Georgia: Day 2
Welcome to Georgia, hope you brought your climbing legs!
I can sum up this whole post very easily. 70 Miles. 5 hours. 8000+ feet of climbing.
The day started innocently enough at the Huddle House in downtown “Little Bavaria” (also known as Helen, GA.)
It was a beautiful day. High forecasted at 58 and not a cloud in the sky
The train pulls out of Helen, prepped for the first climb of the day. 10 miles up hill. It started gradually, but it wasn’t long before I was showin’ the pain face… I've never climbed for so long. It was like sitting in an ice bath. Eventually you just become numb to the pain... I thought it would never end.
The payoff was a sweet, wide open 2.5 mile descent. Keeping an eye out for oncoming trafic we used the whole road, tucking and pulling G's on the corners. Big headwinds, ‘cross gearing, and lack of road descending experience conspired to keep my speed down around 40mph all day, but that didn’t keep it from being fun as hell! Here’s a shot of me with the big s#@t eatin’ grin after the first descent.
The guys trying to keep up… ;)
Mercifully there was a store along the route to rest and re-fuel. And better yet, I was able to pick up a sweet coon skin cap to add to my collection.
From here we rode across Wolf Pen Gap, followed by another screamin’ twisty descent. I could do this all day long, if someone wanted to drive my fat azz up to the top of each hill...
There’s a famous mountaineering shop near the end of the Appalachian Trail on Blood Mountain, the top of Neel’s gap to service hikers on the trail. This is the view from their patio/overlook.
From hear it was back the way we came over two climbs, and then a 10 mile descent back into Helen. It’s awesome descending down the tight, banked road faster than cars. I’ll remember that one for a while.
We rapped up the day with a stop at Paul’s Steak House in town. Cheers!
I can sum up this whole post very easily. 70 Miles. 5 hours. 8000+ feet of climbing.
The day started innocently enough at the Huddle House in downtown “Little Bavaria” (also known as Helen, GA.)
It was a beautiful day. High forecasted at 58 and not a cloud in the sky
The train pulls out of Helen, prepped for the first climb of the day. 10 miles up hill. It started gradually, but it wasn’t long before I was showin’ the pain face… I've never climbed for so long. It was like sitting in an ice bath. Eventually you just become numb to the pain... I thought it would never end.
The payoff was a sweet, wide open 2.5 mile descent. Keeping an eye out for oncoming trafic we used the whole road, tucking and pulling G's on the corners. Big headwinds, ‘cross gearing, and lack of road descending experience conspired to keep my speed down around 40mph all day, but that didn’t keep it from being fun as hell! Here’s a shot of me with the big s#@t eatin’ grin after the first descent.
The guys trying to keep up… ;)
Mercifully there was a store along the route to rest and re-fuel. And better yet, I was able to pick up a sweet coon skin cap to add to my collection.
From here we rode across Wolf Pen Gap, followed by another screamin’ twisty descent. I could do this all day long, if someone wanted to drive my fat azz up to the top of each hill...
There’s a famous mountaineering shop near the end of the Appalachian Trail on Blood Mountain, the top of Neel’s gap to service hikers on the trail. This is the view from their patio/overlook.
From hear it was back the way we came over two climbs, and then a 10 mile descent back into Helen. It’s awesome descending down the tight, banked road faster than cars. I’ll remember that one for a while.
We rapped up the day with a stop at Paul’s Steak House in town. Cheers!
3 Comments:
I'm very envious. Have fun in Georgia and remind Danny to put sunscreen on his nose.
watch out for that danny k. he is one cheeky rider......
Will do, and will do... ;)
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