Dahlonega Days.......

Why Dahlonega? Well....Dahlonega is well-known to my darling husband, who has many times in the past driven up there to ride the Six Gap Century (the North Georgia Cycling Club's annual 100-mile bicycle ride that traverses 6 of the area's biggest mountain climbs).

Our lovely cabin lay within a few miles of Neel's Gap (a.k.a., Blood Mountain), one of the 6 mountains featured on the yearly Six Gap ride. Blood Mountain is also the first major stop along the Appalachian Trail for hikers setting out for Maine from the Trail's southernmost point at Springer Mountain, GA. We met some through-hikers at the hiker hostel/camp store atop Blood Mountain. We were told that it takes about 6 months to walk the entire AT, and generally at least 2 pairs of hiking boots!

Bicycle sculpture inside the camping supply store:



A political bumper sticker outside the camp store. I guess it should not come as a surprise that the Free Tibet crowd has passed through Blood Mountain.





Well, I am no mountain climber when I'm on my bike. I have always wondered why some cyclists seem to love to endure a great deal of pain in order to struggle their way up big, scary mountains. According to Andrew, it's "the challenge."

My road bike has not had its drive train modified, meaning it's equipped for moderate hills at best, with regard to its gearing. So refitting my bike to make it more suitable for climbing mountains would require replacing my rear cassette (the little gears attached to the back wheel) and also my crankset (the big cogs attached to the pedals that turn the chain). It's all about the gear ratio, and I currently don't really have the right gearing to allow me to pedal with relative ease up a really steep incline. Having said that, I don't kid myself. I truly believe that what happens, good or bad, on a bike ride depends more on the "engine" than the bike. And my bike's engine (me), is just not physically up to the task of climbing 6 back-to-back mega-mountains.

Despite my commitment to mountain avoidance, I knew that Dahlonega would make even me want to prove that I could do at least one badass climb. So, of course, we rode.

I hoped to do Three Gap (the shorter, 50-mile route of the yearly Six Gap ride). But, we set out after 10 a.m., due to misty weather conditions that threatened rain. I ended up doing One Gap, and my one gap was Neel's Gap. Ten miles of unrelenting uphill climbing, with a 6 to 8% grade at times. (Regarding hill grades, FYI: "6% grade is enough to cut speed to well under half, and absorb more than 80% of a rider's power output, leaving less than 20% to fight air resistance and rolling friction"). I never got the lactic acid "burn" in my legs, and I was able to keep a slow but steady upward pace, spinning in my lowest low gear, but I was panting by the time we made it to the summit. Yes, my engine could use some hill training.

We were passed at one point on our ascent by two flatbed trucks delivering a doublewide. The sound and sight of being passed by half of a house inching up the mountainside around hairpin turns, with gears whining, and spewing black diesel exhaust, while taking up 3 lanes (both of the uphill lanes and one of the downhill lanes, too) , well....it got my adrenaline going! All that kept running through my mind was how my obituary would describe the circumstances leading up to my death.

I made it.

Andrew and me, at the top of Neel's Gap:



And the reward for all that pedaling, the misty view from atop Blood Mountain:




In retrospect, getting up Neel's Gap was not really that hard, physically, just longer than LOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG. I was delighted to see the sign saying, "Blood Mountain Cabins," because I knew that a couple hundred yards past that sign was the summit, designated by this marker:





The reward for the hard climb was the downhill. It's so steep and winding, it was impossible not to brake and brake. I never came close to reaching Andrew's descent speed, though I'd estimate you could easily get up to 50 m.p.h. on that downhill. Nevertheless, even my relatively slow descent was pretty exhilarating. The mountain that took me an hour to climb took less than 8 minutes to descend!

Me at Turner's Corner, after making it back down the mountain:



Andrew, my cycling coach and cheering squad:






A nice old barn along Highway 19 on our ride back to the cabin: