Trans North Georgia Adventure (TNGA) Race Report. Part 2 - Day One

This is Part 2 of a my TNGA Race report (Click Here For Part 1, Click Here For Part 3, Click Here For Part 4) 

At 5:00 AM Saturday morning, my cell phone alarm woke me for breakfast. It was time. Race day. There was a palpable tension in the air. Mostly that's because I'm not a morning person. Do not fuck with me before I've had my coffee, or you'll have one cranky asshole on your hands until I get some caffeine in me. Luckily, once I showered, got dressed and made my way up to the common kitchen and dining area there was coffee available and the caffeine monster was satiated. This also ensured the vital pre-race unloading of Mama's Potato Pie from the Italian restaurant from the night before would occur, which I had been worried about, since it kind of sat in my gastrointestinal tract like a piece of granite. I got some oatmeal, eggs, sausage, a bagel with cream cheese and devoured it. I tempered my urge to grab seconds. I had a feeling the pace from the start of the racers I wanted to be around for the rest of the race would be pretty quick. All mountain bike races work this way. Everyone starts at an unsustainable pace until they size each other up and fall into a group they feel comfortable in. It doesn't matter if the race is 6 miles or 2800 miles, this is just the way of things. Anyway, the point is, that I didn't want to over do it on breakfast and get sidelined by too full of a stomach. I headed back to the yurt to do a final gear check and then reloaded my bike on the trailer to be hauled to the start.

We all then piled into the vans to get hauled to the start line ourselves. We got there about 45 minutes before the scheduled start time and there was a lot of milling around and neurotic rechecking of gear, not that it would matter if you realized you missed something. Highway 28 on the border of SC and GA is in the middle of nowhere, so if you didn't have it now, you weren't gonna have it. I hung out and talked with some of my fellow participants in this truly absurd race. It takes a special kind of crazy to want to race 350 miles over 56,000 ft of elevation gain on a mountain bike. Most people who do this kind of racing are familiar with the plight of trying to find people to ride with for long rides, and I have to assume, knowing at least two fairly talented ultra endurance racers local to me, that it is as difficult for most others as it is for me. So most of my long ride training was done alone. It was a treat to be surrounded by like-minded nut-jobs for a change.

When we piled into the vans, I had run into Chris Joice, who would be racing singlespeed. I had met him earlier in the year at the Wilderness 101 in Coburn, PA about 30 minutes from my home. It was good to see a familiar face. I would spend some time riding with him in the later portion of the race. We chatted a bit at the staging area as we checked air pressure before I wandered of to spin around and loosen up a bit before the pre-race announcements and such. As I was hanging about, ran into Joe Polk, curator of ultra endurance racer call-ins on his website, http://www.mtbcast.com. I gave him a short and nervous pre-race interview. You can listen to it here along with all of the other pre-race interviews. I got a quick shot of my rig prior to the start and it would be the only picture I would take that day.

Pictured: Rig

Then it was time for the pre-race announcements and a prayer for a fallen veteran racer who had passed away from cancer, Ray Porter. I never had the honor of meeting him, but the stories I heard reminded me of a lot of the great riding buddies I have. He is clearly missed by a great part of the ultra endurance cycling community and left a big mark. That's a credit to the kind of person he must have been. I was honored to pay my respects with his friends.

After the pre-race announcements We rolled out to the bridge and lined up on the border of South Carolina and Georgia on Highway 28. And then, all of a sudden we were off, and we were off FAST. The pace of the front group was akin to what I would set for the start of a 100 miler. Most 100 milers don't climb 20,000 feet. The climbing on the TNGA route is front loaded. If you make it 100 miles on the first day you will have about 18,000 feet under your belt. I hung in with the guys at the front on the first gravel climb but soon a group of about 4 or 5 guys slipped away, and I would never see them again. A second group caught up to me as I was just around a wrong turn trying to figure out where my GPS was trying to send me. They passed me up and I turned around and got busy chasing.

