‍I got as early a start as possible due to both the distance and difficulty of this route and so I managed to roll out from Jasper at around 3:30 in the morning. Since it was so hot down here in Peachtree City on Friday and that Saturday was forecast to be similar I was worried that the heat of the day would be a real problem. But up near the mountains of north Georgia right away it was noticeably cooler overnight. It was actually pleasant and not the oppressive air of home. Riding the main back roads to Ellijay I was surprised to notice fireflies along the way but otherwise there wasn't anything going on at the darkest hours of the night, always a special time to be out riding. The first series of gravel roads of the day were very fast and very fun to ride in the dark. Mostly through farms. Everywhere I rode around Ellijay smelled like agriculture which was somewhat surprising that any of that was still going on(seems like it's mostly an exurb of northside Atlanta these days) The route was only small rolling hills and very fast roads for the first several hours until the first rough gravel road of the day, a very winding and fun forest service road. By this point the sun had risen and the temperature had actually dropped all the way down to 63 and there was a thin fog layering the valleys. I was almost chilly after getting used to such hot summer weather as we've had so far. This road never climbed too high or steeply and was very curvy. Lots of mud holes but most were pretty avoidable. Right after this long winding road I did another dead end forest road which was also very pleasant and good riding. The Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia keeps most forest roads open to motorized vehicles most of the time and so they get used fairly frequently and are very packed down but rocky and rough. Contrast this with the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina which gates most roads to motor vehicles. You can ride those too but since they get almost no traffic they end up being very overgrown(and also way too open with not enough shade). Any time I was on a forest road no matter the time of day it was several degrees cooler from the extra shade. I rode a main alternate route into Blairsville which was very fast but busier than i'd have liked. Stopped slightly early at an unplanned Dollar General making the whole ride exclusive to that store. I stocked up well to prepare for a very long 60 mile carry in the heat of the day through the toughest part of the route. Blairsville was pretty busy around 10am but I managed just fine. Not a great town to ride in and out of for sure, way too many cars on narrow roads(this is most mountain towns though). Just north of town I rode a very long climb on a forest road that was quite deserted and fun but very rough and challenging. I took a dead end up to the very top of the mountain where there was some sort of FAA equipment. The road was gated to cars and was very steep at the top. I was surprised to find all the equipment open and not inside a fence. The descent off of this mountain was sharp and steep and very rocky. As it happens I didn't have quite enough air in my front tire and despite careful line choice somewhere on this road I bottomed out my tire and while initially it seemed fine, I learned later on Gumlog road that I had a slow leak. I was on very old tires but I couldn't find any holes so I just put more air in and figured it had just burped out. But a few miles later it was losing air again. I stopped again and inspected the tire again but found nothing. I then checked the rim and of course I had dented the rim a bit but more importantly I had a small crack at the spoke hole and the sealant was trying its best to plug the hole. I took the wheel off and vigorously coerced the sealant to do its job and it sealed right then and there. I pumped it back up(more this time, 25 is fine at home but not on these roads) and it held perfectly the rest of the ride. All along in here was a series of big open paved roads that were fairly fast riding but now the heat of the day was on and they were still very hilly. Most of the roads were pretty deserted but Trackrock gap was busier than I would have thought. I was hot, already pretty tired and really counting down the miles till the first stop. Narrow Pine top road took me to a dead end forest road that led up near the Mark Trail Wilderness and the Appalachian trail. This road like most of the others was open to vehicles and judging from the condition it gets used a lot. But it was extremely steep and full of both big and loose rocks and was very narrow. Honestly I don't know if you could get even a heavily modified jeep up this thing, it was probably mostly side by sides and dirt bikes. This made climbing it very challenging and this was probably the hardest road of the route. In addition I didn't make it any easier on myself for having a 44 tooth chainring, really should have a couple smaller sizes on hand for swapping out for a ride such as this. Anyway when I got to what was the end of the track and was supposed to be the end of the motorized portion I found that atvs or at least dirt bikes were continuing on anyway. This only could have gone another half mile at most to a