Race Report

The rain began to fall as we awaited the pre-race meeting. Mulberry Gap, GA was a beautiful setting, tall old growth forest, most notably the pine-outdoor-forest-trout-clear stream smell. The race started with a "parade lap" through the cyclocross course and then shot out onto the first downhill gravel/mud fire road section. (On the drive down, Hank and I decided to ride together, have fun, ride a hard steady effort, but don't race.) The amazing streams and scenery made you forget for a moment you were screaming downhill, around fast turns and depending on you line - getting mud thrown all over you. The downhill led to a short road section and then onto "the climb".

"The Climb"
The climb started gradual - seated climbing, easy to spin gearing - the pace we settled on was challenging and shortly we began to pass a few riders here and there. At lower elevations on the climb the terrain was reasonable - a compact dirt gravel road, interspersed with potholes. I checked my HR periodically and made sure I got in some nutrition on the early portion of the climb, there were a few mental lapses where I told myself I was going to hard (especially not having any way to calculate where on the climb we were) but Hank was there encouraging me to get on his wheel and on we went. The climb began to level off, the temperature was dropping and we approached a volunteer vehicle - assuming this was the top of the climb - wrong, wrong, wrong. Sharp right hairpin turn - the road shot straight up (and so began the section only passable by 4 wheel drive vehicles - as told by the race director at the start). The climbing continued, I was searching for every gear possible, out of the saddle pumping hard - this continued: the climb would level off, you would tell yourself you were at the top and sure enough, straight back up you go. One section we rode through fog with about 20 feet of visibility going up, up, up. other sections there were small streams of water in gullies from erosion and melting from the snow and ice at the summit.

On the descent, you went screaming down switchbacks for 7 miles. My triceps were sore from not only the climbing, but from the jarring of the gravel road on the descent, I was flirting the line of being in control of the bike, while not really being in control. The race finished back by the cabins, another cyclocross course lap highlighted by an uphill scrambled requiring you to shoulder your bike and use everything you had to get up the side of the beginning of the mountain.


On the drive back a random gas station in TN had Fat Tire.

The hardest and most enjoyable experience on a bike. -A.