Well, it had to happen eventually.
Years back, during the Great Silver Comet Adventure, Sophie crashed and skinned her knee, then Iz crashed and skinned her knee and elbow not 2 hours later. Since then, it's been my "turn". The girls joked about it often. "It's your turn dad." Well, it's been years and years, but finally, my turn came up.
First crash ever on the road bike!
Not bad though, just went down in a wet, muddy corner. I'll have to keep a better eye out for those.
Crash!!!!
A few days after the Quad County 75-or-so I drove down to Gonzales to recover my family.
I was still sick and the drive down was horrible. I usually love watching the world pass by, checking out all the little changes as you cross the country, but this time I was dead tired and my back hurt and I just couldn't pay attention to anything. I did enjoy the weather on the Bonnet Carre Spillway, but that was all.
The week was dominated by birthday parties.
Sophie's was on Wednesday.
Don's was on Thursday.
Isabel's was on Sunday but we celebrated it on Friday.
Kathryn's sister is a fantastic cake decorator. She was busy making a cake for a baby shower but still took some time to decorate Isabel's. Thanks Jennifer!
Cakes and birthdays! Woohoo!
I did get a chance to do a little riding. By Thursday (I think it was Thursday) I felt less terrible.
Sophie and I rode about 5 or 6 miles in laps around their neighborhood.
There are 3 streets in their neighborhood: Prairie South, Prairie East and Prairie North. The street signs disagree as to how to spell Prairie though.
On some corners, two different signs spell it differently. Ha!
When Sophie was tired I took off on my own, up toward Port Vincent. I took it really easy though. I felt OK but I still didn't feel "good".
I got close to the Amite River but didn't cross it. Maybe next time.
All along the river up there the houses are built on stilts in case of flooding. It was tough to get a photo though. The shoulders are narrow and traffic was heavy.
I did stop at a gas station once though, and noticed that it was shaded by a Great Southern Live Oak.
Don't see many of those in North Georgia. Sadly, it lacked Spanish Moss.
Ha! Just down the road was a drive-thru daquiri shop. People don't believe me when I tell them about these. They exist. For example:
Traffic was so heavy though that it was difficult to get across the street and back. It took like 5 minutes to get that photo.
Easing back on into town some guys pulled up next to me at a stoplight and chatted with me for a minute. They were super friendly, wanted to know how far I'd ridden, wished me luck, etc. Really nice guys, but it was funny, the driver had an open beer in his lap the whole time. Ha! That's South Louisiana for you.
The next day we packed up a trailer in the pouring rain. The day after we drove back here. My folks were here when we got here and we spent the next day unpacking. There are still boxes everywhere though. Woohoo moving! But also, woohoo family!
This happened so long ago that I barely remember it now. The backlog!
Having put in some really good miles up in the mountains recently, my brother and I wanted to reprise that ride with another long one a little closer to home. He'd looked up the Quad County Century route a while back, so we settled on that one.
Instead of gloriously fulfilling like that last one had been, this ride was just terrible.
I mean, it started out OK. The first 10 miles or so were fine but instead of waking up and feeling good, it just started hurting more and more. I kept thinking "maybe I'll wake up" and kept pushing but that just never happened.
I don't remember anything about the route at all. We started in Douglas County, so that was one of the counties. I'm pretty sure we were in Carroll County at some point, but as for the rest... Pfft. No idea.
It turned out that a triathlon was going on out there and at some point we pulled in behind some ladies who were riding in it.
We eventually pulled ahead of them though. Somewhere in there we stopped for water. The rest was a blur.
I'm pretty sure we cut it short and turned it into the Quad County 75-or-so-rather-than-Century.
The post-ride lunch at Fabiano's was the highlight of the day.
Turned out later that I was getting sick. That night I had a headache and a fever. Ha! I guess that kind-of explains it.
A year and a half ago it would have seemed wrong to go two weeks without riding at least one of my bikes in real mountains. I guess it still seems wrong, but opportunity cost being what it is, such has been the way of things.
The longest climb I have around these parts is Mableton Parkway from the River to Veterans Memorial. It's worth doing but it pales in comparison to real climbing, and real descending for that matter. Mountains! Mountains are required for such things.
Yesterday everything came together though, and the frere and I put in some pretty good miles in the mountains.
