorough exploration. I'd bet there's even more out there than you can see from the old road.

It was cool that Eddie wanted to check it all out too. Most people I ride with aren't interested in such things and I tend to bore them with the little side trips. In this case, he actually noticed that first chimney. I hadn't seen it before, only the basements.

It was pretty interesting too. It looked like the stuff had all been built at very different time periods. Some of it was stacked local stone. Some was made out of strange bricks. Some of it was concrete. Made me wonder how long the farm had been in operation before it had finally shut down.

We eventually picked up the "Unknown Road", took that to Brown's Cove Road, and got in some great road shred somewhere in there.

Kenny who's last name I now forget, that used to run the Dirty Spokes series (the only race series I ever won, though sadly only in Sport) lives off of Brown's Cove Road, so we rode right past his house. Another guy that Eddie knows named Dan (I think), though I forget how they know each other, lives right next door, so we actually rode by both of their houses. Eddie had actually called Kenny when we hit Aska Road, to see if he wanted to jump in for a few miles, but he was skiing or something. Something more reasonable to do when it's cold outside.

The Long Branch lot was still super full when we got there, and we passed a lot of hikers on the trail. I'd heard that a bunch of work had been done on Long Branch after that CoTrails-led full-forest evaluation thing, but I hadn't seen it yet. At first, I didn't notice anything new, but at the north end there was some twisty new singletrack and a bridge over the creek.

Super classy.

There might have been even more done on the other side, but we only rode the west side that day.

Next up - Green Mountain.

But only after a little lunch and light texting.

That photo totally reminds me of Flo's sister in that Progressive commercial where she's on the exercise bike, texting, and ignoring Flo.

"You're ruining my workout... I'm blasting my quads... Cycling is my passion..."

Heh.

We climbed Green Mountain and ran into even more hikers.

The descent had been noticeably reworked as well. It looked like road-trail-conversion type work. The work looked nice at 30+ MPH, at least from a sustainability perspective. And, it was so long ago that I last rode it, that I don't know what it was like before SORBA "ruined" it, so ha! Ignorance is bliss.

The Deep Gap lot was also super full, and there were some moms there taking their very young (like 3 or 4 year old) kids out for a hike on the Girl Scout Nature Trail loop. It reminded me of taking my girls out there when they were young. Though they were like 6 and 8 at the time, and we'd whacked directly up the side of Davenport Mountain, ran along the ridge until we picked up Stanley Gap and hiked back down that. Christ, we did that. We did that kind of thing a lot. Man, those were the days...

Climbing Flat Creek, we passed a group of 3 mountain bikers who were impressed that we both had titanium bikes. Or maybe they were mocking us. I don't know. I do know that we dropped them so fast that it would have been upsetting, if they had been mocking us.

We also passed a guy in a PBR kit, just like mine! He was shredding downhill though, and I didn't recognize him or do much more than wave. Eddie thought that it was Josh Vandall, but I honestly couldn't tell.

Further up, we passed like 5 girls and a guy, all drinking Miller Lite, mostly pretty drunk. Got to stay hydrated, right?!

Eddie joked about how good that beer would have been right then.

The Long Branch descent was furious. More of the same road-trail conversion work had been done there. Basically, the right-hand side of the old roadbed had been filled in with debris, encouraging traffic on the outside edge. I'd bet in the summer it's all overgrown on the inside now too. Occasionally, the trail swerves in and then back out. There does seem to be less chunky rock, but it's been so long that I can't really be sure, and man is it fast. And there are super long lines of sight, so though we were able to go tearing down the trail, we didn't come tearing up on any of the 3 different groups of hikers we ran into on the descent.

Eddie flatted somewhere in there. Rear tire this time. I stopped to wait, noticed he wasn't there, and climbed back up for like 1/4 of a mile before I found him. I'd passed some hikers, had to pass them in the other direction, and they hadn't even seen him yet. Yikes.

Turned out he had a pinhole leak at the sidewall that just wouldn't seal. We fiddled with it for like 20 minutes, got passed by all the hikers we'd seen earlier, and those guys on mountain bikes too, and had to pass all of them again later.