Soon enough, wouldn't you know, there's Chris catching up to me on the climb, we settled in a on a decent pace chasing the group that had passed me, shooting the shit and passing the time as we stomped up the gravel road climb. All of a sudden we see the group that had passed me coming back down at us. Apparently they had thought they were off route and had turned around. Chris said something to the effect of "I need to do less talking and more navigating!" thinking we were headed the wrong way. It turned out the group ahead had been wrong. We were on route and good to go. It was a good thing that the group ahead had made a little error, because it contained a lot of the riders I would be spending a good deal of time riding with for the next three days. I settled into the first serious climb. It was my first taste of serious fire road climbing in the Georgia. The big gravel road climbs tend to have a character of being steep at about 20% to 25% average for the first mile and end with a half mile of ridiculously, insanely steep bullshit averaging 35% or greater. I seriously wonder why the hell they even bother building roads to the top at all, as there is no vehicle on earth I would feel safe driving up some of that without a winch hooked up at the top. Normally there's a few miles of reasonable 5% to 10% average grade between those two parts.

After a few more confusing navigational issues on the GPS I reached the top of that first climb and I entered the Darnell Creek Horse Trail. It's a long, fun descent that transitions from flowy and twisty to gnarly and rooty from top to bottom. The bottom section was really techy and reminded me a lot of the trails back here in PA. I did most of the descent with Alex, a New York native. We slowly picked our way through the techy bottom section until he had an issue with his cleats and stopped to fix it. I continued on without him and ran into Jim Rivers after I popped out at the bottom. Jim and I rode together on the road section that would take us through Dillard. Dillard was my planned first resupply point and I had packed light on food since it was only 30 miles in. At least my waypoints said it was 30 miles in. Dillard is not 30 miles in. Dillard is 28 miles in. When you are riding the road after the Darnell Creek Horse Trail, you will come to an intersection with a 4 lane road with a post office on your left. That's Dillard. If you are planning on stopping there for resupply, don't do what I did and just roll on down route thinking you have 2 miles before you are there.

I was still riding along with Jim and around mile 33. I asked him "So where is Dillard? My waypoints say it's at mile 30."

"We passed it 5 miles ago." He replied.

Shit.

I needed water and I discovered one of the most useful features on my GPS besides the track I was following. The base maps I loaded show churches on the map. You can skip a stone all the way across North Georgia from church parking lot to church parking lot. Churches typically have water, be it from a unlocked spigot outside or a friendly groundskeeper who will let you into the rec center to fill your hydration bladder. I quickly located a church and we both stopped and topped up water and took a short break to eat. My water problem was solved, and my food situation was ok for the time being. I knew I would eventually run out, well before the next resupply in Helen. It wouldn't be the first time I had to ride 40 or 50 miles in bonk mode.

We continued on when we reached O.V. Justice Road. Jim had warned me ahead of time that there was a pack of dogs that ran that road that were professionals at running down cyclists. He explained that they had a system that we needed to be ready to move. They were apparently fearless and we did not want to get caught. We got barked at by one mangy looking canine but he didn't give chase. We apparently lucked out. Jim said he wouldn't be surprised if most them had been hit by cars, as aggressively as they liked to chase. It was the first year they hadn't chased him. After that it was on to climb Patterson's Gap Road. I ran into Scott, Tristan, and Monte on the way up. Jim and I had a pretty good pace going and we ended up leaving them behind at that point. Monte hung in there with us for a bit but then I looked back and he just wasn't there anymore. I kept grinding and as I crested the top, I realized I had lost Jim as well. I figured I'd see them again when I was bonking because I had missed Dillard. I ripped downhill and was on pavement back in the valley again. I was starting to look for places to grab some food. Literally anything with calories would do.

On Persimmon Road, I thought I was saved. I saw a sign for a bait and tackle store that promised cold drinks and snacks would be available. I was ecstatic as I cruised up the drive, only to find a very creepy and abandoned looking building with door hanging wide open and junk strewn about everywhere inside. Visions of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre flashed through my mind and I was out of there fast! At some point there had been a shop there, but it was definitely not in business anymore. I continued on to the Tallulah River Road/Charlie's Creek road climb. I ran into a few other racers when I was about to stop and check out a campground for a soda machine. They looked like they had just stopped in there so I asked if there was any food or drink to be had there, they indicated there was not so we continued on for a little bit together. I pulled away from them as it tipped up.

