Yesterday AM camped out near Bull Mtn, an IMBA epic I was greeted by a light drizzle & overcast skies. Debated whether to ride or what? Gambled & drove further into woods to closer parking lot. Gravel road leads to main Bull mtn TH and Springer mtn, start of AT. I parked @ a turnout short of main lot because of possible rough road and I think I remembered a grass parking lot which could be a rough exit in my van. Drizzle quit and skies worked on clearing. temp climbed and humidity rose also. Just sweating before even starting my ride. I hiked a piece of trail checking it out for conditions. Trails appear to drain well in spite of heavy horse traffic. Dropped in on ST to main TH. Trail was drained except for pools of wet horseshit mud @ several low spots. Got splashed w/ stuff you wouldn’t want to put on your garden. Rode up gravel road to TH and around locked gate to start of trail. Heavy horse traffic & poor trail design left a deep gully up the first climb. I made a move up a by pass and felt a searing pain in my left quad. A muscle wasn’t happy. I tried stretching it out and massaging it to no avail. I rode on ignoring it. Seems this is from a muscle tear long time ago from a telemarking injury. Don’t know what’s going on. Today it just throbs.
Rode route from memory. Saw only 1 other person, a rider, near ride’s end. Horses pound out soil between tree roots making for ledges. When h2o runs down the trail these create waterfalls that cause further erosion. Trail design does not spill h2o. Trails are mostly on old logging roads. There are a few pieces of trail that are modern made that do a nice job of keeping h2o off the trail and the horses don’t seem to beat them up as badly.
Finished ride. Back @ van I rinsed off the mud. I headed back to Dahlonega Wheelworks hoping to find their hose and h2o turned on for a bike wash. Score. washed off bike, not to make it pretty but mud free. Ray, a partial owner of the shop, had his car parked in the lot. He must have been out on a ride. He showed up while I was cleaning up. He is training for maybe his 11th Leadville and just finished a 60 mile road ride. I asked if I could sleep in his lot and he said yes. Not a very good choice but I had permission.
Next step was to Find Hiker Hostel outside of town owned by Josh & Leah for a shower. I met these folks last time. They thru hiked the AT years ago and realized that there was no hostel near start of AT so they filled that need. I found the place and where Leah almost met me up close and personal as she was backing out of parking spot. She was leaving and nobody else was there. She allowed me a shower which I enjoyed and left. Driest part of day was in the shower.
Drove back into town. Needed some groceries, only store opened was a super WalMart. No overnight camping allowed. WalMart is a crazy people watching scene of people who are marching to their definition of life. It’s part of America that us “refined” people choose to ignore. These are the people that work on our cars, cut our trees, maybe work in factories. They perform the unsung uneducated jobs that support us. I can’t fit in & wouldn’t want to invite them for dinner.
Drove into town to amuse myself w/ another tourist jaunt. Picked an Irish pub serving a pizza special: Mexican. Drank a pint of Guinness while watching & listening to locals.
Back @ bike shop on main highway midway down or up a big hill w/ a stop light @ the bottom. Full sunshine. Some vehicles were very loud driving up the hill. Going to be a noisy night. And hot. Sundown is @ 8:00 allowing the temp to drop slightly. Forecast is for heavy rain which caused me to decide to stay in town instead of the quiet in the forest. Just around 10:00 a few sprinkles fell and that was it. I was hoping the rain would drop the temp to a sleeping level. No such luck. I was awakened around midnight by my cell phone ringing as I forgot to turn it off @ 10:00 like I do every night. It was Dean from Sedona calling. He said I was famous as he had seen the BikeMag article. I wasn’t very conversational. I was hot & sweating.
About 3:00AM the skies dumped. Hard rain. As morning commute traffic picked up the rain literally drowned out the traffic. A bit cooler. I slid out of bed before 7:00. Rain found a way around mt sealing of my exhaust fan and wetted the carpet seriously, no standing h20, just wet. Seems w/ so hard a rain the h20 pooled up and ran into a gap in the seal. Once the rain lessened the leak went away.
So I am still here in Dahlonega waiting for shop opening @ 11:00 to have my brakes bled. The heavy rains have probably squashed any rides between here & Augusta on Wed. Time for body recovery.
Update:
Rain let up. Back @ now opened shop. Met Jon who had a big smile. Welcome back. Good visit. Zak bled my brakes and fiddled w/ my bottom bracket. He put a spacer back in and said new wiggle is from worn plastic bushing on bottom bracket itself. I need to find a Chris King person to ascertain his comment. rebuilt drive train. paid Jon w/ warranty replacement Excavator tire. Josh from the Hostel arrived, thanked him for shower. Last year he pointed out that Leah named their laying chickens. i noticed that there were more chickens but no names. Wondered if previous batch might have made the pot. He said Leah is making new tags.
Bid adieu after getting directions from Zak to a grocery store. His route took me on country by roads. i misunderstood his directions & ended up heading to Gainesville. Corrected myself & arrived in Dawsonville. Nice hilly country roads, no frost heave.
Drove back to jake mtn TH where I stayed several nights earlier. Pulled into parking lot. Got out & saw a woods turtle in a water puddle. Life is so slow that I watched it off & on during dinner fixings, like watching paint dry. Have internet and XM reception here.
Skies cleared & temp dropped a bit. Beautiful evening. Need low humidity to dry carpet and trails.