Everyone was super friendly. The first group was glad that I'd found my friend.

I was actually really happy to see so many people out hiking those trails. Ten years ago that was almost unheard of. There'd only ever be like 2 other cars in the Deep Gap lot, both with bike racks. I think me and John ran into some hikers on Flat Creek once, and once again ran into some on Stanley Gap. People used to avoid hiking multi-use trails. I've seen lots of hikers and runners at Bull over the past few years though, and an increase at Blanket's Creek too.

I'm not sure if the recentish work can be credited for the increase, but the trails do look beautiful now. They actually strike you as hiking trails now, rather than old roadbeds. They have the character of hiking trails, but are also open to bikes. I love it.

The rework was very apparent at the bottom. There are several bits of twisty singletrack down there. More RTC.

But, the most apparent thing was the new bridge.

The old bridge used to be the slipperiest bridge in the entire forest. It was slippery in every season, at every time of day. My brother and I'd both crashed on it. I'd randomly mentioned Flat Creek to other mountain bikers over the years, and they'd been like: "Yeah, and that bridge..."

The new bridge is narrower, but a lot sturdier, and not the least bit slippery. I fantasize that even nature itself had gotten tired of the old bridge and destroyed it with deadfall in a flood.

The climb back out was tough. I'd forgotten how steep it gets in some spots. It's super, super steep.

In retrospect, the ride was a little strange. The climbing got successively longer and more difficult, all day - Rock Creek Road, then Turkey Farm, then Long Branch, then Green Mountain, then Flat Creek, and now, finally, Stanley Gap.

I had to fiddle with my jacket or something, so Eddie went ahead of me. That turned out to be a good idea because I ended up crawling a few times.

Just, crawling.

30/46 is a good gear to have on Stanley Gap, when it's the last climb of the day. But, you crawl.

I was overjoyed to hit the ridge on Rocky Mountain...

...and even happier when I saw Eddie waiting for me at the top of that kick before you start sidehilling again.

We passed several more groups of hikers between there and where the BMT splits off.

The first bit of downhill on Rocky Mountain gets slippery. I'd even crashed there once, riding with Travis, and tore up my arm, but there was no crashing yesterday, only flow, worn out fingers, and tired forearms and triceps.

All we had left was to cruise down Rock Creek Road back to the car.

You can just let it go too. No brakes needed. The road is just the right grade, and just the kind of tread. Or, at least it was that day.

When it became pavement again, we passed the weird old blue-beige house again, and greeted the various horses in the various pastures. And the mules. Not to forget the mules.

There are a couple of kicks at the end of the road, right before you get to the church that aren't really that hard, but after downhilling for so long, your legs feel dead when you hit them. Especially at the end of the ride.

Actually, that had been happening all day. We'd climb for a while, hit some long descent, rip that, recover, keep ripping, and eventually have dead legs when it was time to start climbing again. That's how long the descents are out there.

Gotta love it.

We'd been joking about how hungry we'd gotten on the last descent, and so that neither of us felt the need to eat our respective arms, or any of the horses we'd passed, we satisfied our hungers at Poole's BBQ, just down the road in Ellijay.

It's the one with all those pigs on that hill.

The guy behind the counter was garrulous and told us a story about how in high school they were talking about converting the US to the metric system, and he'd had a poster of a girl in a bikini with her measurements in imperial units on one side and metric on the other, with "Think Metric!" at the top of the poster. Sounds like a weird story to tell, but it struck me as really funny at the time.

My brain wasn't functioning properly yet, and while he was taking my order, I thought briefly about work. This switched it into Portuguese, and I answered "Para aqui, sim" to "Is that for here or to go?" and actually had to translate that into English in my head so I could say it again in English. That has not happened before, and it was weird.

We feasted on brisket before finally hitting the road back to the ATL.

I was hungry again only a few hours later and managed to eat another full meal at Doc Chey's with Sophie that night.

Calorie deficit. If you want one, there's nothing better than climbing all day at Aska.