This section of the course is particularly beautiful. The Tallulah River is just awesome to ride along next to and there were tons of people out enjoying the area fishing, swimming, hiking, and four wheeling. When I got to Charlie's Creek Road there was a ford where the creek was wide and shallow. There were several guys around a 4x4 truck trying to get unstuck. I couldn't see the road across the creek so I asked them, "Is there a road or trail over there somewhere?" thinking the GPS might be slightly off in this location. One of them pointed about 75 feet or so upstream and said, "Yeah it's up there, you've got a hell of a lot more power in those legs than I do to be riding that thing up that! Good luck!" I supposed that meant I was in for a climb. I rode across the creek and got on Charlie's Creek Road, which is more of a jeep trail than a road. I got a little motivation about 1/3 of the way up when I heard thunder behind me. Crap. I had to be off this jeep trail before that storm got to me. I did not want to be on that steep jeep trail when it turned into a river. I kicked it up a few gears, got out of the saddle, and picked up the pace. I reached the top and descended the rough backside in the typical fashion, with reckless abandon of all common sense. I made it to the pavement on the other side just as the first drops of rain started to fall.

The GPS indicated another church close by at the bottom so I hurried to it and found a little overhang to hide under and wait for the storm to pass. I could tell it was a typical southern 15 minute afternoon cloud burst. A dry chamois was more valuable to me than the time I would lose waiting the storm out. As I was waiting I saw JP and Jim pass me up. Soon enough the rain let up and I was on my way again. I could see the entrance to bonktown now. If I didn't get food soon, things were going to get ugly. As I turned out on to a main road, I decided to try to see if I had cell service so I could locate somewhere off route I could get food soon. No luck. As I was packing back up, Monte passed me and told me we had about 40 miles to go to get to Woody's Bike Shop, which was right before Helen, where there would definitely be food. This was a distressing thought. 40 miles was a long damn way to go in the state I was in. I could make it, but it was going to take a long, long time.

Luckily, I wouldn't have to wait that long. About a half mile from where I stopped, halfway up the road climb was the Top of Georgia Hostel. They had set up at the end of their driveway with PB&J Sandwiches and Coca-Cola. IT WAS A MIRACLE. Imagine this scenario: You are racing TNGA, you are in the early stages of the dreaded bonk a mere 60 miles in, on a climb, and all of a sudden, in a place where there should be no services for 40 more miles, there's this beautiful tall woman named Tex set up on the roadside offering free PB&J and bottled water and selling Cokes for a buck. It was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. Top of Georgia Hostel, you guys are the best, you probably saved my race and I hope you continue to do this in the future! I downed a sandwich, a bottle of water and two cokes. I bought a coke to bring along for later and I was off again. Refueled and spirits lifted, I charged ahead with Monte up the climb and then we headed down a pretty sketchy section of double track where I ran back into a group containing Jim, JP, and a few others. The coke I had drank earlier was like rocket fuel. I was having a bunch of fun descending this section popping off little rocks and catching a little air in sections.

I lost most of this group on the descent and then once we got out on the road again, I widened the gap significantly before the Wildcat Road Climb. Wildcat wasn't too bad and soon enough I was dropping back down to the Unicoi Turnpike for brief moment before I got on Corbin Creek Road, the start of the Tray Gap Climb. I stopped briefly to get the coke I had bought earlier to gas up for the 10 mile climb ahead. I reached in my CraterPacks framebag to pull it out and what I got was an empty can. Thank goodness I pack everything in ziplock bags in there because it must have exploded on the double track descent before Wildcat. I was upset that I didn't have a coke to drink at the moment, but checking for it alerted me to the fact that I was almost out of water. I checked the GPS and wouldn't you know it, about a quarter mile off route past the turn onto Corbin Creek Road is church on the left.

