Day 2 home from Virginia exploring the TN river watershed

Whew this was a tough one - day 1 home from Virginia

HBC delivery and shakedown 2

Groceries with J

Pokémon rendezvous plus Virginia shakedown

I met Steve Philips at one of our Birmingham Bike League rides where we had a post-ride get-together at SOHO in Homewood ... maybe 2008 or 2009? He mentioned that he lived on the north side of town and rode to our BBL and then rode home afterwards which was going to make for a 160-175 mile day for him with the BBL "training race" in the middle. That was very inspiring to me. A few years later he was diagnosed with cancer and died after battling it. I was at a different phase of my "cycling life" back then so I didn't get a chance to ride with him more than one or two group rides. If he were still here today, I would have probably ridden with him on many long distance adventures. So when I found out about this route and then noticed that it was a route that he had designed, I was immediately "in" and am so happy to have completed this route now, somehow carrying on part of Steve's legacy.

This Strava ride is one of four rides. I split it up into four rides because I knew the whole thing was going to take longer than 24 hours and I wanted it to count for the gran fondo challenge. First ride is called "there". Second ride is this ride. Third ride is the last part of the 600k to the finish. The last ride is called "and back again". So if Strava could figure out how to make their Gran Fondo challenge work with people who can ride significantly longer than 24 hours in one setting (seems like you could just use either the first 24 hours of a ride longer than 24 hours or you could scan the ride for the longest distance 24 hour section ... although I do realize that would be CPU intensive for them to do that for all riders) that would be fantastic and I wouldn't have had to split this up into four rides. 

Tons of seflies in this one as EPP (electronic proof of passage) in the randoneurring world aka "checkpoint selfies" in the bikepacking world. 13 controls and I got all but two of them as checkpoint selfies and having to rely just on the GPS for the other two. I missed taking the Cheaha selfie because I was sitting in the rocking chair outside the store for a while talking to one of the workers there who was super nice and it was great to chat with her as I hadn't talked to anyone in many hours by that point. And I simply forgot. Since the ride file itself also counts, I wasn't worried when I remembered partway down the descent ... yeah, I'm not climbing back up to get the selfie. I also forgot to take the dollar general selfie at the bottom of vandiver because my light was dying and I planned on plugging it in and it wouldn't charge, this was also while I was racing to maximize my distance for the 24 hour grand fondo cut off so I wanted to get moving again quickly and even though I stopped outside the dollar general to use the parking lot light to try and diagnose light/charging problem I forgot to take the selfie. You can see my route goes into the parking lot (same with cheaha store). 

About the ride itself - it was tough. Fast start and fun trip down memory lane with Brent and James riding through Washington Valley and then across part of the Sumatanga training race course. Quite foggy in the low valleys, the last of which I flatted in the gravel just as the fog was lifting and got to change the tire right there in the full sun, why can't I ever flat in the shade. 

Coming down Lookout Mountain into Georgia, James started feeling off and was hoping it would resolve itself after bathroom stop but ended up having to pull out later. He was riding super strong and it was great to ride with him and chat about some of the bikepacking/gravel races he has done that are definitely on my bucket list e.g., Sarah Cooper's iowa wind and rock.

One of those races he was recounting to me where he and Dave Hasse were battling it out at the front, Dave's light died and he had to find a flashlight to buy to finish out the race. Wouldn't you know that about 10 hours after he recounted this story to me, I would be buying a flashlight to finish out this ride.

But before that we were riding into a headwind all the way back down to Piedmont on beautiful roads, but that headwind especially on Georgia 100 just really wore you down. Plus it was hot into the 90s by that point so it was tough to keep up on hydration. James pulled off in Piedmont and I ran into Chris who was organizing this brevet and he had bottled gatorade and food. 

Later on the way down to Sylacauga there was a nasty section of gravel which would have been fine on a gravel bike or if I hadn't flatted earlier in the ride but not wanting to flat again I ended up walking a section of it and very slow-rolling the rest. It was only a mile or so long, but by this point I had long given up the thoughts of pulling out a sub-24 on this. I was just hoping it keep it down around the 26 hour range, but my lighting issues later slowed me down quite a bit, first riding with my light on a very slow setting (walking mode I think) and then eventually buying a flashlight at a truck stop. But even then, I had switched over into more of a "let's just cruise" mode and really enjoyed a beautiful quiet Sunday morning with some fall temps. It was chilly, though, given how wet I was so I couldn't let my heartrate get too low since I needed to keep the body heat going.

Beautiful tailwind all the way back down into Birmingham and it seemed like I was making every light on hwy 11 down through trussville, east lake, where I rode straight to the airport to make it there before noon to pick up the car from long term parking.   

Many thanks to Chris Argo and Ken Mcdaniels for organizing this brevet and getting us riders sorted out with info and supplies and the route. What a great event.

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Brian Toone

2022/09/17 Springville, AL Gomer’s 600k in memoriam Steve Philips - first 24 hours

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Day 2 home from Virginia exploring the TN river watershed

Whew this was a tough one - day 1 home from Virginia

HBC delivery and shakedown 2

Groceries with J

Pokémon rendezvous plus Virginia shakedown

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