definite dead end but I didn't have the energy to care. So I turned around and gingerly descended through the steep loose rocks. Another series of pretty deserted valley roads led me finally to my second stop at another Dollar General. I stocked up heavily here as well as the next stop was pretty far at 48 more miles and the way the ride was going that might take me 5 hours. While I felt pretty good, I wasn't fast at all, both up or down. I was hot but not dangerously so, although I probably wasn't drinking enough through the day for sure. After this stop I headed due west on wide, open pavement and this was annoyingly hot. It really seems like nearly every back paved road in Georgia is nothing less than a highway. I have this thing that I say to myself often riding in this state seeing folks driving way too fast on side and back roads 'everything is a highway' but it's true, a lot of them are indistinguishable. At great length the road I was climbing finally went into the woods and turned to gravel and the temperature cooled off dramatically for the remainder of the ride thankfully. These last pair of gravel climbs through the National Forest were very difficult. Both steep and very rocky and I was very tired and sore by this point. What was interesting to me was that all along these roads there are little dispersed campsites around but I found them mostly unoccupied which I found strange as I would have thought this was peak season for that kind of thing. Some had campers but it just wasn't packed like I thought it would be. Also I would go miles and miles without seeing another vehicle and I didn't see a single cyclist the entire day which I found strange considering how strong the heatmap is in places I rode and that the weather in North Georgia was so significantly better than that down in the Piedmont on this day(heat indexes of well over 100 down there). At some point on one of these late ride rocky descents my shifter actually worked its way loose. Now there's no real danger of it falling off because the cable holds it in place. But it's extremely annoying. So at some gap or other I took the time to actually tighten it. Much better and i'm really glad I did because the finaly descent was extremely fast and somewhat bumpy. After what seemed like an interminably long way the road finally stopped meandering at a level grade and finally ticked straight down off the mountain. I was a bit apprehensive at first because I already had a cracked rim on very old tires. Plus the first mile or so was just stupid steep, loose and with small washouts to ride around. I actually stopped twice not just to let my body rest but also for my brakes to cool off just in case. But after this initially steep bit, the road was less steep and much more fun. I found a really good rhythm and really really enjoyed this section. Also given that it was abundantly clear by even the middle of the day that I would not be finished till well after sunset, I was racing trying to get the technical descent done before the sun went down. The long day's evening shade made the fast descent just that much more fun. Also along here I spotted some flame azalea still in bloom. After this last big push along what I figured must be the last hard section, I was looking forward to the last stop at another Dollar General. It was truly dark by this point and so I had my light out and everything. One thing that I should have done different on this ride is bring a small battery backup with cables for emergency charging. as it was everything I had was nearly out of juice by the end. My new(ish) phone was getting down to 20% so avoided listening to anything the last few hours, my trusty old Garmin was under 15% by the end, although my radars were still well within having enough since I mostly kept the light off all day. My headlight burned for at least 5 hours and usually has 7-9 on low but you never know. Last stop I filled up water and got another soda in anticipation of who knows how long it would take to finish the ride. Also got more food because somehow I had blown through all the snacks I had up to that point. I was going so slow and the roads just wouldn't cooperate and flatten out. If anything the end contained some of the hardest bits of the whole route although I was so tired and sore that everything was harder by that point. It was very nice to be tackling the last bit well after sunset because it became apparent that these roads would be pretty busy in normal daylight hours. I still stuck to doing a tiny bit of OSM surveying to document various private subdivision gates. The last one of which to the Bent Tree subdivision was on a completely ridiculous steep climb. Just insane and despite the late hour I got passed by three cars here, annoying. But after this I needed to tack on 4 miles since I had avoided a couple roads earlier so I cobbled together a small loop around where I had planned to go, which worked out good because Cove road was still busier than I would have liked even after 10:30PM. At long last I finally got back to town. Defintely didn't drink enough throughout the day but I wasn't all that hungry at the end(other than craving salty stuff) and while sore and tired I felt serviceable. 🎷🐛 191.07 new miles -- From Wandrer