He said to meet him at Starbucks on Atlanta Road at 8. I think he expected me to drive over but screw that, Starbucks is only like 3 miles away or something. I put some clean clothes and barefoot shoes in my camelback and just rode over.
The morning air was surprisingly cool. It is summer isn't it? I wasn't so sure. I might need to get up earlier and ride in the morning. It was wonderful!
I did have to wait for a train though.
That was less wonderful, but I like trains, so the train was cool, just not the wait.
I met the frere at the appointed time and location, we drove up to Dahlonega and parked just south of Stone Pile Gap.
R-Ranch on the left, Trahlyta's grave on the right.
Woody Gap straight ahead!
The climb up to Woody Gap isn't too bad. Easy spinning, should you choose to do so, or you can make it harder if you like. We chose to spin as we had too many miles ahead of us to screw around and blow up early.
The weather was perfect. Sunny, no wind and it felt like it was in the 60's. The shadows were much cooler than out in the sun. Whatever it is up there that smells like cinnamon was smelling like cinnamon. Everyone was still hung over from their 4th of July festivities so traffic was really light. My legs felt strong.
We passed a few riders on their way up and a few more on their way down. I thought I recognized Mark Johnson, but I don't know who he's riding for these days and I didn't recognize the kit the guy was wearing. Probably not him.
I thought I remembered a kick at the very end, up near the gap, but I must have been thinking of somewhere else. No kick. The descent into Suches was fun - faster and twistier than I remembered. I was thinking, it must have been at least 4 years since I'd ridden up there. I've driven it a bunch since then, and hiked the AT through there, but it seems like it's been at least that long since I've been on the road bike.
We blew through Suches and continued north on Hwy 60 through several sets of twisty curves. I'd driven that road dozens of times but never ridden it. Woohoo! I'd been missing out.
We rode along the Toccoa for a minute or two but it was impossible to get a photo. When the road flattened out we started passing farms and getting good views of the mountains.
Two years ago I probably could have recalled the name of that knob from memory. Not any more. It seems like all of that information has been replaced. I wonder if it's still in there or not.
Somewhere in there a guy caught up with us and rode with us for a mile or two. He was doing sort of the inverse of what we were doing, without the Woody Gap climb, but he'd started a little north of Blairsville. We were riding a little conservatively for his taste though, and he eventually took off down the road.
At the Cooper Creek Store, some riders pulled out behind us. One of them caught up and rode with us for several more miles. His buddy caught up after a while too. They were also doing the same loop as us, sans the Woody Gap climb. It's funny... John put the loop together by eyeballing Google maps a few days before, but it's apparently a fairly common route. I guess we all just think alike.
We hung a right at Skeenah Gap road and our tag-alongs dropped back for the rest of their group. I've driven that road many times, and hiked all over the place to the north of it, but never ridden it. The climb to Skeenah Gap doesn't feel like you're doing anything until the very end. You pass a church on the right and then it kicks straight up into the steepest part of the entire route, for like a quarter mile or less, tops out, and then even the descent off the back side is mild.
All right then.
Two gaps down and I was feeling great. This is me, feeling great.
We wound around to the northeast and eventually tee'd into Hwy 5.
I don't remember if it was along Skeenah Gap Road or Hwy 5 that we passed this dairy, but the name was great.
Heh, Butt Dairy. Who knows, if you live in Blairsville, you might be drinking Butt milk.
The fields to the right gave many clear views of Duncan Ridge.
We were basically circumnavigating the Cooper Creek WMA. I'm not sure I ever knew those peaks by name. Or, I would recognize their names, like I know one of them is Shope Knob, but I couldn't have ever recited them.
Further on we hit Hwy 5 and headed eastish. Brasstown Bald loomed ahead of us the whole time.
The highest peak is Brasstown Bald. To the right of that is Jack's Knob. The low spot between them is the overlook in the Brasstown parking lot. I've been there a dozen times but I don't remember ever looking at it from this side. I'm not sure if the ridge is Wolfpen Ridge or the ridge of the Arkaqua Trail. It's one of those though.
