The Weather Man is an Idiot!
Namrita & I have been watching the weather reports all weekend as this storm has been loaming to the west. Rather than try to out run it, which as failed miserably the last few attempts, we decided to hit the roads here in town. We rode together for a little over 3 hours before heading home. I filled my bottles and headed back out for another 3 hours. I met up the Famous Mike Livingston and his friend from Michigan, Eric. We cruised a nice hilly route until Mike declared his need to return to the new homestead and unpack. I made my way home…the long way. I finished up just after 5 PM with 6 hours. After a huge omelet and toast, I headed to Lee Childers graduation party for a few beers and pizza….then came home and ate again.
I woke up this AM knowing it was supposed to be another long day in the saddle and with harder efforts than yesterday. The plan was to head to Tanasi to pre-ride the Cohutta 100 start/finish and add in some more miles as needed. The forecast was a high of 50*, windy and a slight chance of rain. What did was get when we arrived? 35* with rain turning to snow. We started to get dressed and into the parking lot rolls Mike Palmeri (owner of Cartecay Bikes in Ellijay, GA), Jeremy Wadkins (up and coming roadie) and Canton Ken (evergreen mtb’er). They looked very uncomfortable. Nam was already protesting the ride, but still getting dressed. When they rolled up she was a bit more adamant about how silly this was. All I wanted to was get my ride in. I have been very disciplined the last 6 weeks about hitting my riding goals and this being the last big ride before the racing begins was not one I wanted to miss. I lamented though and made the call to head out…..most because in the 10 minutes we sat there the flakes grew from dust to 1/4 inch lovelies. As we drove back out on to hwy 64 the flakes were about 1/2 inch.
Nam suggested we head for Aska Rd since it was not even raining when we passed though Blue Ridge. 40 minutes later we parked at Deep Gap off of Aska Rd, which was now getting it’s own growing flakes. We dressed without much conversation, grabbed our Wingnuts, let the dogs loose (Jackson & Porter were with us) and hit the trail. The dogs seemed to love the conditions, Nam was tolerating them at the moments and as long as I could feel my toes I was good. We stayed on the double track up to the poorly named Flat Creek trail. We took the singletrack section first which dropped up about 500 feet down to the creek in about 4 minutes. We crossed the rotted old bridge made of brown ice and headed up. It’s steeper and more technical going in the clockwise direction than I remember. When I was not picking lines through the rocks I was yelling for the dogs who seemed to not notice the snow or the climb.
At the top Nam let me know she was not having a good day and wanted to bail. Standing there in the near freezing temps with a wet snow falling didn’t seem like a good time to give a pep talk and try to push her on. We returned to the truck about an hour after starting. I thought about continuing on alone, but thought better of it. The trails around Aska road are fairly technical on a dry day. I don’t mind the thought of busting my butt and having to crawl out to the road alone, but not with the threat of hypothermia too.
We gave it our best shot today….it’s all the weather man’s fault!
Eddie O