I backtracked about a half mile to the church. There was a spigot on the side of the building and I topped off water there. I headed back to Corbin Creek Road where I ran into Jim again. We started up the Tray Gap climb. Jim said he probably hates this climb more than any other on the route. It just never ends. It feels like you are steadily climbing for a solid 10 miles, even though there actually a few slight downhill sections. The road slowly gets rougher and rougher as you go along until goes from gravel road to full on washed out Jeep trail. I was riding with Jim and Matthew on this section of the trail. Another racer later described Tray Gap as "one of the most hateful gravel roads I have ever seen." I'm inclined to agree with him. There are steeper climbs and rougher climbs on the route, but none are as interminably insufferable as Tray Gap. Part of the reason it sucks so badly is because Woody's Bike Shop is what is on the other side at around mile 100 and, at that point in the day, you are ready to be there immediately.

We trudged our way up the infinite suck until we crested the top. We were then descending an extraordinarily rough jeep trail. I decided it was a good time to haul ass and I ripped down the the back side jeep trail. It was covered in large basketball sized boulders and was actually pretty technical. I was flying and Matthew was right on my wheel. I went to hop a large rock that was in the middle of what was otherwise the smoothest, fastest line and I must have tagged it slightly with my rear wheel because it threw me sideways into a full on moto-whip at about 18 mph about 8 inches of the ground. Now I know I said I was getting rowdy on the descents, but I draw the line well before whips. I barely straightened it out at all before I hit the ground. When the rear wheel hit I countersteered, but the force of the tail of the bike shooting back the other way ripped my foot out of the pedal. Somehow, I reigned the 40+ lb. bike back under control. I had one of those adrenaline spikes you get when you know you almost seriously injured yourself and barely pulled it out and had to back it off a little bit until my heart rate came down. Amazingly, my rear wheel was dead-on true still even though I landed completely sideways on it. The tire didn't even burp air.

We rounded a corner and ran into some Jeeps four wheeling the trail in the opposite direction, and we slowed way down as we squeezed past them, then it started mellow out slightly until Matthew and I reached what was supposed to be the start of Hickory Nut Trail. The GPS looked like it was telling us to ride up a super steep washed out jeep trail to the right. Matthew and I rode the steep techy climb, only to find a young couple camping up there and a trail that just straight up ended. Clearly we were not in the right place, even though the GPS track said we were right on route. We rode back down, warning the campers to expect more intruders on their peace and quiet that evening. When we got back to the intersection Jim was there and showed us the actual start of Hickory Nut Trail. It was no wonder we missed it, the entrance was constructed in such a way that it was nearly invisible until you were right on top of it. We headed down together. Hickory Nut Trail is obviously not trail that sees a lot of use as the trail tread is overgrown a bit and difficult to see in places. Add to this the fact that it was dusk, and there were soccer ball sized square edged rocks littered randomly all over the trail and it makes for some risky descending. If it weren't for all the random rocks it would actually be a pretty awesome trail. I would find out later at Woody's that the rocks come from the bears and hogs flipping over the rocks on the hillside above looking for bugs to eat. The rocks naturally roll down and stop on the bench cut of the trail. We ran into a racer that was riding back up looking for his SPOT tracker which he had somehow lost. Make sure your SPOT is secure! That thing could save your life out here! It's not just for race tracking! The course is very remote and if you get seriously hurt there is a really good chance no one would find you otherwise.

I was determined to make it out of Hickory Nut before I put my lights on. Jim had caught on at this point that I was a risk taker and fast descender. So after leading for a bit he let me take the lead. I let it roll a little bit and things were moving along pretty well until, wham! I hit one of those big square edged bastards hidden by some plants and low light conditions. I was propelled over my bars directly in to a large patch of poison ivy. Awesome...just my luck. I knew would probably take a spill or two, but the poison ivy was a nice touch. I carefully picked my self up and retrieved my bike. The bars were spun 180 degrees from their proper orientation. I got out my tools to tighten my headset and stem bolts and Jim and Matthew caught up to me. They asked if I was alright and I sent them on ahead of me, knowing I would see them at Woody's. I tried to use some water to wash my exposed skin hoping it might do something to prevent or mitigate the reaction to the poison ivy. I don't react to poison ivy too badly, but I didn't want to be the guy who dropped from TNGA because I crashed into pile of the stuff. I did end up getting a little bit of a rash in a few spots after the race, but it actually wasn't too bad considering. I put on my lights before I started back down again and shortly after was out of the trail and on my way to Woody's.