Creekside Area

For quite a while now, I've been trying to get in some kind of mileage every day. Usually a ride, but I'll get in a hike if the weather's bad, or if I did a long ride the day before. Sometimes, if there's just somewhere I want to explore, it's also easier on foot.

I usually don't write about any of these little outings, but sometimes I run into something interesting, and it's worth mentioning.

Such was the case a few days ago. I was exploring some neighborhood trails near the Creekside condo's off of East-West Connector, and found this beautiful little feeder creek in the middle of Smyrna.

If you didn't know any better, you might think it was some feeder of the Upper Chattahoochee.

Beautiful! And almost literally in our own backyards.

Blue Ridge WMA

A few weeks back Mark B. texted like 10 people seeing if we wanted to ride the general Blue Ridge WMA area. The route he had in mind included some trails that I used to ride in the mid 2000's, like 2004-2007. Back then, I'd tried to get other people to ride them with me, but nobody wanted to. I got Eddie O out there a few times, and Russell once. But the trails were too remote, too steep, and involved too much hike-a-bike, or hopping downed trees to be interesting to the general public. I even lost interest myself after learning, that while not technically illegal, riding such trails was discouraged by the Forest Service. The more I learned about trail construction and maintenance, the more I understood why, and I basically limited myself to hitting those trails about once a year. And I hadn't even done that in 6+ years.

Turns out, these days, some of those trails are almost mainstream, with cute names like "Ace of Spades" and "Gold Coin" instead of the dry and clinical "Horse Gap Connector" and "Little Sal Mountain Ridge Trail" as I'd gotten into the habit of calling them.

Sounded good to me. I'd count it as my once-a-year on those trails, and I was interested in seeing how much they'd changed.

I grabbed some Waffle House on the way up - order scramble well, dry toast, hold the grits... And we all met at the old game check station lot off of FS77. "All" being Mark B, Marc Hirsch, Aaron, Aaron's friend Chris (who I hadn't met before), Eddie F (who I didn't recognize without his helmet and glasses), Patrick Jones, and Mike who I'd ridden with before but only knew as Bromley's guy, except that I also knew his name but didn't know that it belonged to him. If that makes sense. It was a popular place. Like 5 other riders came by while we were getting ready, as well as a trail runner. Two guys and one of them's daughter were heading down to Jones Creek to fish it between the lake and FS77A too. Super popular.

It was like 33 on the way up, but the temps were rising quickly. Last minute, I ditched my windbreaker, heavy gloves, shoe covers, and arm warmers, keeping only the base layer and knee warmers. Turned out to be just right.

We started by climbing up and over Jones Creek Ridge, then up Winding Stair.

I felt good on both. No trouble keeping up with anyone except Patrick, who was riding a single speed, despite knowing exactly what kind of climbing we'd be doing, and crushing everyone.

At WSG we met the E and a guy who I recognized but who's name I forget, and were supposed to meet Peter Josky. His car was there, but he was nowhere to be found, and after multiple attempts to contact him, we were eventually like "Well, bye" and continued on our way.

At Puncheon Gap, we climbed up Puncheon Knob and dropped down East Penitentiary Cove Ridge. This was obscure trail number one. 15 years ago, it was a barely distinguishable ribbon of singletrack, threaded around and over exposed rock and deadfall. The very bottom was indistinct to say the least. You just had to pick a route through the spindly little trees down there and hope it didn't lead off into to thick brush. The Rangers used it. I rode it. That was about it. These days, a lot of the deadfall has been cleared and the trail is super easy to follow. I even saw what looked like motorcycle tracks. The leaves were thick and deep though, and I mostly rode it in the summer way back, so I'd be curious to see it again in the summer for comparison.

Hopping deadfall was no longer a challenge, but it was still super steep in a few sections. I managed to flat pinging over a rock, and fix it before the next rider came through. As I was fixing it, I noticed an ammo box on a stake about 10 yards away, very well obscured by brush. Super random spot too. I'd never seen it before, and I wondered if I'd ever be able to find it again.

We gathered up at the bottom, headed out to Montgomery Creek Road...

...took the Bee Trail past False Black Falls...

...and rode out past Camp Merrill.

