Drove down from Naperville Friday with Andy Quandt, rode Saturday, then drove back on Sunday. so 24+ hours in the car and 15+ hours on the bike.
Worth it.
Turned out to be a very nice place to ride with a great route. Good roads with mostly light traffic, lots of stretches with tall pine trees lining the road on both sides. With over 9k of climbing it wasn't flat, but there wasn't anything very steep on the route.
There were I heard 23 riders, but I didn't get to meet most of them.
Why?
Well we were staying at an airBNB about 17 minutes away, and after driving over and setting up my bike I realized that I had left my seatpost bag back at the place.
Doh.
So I got my bike inspected by the RBA then schlepped back to the airBNB. By the time I had my bike ready to go it was 45 minutes past the 6AM start time.
Oh well, I am used to riding alone so I settled in for a long day.
Heading SE I was treated to a beautiful sunrise on long empty roads.
After around 50 miles, I caught up to Dawn who was riding her fat bike, then shortly after that I passed Ray from Connecticut. But the rest of the field was stil way ahead.
There were a couple of out-and back sections, and the first was to a place called Georgia Guidestones. On the way in I saw the main pack headed toward me, but I was still a good ways behind. I stopped briefly to remove some layers.
Then at the second I saw just six riders, with the remaining fourteen still at the control where they were taking a lunch break, at around 83 miles.
But everyone left soon shortly after I arrived so I continued on alone.
I caught up again with a group in Royston at mile 112, where they were ready to take off but stalled becaused someone had a flat. I had a quick snack and got going ahead of them but a mile down the road I stopped at a McDs to use the facilitiies. They must have passed me then since a few miles later I passed them further down the road where they had stopped for some other reason.
All this time I was hoping to find Andy to ride with him after dark.
After a few text messages and a couple of wrong turns by Andy, we finally met up around mile 150 where we and some others stopped for a last sitdown snack of Hunt Brothers pizza.
The nighttime ridins was pleasant and the remaining miles melted away. We made one last pit stop at mile 180 where the sub-group of Mark Thomas & co continued on past us.
When we pulled in around 10:30 they were saying their goodbyes with bikes loaded and ready to head out.
Andy and I checked in with the ride organizer and headed back to the airBNB as we had another long drive back the next day.
Overall Andy and I were quite favorably impressed with the route and also with the courtesy shown by the drivers down there, and Southern hospitality at all the controls.
We rode through a lot of pleasant countryside, populated with dozens and dozens of Baptist churches.
It was definitely worth the long drive.
Too bad we missed the Michael Stipe art sale which is next weekend.