We hung a right on Mulkey Gap road and a left on Owltown. Owltown was a net climb, but it wasn't direct. There were lots of little ups and downs, step-ups and climbs around curves. The net elevation gain didn't seem like all that much but the total climbing seemed comparable to Woody's. Somewhere in there we passed the Highland Crossing, as marked by a roadsign and I recognized the road leading off to the right. I'd been hiking back up in there years ago. Maybe the Highland Crossing counts as another gap. It was certainly in a gap. Maybe I should call the route 5-Gap instead of 4.
It took longer than I expected to get to Hwy 129, but we got there eventually. A roadsign indicated 3 miles to Vogel State Park and the turnoff to Wolfpen Gap. We were still feeling good but a little short on water.
The Sunrise Grocery took care of that.
I say that we were feeling good. I'm not sure that's accurate. The ride was starting to feel like work as opposed to fun. It had not yet transitioned to suffering, but it was decidedly work.
The right turn toward Wolfpen was a bit of a shock. The road gets steep right away and you really have two choices - sit back and torque it out with your legs, or keep the pace up and shift that load to your heart and lungs. I prefer the latter unless forced into the former. And so it was.
We had a treat too. The entire highway from Suches to the intersection of 129 had just been repaved. New pavement is smooth and delicious, but it's also very sticky and I could really feel how good of a grip I was getting on it. I could hear it even.
We didn't chat much on that particular climb. We did pass a guy who was either torquing it out or just had bigger gears and chatted a little with him. He was in his late 60's and happy to be able to make the climb at all.
I was a little worried about how I'd feel on Wolfpen. It's been so long since I did any serious climbing. Turns out I had it. No big deal.
Woohoo!
On the back side, we blew through the curves pretty quickly and settled in to the runout to Suches. That stretch of road is just not all that great. People describe it as rollers, but that's really inaccurate. There's a decent climb up to Lake Winfield Scott, humorously referred to as Little B**** Gap. And then there are several long, spun-out descents and equally long though shallow climbs. No rollers in the sense that I think of them though. None at all.
It was funny... Some guy from Florida passed on near the top of the climb up to Lake Winfield Scott and seemed rather frustrated. He pulled ahead at first but then failed to put any distance on us over the next mile or so, even when the road flattened out. I guess it was a little too twisty. He was always there, just ahead of us. He finally did pull away, but it took him way longer than I expected.
We hung a left in Suches and though I had the opportunity to take a picture of the lake, I was just not in the picture-taking mood.
My legs were getting tired. It was a tired that I remembered well, but hadn't experienced in a long time - that long burn. Not the short term, lactic acid burn, but that burn where you've been pushing and recovering all day and it's finally catching up to you. Where you've got plenty of energy but it hurts a little to use it, and you can rest for a while and it goes away, but then it comes right back after 5 minutes. I had a burn like that in my mind too. The mind needs sugar, but sweet things didn't taste sweet any more. It was all very familiar but it'd been a long time since I'd felt it. Too, too long.
Though I was reticent about it, the climb up the back side of Woody's turned out to be a piece of cake. While arguably unpleasant, none of those aforementioned sensations actually hinder one's performance as much as one's will to perform, so if you can get past that, you're good. I was good.
The picnic area at the top was loaded and people were parking anywhere they could and milling around by the road.
I'm not sure I'd ever seen that many people there before.
I was looking forward to the descent back into Dahlonega. I remembered it being thrilling and scary, but it didn't turn out that way. I was completely spun out, as usual, but I felt really comfortable in the curves, even at that speed, even through the hairpin at the end. Too much time on the road bike lately. Too, too much!
And then, sadly, it was over.
We got back to the car and headed into Dahlonega for some Zaxby's chicken. I had mine with Teriyaki sauce. I figured John would just drop me off at Starbucks again but he wanted to borrow my Esbit stove so I got front-door service. Woohoo!
I was tired though. After a quick shower I crashed on my bed and woke up at like 10:30 PM. I thought I'd screwed up my sleep schedule and dreaded the idea of being up all night, but a few hours later I crashed again and slept 'til almost noon today. Ha! I guess I was a little tired.
Yes! Mountains! I must ride more in the mountains.
I must.
Can't do it every weekend these days, but I'll bet that I can fit it in a little more often than I have been.