Two Blackhawks were parked on the helipad there, and one was warming up, so we all stopped to gawk. Some locals with a jeep were there too, as curious as we were.

We watched for like 5 minutes, but they never took off, so we crossed the Etowah and headed toward Cooper Gap Road. I managed to get a foot wet crossing, not because of any clumsiness, but because I was like "ok, it's shallow enough to stop ratcheting now..." but it totally wasn't.

Fortunately the temps were still climbing. It was at least 50 on the south side of the ridge, so it never really presented a problem.

The Blackhawk did take off though, right as we were passing the entrance to the camp, and it was really cool. It popped up, started moving forward, then dove to tree level as it climbed up the valley to Hightower Gap. I met some Rangers at Garrett's Farms once that called it "map of the earth" navigation or something similar. Where they basically hug the terrain to wherever they're going. I'd seen almost the exact same thing from Hightower Gap once. A Blackhawk followed the valley up to near the gap, then headed up the face of Hawk Mountain. It's surreal when you see it. I can't make it sound nearly as impressive in words as it is in real life.

Post-spectacle we climbed Cooper Gap Road...

Just past the "Sky Orchad" we ran into another guy who hadn't ridden it before and was happy to hear that he was getting near the top.

At the gap there were a bunch of folks camping where the AT crosses, and some motorcycles passed us from the east.

We reorganized and headed west, only to stop again at the quarry for a couple of quick photos.

"The Night Watch" style:

And traditional:

Darn sun, right in my face the whole time.

From there we hit the Ace of Spades, or Horse Gap Road Connector as I'd been fond of calling it. Eddie O had to bail there to go find the guy he rode up with. Eddie F bailed somewhere in there too, but I forgot exactly where. The rest of us carried on. I could not ride the hideous chunk on my 80mm 2.2x26'er but everyone else on their 120+/100+ 2.7x29'ers had an easy time of it. Actually, Hirsch rode it on his hardtail. I'd ridden it before, but it was a very long time ago, and I just didn't see a line this time.

On Horse Gap Road, there was a guy walking his dog. Of all things.

Chris had flatted, couldn't get the Stans to seal it, and eventually had to put a tube in.

We took Horse Gap around Greasy Mountain, to a trail that I'd never ridden before. It's on old topo maps, but I'd hiked it end-to-end way back, and it was nearly impassible, even on foot. So much deadfall. Since then, enough of it had been cleared to be nice and rideable, and what remained was basically exactly what you'd do on purpose, in a road-trail-conversion. A happy accident, I guess.

We crossed Cochran Creek, hung a left and climbed up to Edmonson Gap. About 80% of that was rideable, but the top 20% was a difficult hike-a-bike. Difficult, mainly because of the freeze-thaw. On the shady side of the various ridges, there was a slip layer. The top 1/4th inch was dry, but that just insulated the 1/4th inch below that, and kept it from drying out, so the next 1/4th inch was wet and slippery, and the top bit would slide along the bottom bit with enough pressure.

Terrible!

Unrideable. Even hiking was difficult and slippery. Our feet were all slipping and chewing up the soil. All of this right along the creek. Worst conditions to be on that part of the mountain in. I felt irresponsible being there. I felt bad about my impact on the forest. Under different circumstances I'd have turned back.

When we got to Edmondson Gap it was fine for a while. The slope was north-facing. There was a more hike-a-bike on the way up and over to Frozen Knob, but a lot of it was rideable. Somewhere in there, my glasses went flying off of my helmet as I hopped over a log, and Patrick ran them over. Of course he couldn't have seen them, so it wasn't his fault. And, it didn't do any real damage. I just straightened the nosepiece, clipped the lens back in, and they were fine. That's the one really bad thing about my helmet, it just won't hold glasses, and I hate wearing them while climbing. I'm thinking about somehow putting some little rubber strips on the temples for a little extra grip.