Woody's Bike Shop is right down the road from the exit of Hickory Nut Trail. If you are not gunning for the win Woody's is an awesome place to stop. They will cook you food, have tons of cold drinks waiting, a place for you to crash if you are ready to stop for the day, WiFi, and spare parts and tools. It's a great place to take a break and all the people there are awesome! It is also, however, a huge time suck. I think next time I attempt this I will skip Woody's unless I have a major mechanical issue that needs to be addressed. There is a gas station and small market down the road on the route that's open until at least 11:00 PM on Saturday. That's definitely the place to stop if you think you lack the time management discipline to make Woody's a quick stop. Jim and I ended up stopped there for at least an hour probably closer to two.

Jim and I headed out together as Scott and Tristan rolled up. I wanted to get over at least the next climb, the infamous Hog's Pen Gap road climb, before I crashed for the night. Somewhere along the line Matthew slipped away while we were at Woody's. We had picked up Alex who I had ridden with briefly earlier in the day. We headed up the road and I suggested sticking together at night. Riding at night can be difficult psychologically when you are alone. It can be hard to stay motivated to keep moving. I'm sure there are people out there that are better off riding alone at night, but I'm not one of them. Jim and Alex seemed to agree that this was a good idea. We started in on the enormous road climb. I highly recommend doing this section of the course at night unless you are just too fast and get there in daylight on the first day. It's cooler at night, I kind of lost track of my sense of scale for the climb in the dark, and you can't see the tops of the extended 20+% grades. Somehow this makes it seem easier. Alex had a different strategy than us. His pace was much slower as we got into the Hog's Pen Gap climb. He planned to ride at an easier pace and not sleep if possible, while Jim and I were planning on crashing at some point for a few hours. Jim and I ended up riding away from him on the climb and when we got to the top, we waited for a little while but there was no sign of Alex, so we went on without him. I felt a little bad after suggesting we stick together but he had said he needed to go his own pace, so there was no point in us waiting and then trying to push him. He ended up finishing well before I did, so I guess it worked for him.

Jim and I screamed down the back side of Hog's Pen Gap and rode the short bit of the route over to Vogel State Park where there was a campground. As we were pulling into the campground, we ran into Chris leaving. We chatted for a bit and I could see he had a bit of a crazy look in his eyes. He had stopped briefly and was headed back out. He said he was going to try to make it to Aska Road or Cherry Log. Then he said, "Maybe I'll try to make it Mulberry Gap. Does that sound unreasonable?" I replied something to the effect that I thought that idea was probably unreasonable. It was only another 100 miles away. If those miles were anything like the first 125 to get to Vogel, that sounded impossible at the time. Having completed the route, it wasn't as crazy as I was thinking, but still a very tall order. Jim had ideas about conquering Wolf Pen Gap before we crashed, but I decided I was definitely done for the day. 20,000 ft of climbing and 125 miles was the hardest ride I had ever done in my life at that point and in my mind was in and of itself an unreasonable task. I was happy to bed down and tackle Wolf's Pen in the morning. For next run, I would probably try to get Wolf's Pen over with on day 1 as it would be easy to get to mile 160 or so once you are over that.

Jim and I rolled down to main services building for the campground and not only were there bathrooms, there was a coin op laundromat! We both hurriedly changed out of our kits and scraped together some change. Starting in clean kit on the second day was going to be awesome. After we started the laundry I mixed up a recovery drink and slammed it and then had a snack while calling into mtbcast and surfing the net on my phone for important information for the ride ahead tomorrow. You can hear my call in here. We then moved up to a pavilion to lay out our bivvy sacks and catch some sleep where two other racers had already set up and fallen asleep. There were outlets so I plugged my light in to charge and turned off my phone. I lay down to sleep and shortly after, extremely close by, I heard a pack of coyotes attacking something. It was very unsettling and I had a rough time getting to sleep after that. Eventually though sleep came and it was a much welcomed when it did. Soon enough I would be waking up to tackle day 2 and I had a feeling things were only going to get harder.

Stay tuned for Part 3: Day 2! (Click Here for Part 3: Day 3)