I was telling my brother... I've been riding a lot lately. I think I rode 30-40 miles every day last week except Friday. I've done plenty of riding, but they've all just been "rides". One of the things I loved so much about mountain biking and hiking is that I didn't go out for a "ride" as much as I went out for an "experience". It's not impossible to have that on the road bike too, but it's way less likely. You have to work at it. I've really been missing that.
Our ride this past Saturday almost qualified though. Almost.
We planned to do 60 or 70 out on the Silk Sheets. On the phone John said "meet me where you did last time" which I mistakenly took for "meet me where we met the last time we rode together" - at PBR in Douglasville, from where you can do a 70 mile route out to the Silk Sheets and back, but what he meant, which seemed so obvious to me later, was "meet me where you did the last time we rode the Silk Sheets." So I sat in the parking lot of PBR for like 15 minutes before that occurred to me.
Ha!
I did eventually meet him at the correct location though and we got going right away.
It had been raining sporadically all over the metro ATL and though no water was currently falling from the sky, the roads were so wet that we had to ride staggered to keep from showering each other until we got south of Hutchensons Ferry.
Somewhere way south past the Roscoe store, there's a long, very gradual climb that John calls "Le Col de la Flint" because its in the Chattahoochee-Flint region, as opposed to the Chattahoochee Hills region. There's a little sign at the beginning that says something like that at least. So we charged up the Le Col de la Flint and it deposited us way out in the middle of nowhere.
Somewhere out there we passed through what was left of a little community along the railroad. There was a really old building called The Tin Gin that looked well preserved, a couple of old stone buildings and an old rock wall. Kathryn would have loved The Tin Gin. I'll have to find it again. Beyond that was a barren waste of a clear cut off to the right.
I guess the hills in the distance are around Rockmart or something. I didn't expect to see them, and I'll have to take a look on a map. There might be some good climbing over that way.
And that was it. Nothing but more woods for a long time.
Woods and ominous weather. We'd been watching a storm off to the right for most of the ride and it looked like we'd be riding into it eventually. It's one thing to get caught in the rain, but it's quite another to deliberately ride into it. Takes a little spirit.
We turned north and eventually back east toward home, and almost as soon as we did, rode into the rain. Fortunately it wasn't that bad, and it came on gradually. It never really poured.
We had to ride staggered though to keep out of the spray and the one car that passed us was a guy in an H3 who pulled alongside, screamed something incoherent about taking up a third of the lane, set off his traction control when he swerved back into our lane, and then continued to set it off as he accelerated around the curve ahead of us.
The next 10 miles were uneventful aside from getting pelted in the eyes by raindrops. "The goggles do nothing!" It was a bit like that.
We stopped in Roscoe for water and I took the opportunity to wash my gloves. Normally one tries to keep ones gloves dry, but they were already wet from the rain. I often take off my helmet, put my gloves and the stuff from of my pockets in it, and throw it on the floor of the garage. Though I wash my bib, socks and jersey, the gloves are often neglected, and as such, were absolutely disgusting and inviable for wiping rain from my face. They needed a bath, badly, as the grey water that drained from them attested.
Somewhere closer to home we saw some flares on the road, and coming around the curve, ran into a police officer directing traffic around a firetruck. He smiled at us. "Man, you guys are crazy." I guess it does seem a crazy to be riding a bike in the rain, miles from anywhere, to a normal person at least... Past the firetruck were some skid marks. A pickup had overcooked it in the curve, slid off of the road and down a near vertical embankment into some trees. The trees had crushed the cab and the wreck just looked unsurvivable. My first thought was of the guy in the H3 earlier, but it wasn't him. It was a green pickup.
Wet roads. We took it easy around the last curve on Cochrans Mill.
In the end, I think we ended up doing 65 rather than 70, but it was a good 65. More importantly, between the rain, sights, and eventualities, it was closer to "an experience" than just "a ride."
May I have more.
Man, I have been buried in a project, for as long as I can remember. Weeks go by and I'm like "What day is it again?"
Case in point, my brother and I rode around Douglasville two weekends ago and I'm just now realizing that I have photos on my phone from the ride.
We met up at PBR and rode out from there.
When I first started out on the road, I was on the Bicycle Outfitters MTB team and I'd religiously drive down from Alpharetta in 5 o-clock traffic to hit the 6PM group ride in Douglasville. There were 2 routes that we used to do, depending on how much daylight we had - a 30 and 50. I have so many good memories of those roads but It's been years and years since I've been on them.