Coming down off of Frozen Knob was ridiculous. I've always called the trail that leads up Frozen Knob from Williams Gap, and over it to the gap above Gooch Creek Cove the "Frozen Knob Trail." Well, these days, the bit of it that drops off of Frozen Knob proper down to Williams Gap is referred to as Mario's Run. I'd hiked it forever ago, but never considered riding it. It's super steep and rocky, and short of hike-a-biking up Mauldin Knob, dropping down to Edmonson Gap from that side, the hike-a-biking up to Frozen Knob Ridge, I could never figure out a way to even get to it. And the trail between Frozen Knob and Greasy Mountain doesn't actually go all the way to Greasy Mountain. It kind of fizzles out about 2/3rds of the way up. So, I didn't think much of it. Somebody did though, and while not exactly popular, it definitely gets some traffic these days.

At any rate, it was also north-facing, and incredibly slippery. Like touch-the-brakes-and-lock-up-both-wheels-then-put-a-foot-down-and-that-foot-starts-slipping-then-put-another-foot-down-and-that-foot-also-starts-slipping slippery. Me and Mike basically jogged next to our bikes down about 60% of the trail. I could finally ride the last 40%, but even that was sketchy.

We regrouped at Williams Gap and apparently everyone had been having trouble, though most fared better than I did. I'd like to hit it again in the summer when I have a chance at riding it.

We hit Frozen Branch next. I immediately got a big chunk of mud in my eye, had to stop, got passed by Mark B and Chris, and struggled to catch back on. There was a time when I was fast. Seems like a long time ago now though.

From there, we climbed up, past Rock Creek Lake, to Hightower Gap. Water was blasting over the dam at the lake. Some people were fishing. A little past that, there was a truck parked on the side of the road, and a guy and a lady were poking around on the downslope. They both had grocery bags that appeared to be full of something, but I couldn't tell what. It didn't look like trash. They didn't appear to be picking up trash. No idea. In the bed of their truck though, there were two young girls, like maybe 4 and 5. Maybe younger. They were very excited to see us coming, and the younger one ran to the tailgate and was like:

"Hello! My name is Stacy and my sister's name is Violet!"

Maybe not Stacy... Some "S" name.

Her slightly less extroverted sister smiled kind of nervously and waved.

I replied with: "It's very nice to meet you!" and she seemed very pleased with how well it all went, smiled really big, and danced a little.

The whole exchange was heartwarming. The guys behind me were like: "What was that all about?" They couldn't hear what we'd said, they just heard us both talking, then saw her smiling and dancing.

Ha!

It was a bit of a grind up to Hightower, and a bit more of a grind over to Winding Stair Gap, but we all made it. Nobody bonked and nobody had to walk.

Me and Patrick almost caught two dudes in black jerseys at WSG. They were barely ahead of us. I figured they might stop at the gap and we could say hi, but they just kept going and bombed right down it.

After a quick regroup, we bombed down as well. I caught and passed Patrick, but then managed to front-flat (and thankfully not crash) about 2/3rds of the way down. Dangit! I'd already flatted once, and I was fresh out of spares. I had to patch that one. Fortunately Hirsch and Patrick stopped to help out, and the repair went quickly. Good thing I'd brought two CO2's.

Done!

Woohoo, Blue Ridge WMA! And it only took 12 years and dramatic advances in technology to get those guys out there. There are a dozen more trails back in there, and routes that don't include the ones we rode last weekend. I wonder if they'd be interested in any of those?

Back the lot, I ran into Stan Crane! No work party that day, so he'd been out riding too, and ran into some guys in Jeeps on some of the trails off of FS877. They were planning on doing some work the next day, but I had family stuff to do and it didn't work out. Hopefully March 2nd works out better. I haven't been able to do any digging for months now, and it's been pretty discouraging, actually.

On the way home, we all stopped at Johnny's Pizza in Dawsonville. The restaurant was full of smoke from the kitchen, for some reason, and the sun was just above the horizon, beaming directly into the booth we got by the window. The guys on the other side of the table had to wear sunglasses to be able to see. I got a chicken parm sandwich with no cheese. Sounds crazy, but it was just crazy-good.

I wasn't all that tired on the drive home, but I slept really well that night and could only manage a 45 minute recovery hike the next day.

Good times, good times.