Historical Post: XC Bike Ride Vol 10

Sunday

Awaking to the strains of Chumbawumba’s “I get knocked down…”, our unofficial trip song, I get on the road before sunrise. The fog is as thick as pea soup, and I can’t see more than 20 yards in front of me. It’s a very slow warm-up ride this morning, as it would be life threatening to go much faster. I do see lot’s of animals however – squirrels, cats, bunnies, possums, and elephants – just seeing if you were still reading.

We are taking longer warm-up pulls this morning to see if we can get loosened up from yesterday’s waste of a day. Everyone is feeling wet, tired, and hungry, but we plow forward. Tom is in a much better mood today, I am introspective, writing all morning in the RV, Jerry is Jerry, Chris is having a real bad morning, and Gill saw another man for her along the way (no, just kidding – even she’s given up down here where IQ is far lower than tire pressure).

Chris and I begin working through the logistics of entering a 4 man team in the RAAM – the Race Across AMerica. We work it out that we think we could break 7 days for the ride given the right weather, riding around the clock instead of just daylight hours, an unlimited budget, and leg grafts. Incredible to think that the record is 5 day, 22 hours. They must have been bike gods…

We run across a couple of fellows in an old Ford Maverick with bikes of their own. They’ve been driving around and biking and stopped to hear our story. Good guys, and they tell us about the hills up ahead near Chattanooga. We’re not looking forward to them today – nobody seems to have the leg strength to attack them.

On the road into Chattanooga, we come across a cutout in the Tennessee River that has a swimming area. We all pull off while Tom is riding and get in a swim – awesome scene, surrounded by beautiful mountains, small boars running about, southern women in bikini’s, bright sunshine, and southern women in bikini’s. We decide we really like southern women in bikini’s; Gill says she’ll at least talk southern. She'd wear a bikini, but her feet won't fit through the leg holes.

As we approach the Tennesse River, Tom makes up for us stopping to swim and relax. He get a most awesome suspension bridge over the river, maybe 1-2 miles long, with the most incredible vistas. Hard to believe that such a beautiful scene exists; I’m sure that they use if for postcards. We trade off and Chris takes on the first mountain; the climb’s about two miles long and he attacks it, much like he did in carazozzo. As he approaches the summit, I take the handoff and proceed to have my 2nd favorite ride of the trip, nearly 30 miles downhill, cruising some of the distance at > 45mph. It’s not an incredibly steep hill, but it sure was the longest that I’ve ever ridden. What fun…

I trade off to Jerry who runs the gauntlet through the city. He comes across an audio tape strung across the street and it catches on him; a most funny site, skinny white guy in lycra riding through the slums with about 2 miles of audio tape streaming off the back of him. We were in tears, as were most of the guys hanging on the street. Of course, we didn’t tell Jerry until he finished the ride. As Jerry crossed the town, he attacked another mountain, doing easily his best climb of the trip; a 6-10% grade at times, and he rode it all the way up to Cliff’s dad’s house.

Cliff’s dad’s house is way cool; on the top of the mountain overlooking the city and the river. We get a bunch of pictures, relax for ½ hour, and then start the descent. Although I’m usually the “downhill hog”; Jerry gets this one as he sure deserves it. Of course, it’s a much slower descent and we have to stop at the bike shop at the bottom to buy him new brake pads. Even so, the word “coward” doesn’t enter our minds that often…

Chris makes the catch of the trip in NW Georgia. We are headed down the road at ~ 45mph and he very nonchalantly turns to me (while I'm driving) and says “well, we’re not going to make this bridge”. I bury the brakes and end up about 5 feet from an 10’6” underpass; the RV is 12’6”. Man, what a massive accident it would have been, tearing the RV up like a can of tuna. Chris still has no idea what triggered him to say something; it just happened. I think our guardian angel was watching over us. Thanks Mark…

We end the night in Jasper, a quaint town in NW Georgia (and thank god much unlike the jasper in texas). We track down the last open restaurant in town, a pizza joint, and proceed to devour about 12 pies. Boy, were those folks ever happy that they got to stay around an hour past closing to watch us eat and hear us gaspipe. They all waived to us as we left; well, using part of their hand anyway…