We rode most of the 50 that day and it was like meeting up with an old friend.
Some things were different - there's a new neighborhood off of Mirror Lake road with a screaming descend down to the lake, John had found a better route from Liberty Road back toward town, and Coursey Lake has been developed. But some things were just the same. Mirror Lake road is still super rough and the hills on Liberty Road and Coursey Lake aren't any less steep. I may be a little stronger these days though. Just a bit.
Two very interesting things happened too.
We passed a baby deer nursing from its mother. I've seen precious few baby deer in my life, rarely any deer during the middle of the day, and to my knowledge, the only animals I'd ever seen nursing before were cows and humans. Awesome!
Also, we needed to merge into a left turn lane and though John signaled, with what appeared to be plenty of time, the guy behind us maybe thought John was telling him to move over or something. As John began to merge, the guy sped up, ended up right next to me, and came really close to John's back wheel before letting up. It sounds sketchy buy John was looking back the whole time and ready to dodge if he had to. Then he was all "Jesus man, hand signal not enough for you?!" or something to that effect. When I merged, the guy pulled up alongside me and rolled his window down. I expected threats and incoherent screaming but instead he was really calm and nice, explained that "the signal seemed a little quick" and caught him off guard, and was effusively apologetic for how close he came to us. Then he pulled up to John and reiterated the same. Wow! How often does that happen?
We eventually made it back to PBR, grabbed some lunch at Taco Mac and watched a little of the Copa do Mundo.
The one thing that stood out to me more than anything else though. The heat. It's getting to be nice and warm these days. It was 97 on that particular day and I could feel that fluttery stomach action for a lot of the ride. Most of my rides these days are in the evening when it's cool but it sure is warm in the middle of the day. Woohoo!
I need to get in some more of that.
My brother called me yesterday and invited me down to the ATL to ride with him and Baldwin. Sounded good to me. I've been spinning my legs out on the Silver Comet all week, but I haven't put in any real effort in a long time.
Mark had to take his daughter to swim lessons at 11 though, so we needed to meet him at his place, ready to ride, at 8AM. When my alarm went of at 6AM I got a little flashback from the MTB racing days - alert and awake, ready to execute. It was a good memory. Someday I'll make more. I hope.
Breakfast was a chocolate iced honey bun and a 20 oz Gatorade. More good memories there.
I got to the ATL earlier than I expected and took some surface streets to Mark's place rather than the highway. I sort-of know my way around downtown, but whenever I try to get from 10th street to Mark's place, I inevitably end up confounded by one-way streets, dead-ends, or streets that start off looking good but then curve off to the left or something. Today I figured it out though. Woohoo!
John and Mark value punctuality and we rolled out punctually.
I had no idea where we were going.
No idea at all.
Mark called the route "Buckhead" and it was marked with all these little B's with arrows hanging off of them. It was apparently the famed "Buckhead Bellyache" route. I'd heard of it long ago. It was alleged to tear riders' legs off. There was a murderous group ride out there that I never managed to make. I feared it.
Some of the hills were good work. I was feeling good though. Mark struggled here and there, but apparently the last time he'd been on a bike was that Dirty Sheets ride we'd done a few weeks back. Ha! Yeah, that would do it.
The ride took us through Buckhead and Vinings.
A truck put a really close pass on us over the Depot Humps. Whoo! Close indeed. We caught another rider at the top and then got split up by another truck heading down to the railroad tracks. Me and Mark had to pass the truck and regroup with John and the guy we caught before the truck would finally pass us all. It sounds contrived but it felt intuitive at the time.
We rode back across the the Hooch...
...back through Buckhead and eventually into Atlanta. Somewhere in there a minivan pulled out in front of us and John had to dodge it. I kind-of suspected that it might pull out and had time to get into the drops but John was still on his hoods and it was sketchy.
Easy miles! About 30 of them as it turned out. It didn't feel like 30 though. We took it just the right kind of easy. I'm not sure it counts as "any kind of real effort" but now I kind of feel like doing more rides like that.
I'm riding with Billy tomorrow. Ought to be another good ride, unless he puts the screws to me too hard. Lets hope that he doesn't.
