Whilst checking to see what time Tom will open doors on Monday, I noticed a new editorial is up. I strongly recommend that you take 5 minutes out to read it. Not only is it an insight into the countryside of Georgia and riding with pro cyclists (which many of us will never be lucky enough to experience) but it has detail of an experience most, if not all of us, will have felt.
I like most of us have been out on the bike in those damp foggy days when you spend 15 minutes pulling out all your riding gear to try and make the correct selection of clothes for the conditions from the wide range of technical garments available only to find, once out on the road, that it is futile. Whilst climbing, your glasses fog up, you begin to sweat and roast up, removing gloves and helmet skullcaps, unzipping your jacket as you go. Once on the top of the climb all the gear goes back on and the clothes that were too hot on the way up are miraculously incapable of keeping you warm, kind of like a thermos in reverse.
THese are the days that we define our commitment, although once recanted in response to colleagues questions after the weekend, it seems we should have been committed!
Thanks Tom, for sharing these experiences with us and allowing us to live our lives vicariously through yours and being able to find some common ground.
Awesome Julian. I’ve ridden that loop 20+ times. I’ll be up at TDG this year riding and watching all the loops. My folks have a vacation home right smack in the middle of 6-Gap. It is hands down the finest cycling area I’ve experienced in the states. Tom is right, Wolfpen is a beast, but oh so scenic. And best of all, you see very few cars. Those cars you do see, the people actually wave!! Not used to that. My favorite graffiti on Wlfpen from last year, which was still on the road around X-Mas time: “CIPO DON’T QUIT!”
That sounds a great place to ride. I’m sure Tom would agree about the number of cars, although it seems unlikely that he could comment on the scenery! The only major race I have seen was in the late 90’s when some friends and I were at a summer snowboard camp on the glacier at Le Deux Alpes. We took the aftenoon off and hired some mtb’s and rode over to Alp D’Heuz to watch Pantani come flying up the pass to win the stage, what a buzz to see him and us on France 1 in the bar in the evening, and the double takes at us from the locals! What a hoot!
Thnkas for reading. That editorial has only been up about three hours and we already see huge traffic on it. Interesting. I though it may too long for many people’s taste.
<<Epic rides are defined by distance, weather, speed, difficulty, exaggeration or other adversities. Epics are the rides you always remember. They grow in difficulty and desperation with time over countless retellings of the details and difficulties>>
Tom’s got that right. The best stories, regardless of activity, begin with: “No shit–there I was…”
Always a pleasure. It never ceases to amaze me how much we cyclists have in common regardless of where in the world we are located. I had a idle thought earlier in the day, with the exception of the which side the rear brake is controlled from, there is very little different on a bike whatever the country it originates from. Can’t say that for cars or any other form of transport I can think of.
Are you in the shop right now? If you are not with a customer I will call you.
Great story. Having lived in Tornto and Vancouver most of my life I have my fair share of epic training tales with crazy weather, whether they be on bike or run. I think Scott Tinley summed it up best once a few years ago, when he told me that, these are the days, the crazy weather days, that we really remember. The days of training we will be talking about, 20, 30 or more years from now. The days that we will, god willing be able to tell our grand-children about.
If you lived where it was sunny and 70 every day, you would not have had this experience. How boring!
That’s very true. When I used to fly recreationally, we would usually rejoin our home aerodrome traffic zone from the South over the sea. One particularly calm day with low pressure system around we decided to drop to just above wave height to look at a famous limestone pillar out from the headland.
Later that evening I was in the bar and overheard my co-pilot start with " I’ve never seen a negative reading on the altimeter before". So I guess that means we were below sea level? It’s HUGE!
Remember the old T-shirt slogan? The old I get, the better I was!
Great read. Glad you pointed it out. I’ve ridden those climbs and gaps several times. Tom describes it perfectly. However, today, the weather in this area is approaching 70 and sunny skies.
FWIW, there’s a couple of organized recreational rides over these mountains. One is Six Gap in the Fall and the other is Muscle Moutain Mania, next Saturday, April 2nd. Its a great deal at $60. It includes campsite, cycling jersey, and supported metric century ride over some of these same climbs.
There are a couple additional climbs that I believe will be covered in the TdG that are even more difficult. Brasstown Bald and Hogpen Gap.
Even in the Fall Six Gap ride, the temperature bites you as you descend because your jersey gets completely soaked as you climb.
I’m sure this wasn’t the case for Tom and his peers, but the climbing is so difficult and slow that you can actually watch sweat drop from your forehead and strike the ground before you roll over it. That’s how slow you are going.