TennesseeGravel.com Fall Invitational

Alright, alright, alright! It's been a while since I've written anything but holy crap, this weekend has been so incredible that I felt compelled to share it with everyone.

Melissa (the wife) and I packed up and headed east to beautiful Reliance, TN, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and right on the Hiwassee River, for the Tennessee Gravel Fall Invitational. This is for anyone who completed one of their three different incredible, and extremely challenging, ITT (Independent Time Trial) routes before June 30th. Check out the link above for more information, they are doing great things.

The route was to be an undisclosed 85 mile mountainous journey with 9,000' of elevation gain, given out on paper cue sheets at the 6:45 a.m. riders meeting just prior to the 7:00 a.m. start on Saturday November 6th. This meant no GPX files and no GPS units used to follow the route; it was going to be old school and I was pumped about it! However, the forecast called for overnight temps in the mid-30's and there's a specific flat lander from southern Louisiana who dons his winter parka as soon as temps drop below 65. He whined enough that Shannon Burke and Kim Murrell (race directors) decided to email GPX files so people weren't fumbling with paper cue sheets with thick gloves. I won't name any names though, Michael Rasch.

The race began and ended at Kim's scenic and serene Fireside Outpost. We arrived about 3pm on Friday and began to set up our tent and get situated. People trickled in throughout the evening and we all eventually congregated around a crackling, warm campfire to laugh and tell stories...and make fun of Rasch.

I got up around 5:45 Saturday morning and gathered the remainder of my things. The night before, I had realized I left my arm warmers at home on top of the drier. No one had spares. Sweet. I remembered I had some swiftwick knee-high wool socks that I had brought but wasn't sure if I was going to wear them. Kim provided me with a knife and we just whacked 'em off just above the ankles and boom, I had arm warmers.

I chatted briefly with friends, old and new. It was good to see fellow Rescue Racing teammates Carey Lowery, John Switow, and long time friend Chris Manis.

We all gathered around a campfire they had built for us, listened to the 6:45 (more like 6:55) riders' meeting, and off we went, into the cold damp air.

My ride plan was to carry two bottles, a 2L trail running pack/bladder, 2 bananas, 2 peanut butter sandwiches, some base salts, pickle shots, and an assortment of small sugary things, and not really stop at all during the race.

A good friend of mine, Chris Manis, had come to race also. He's a full time single speeder. I knew the geared group would pull away on the initial 5 mile flat section; I also knew Manis would catch up with me on the first big 12'ish mile climb. So I stuck with the lead group, consisting of Jon Livengood, Jeremy Hoff, John Switow, Gary Chambers, Tater, a couple of guys I didn't know, and myself. I felt pretty good, but also felt like they were holding back some and I was thankful for that, haha.

We made our way across several smaller climbs, passed the Lost Creek campground, and then began a 12'ish mile climb that was a combination of the ascent out of Lost Creek CG and the Smith Mountain Road climb up Kimsey Mountain.

Once on the Smith Mountain Road portion, which starts rather steep, rutted, muddy, and chunky, I was trying to unzip my insulated outer jersey and my sunglasses fell off (they were hanging on the jersey). I had to stop and go back a few feet to retrieve them and knew there was no reason to chase to catch back up to those guys. I had told myself I was just racing myself and no one else.

I slowly caught back up to Tater (don't know his actual name). I was just telling him that it wouldn't surprise me to see Joice or Manis at any moment, and sure enough, there came Joice speeding up behind us. He had been with Manis just shortly prior to catching us but wasn't sure what happened to him.

Only another minute or two passed and Manis showed up behind us. He had apparently had to stop to mess with his GPS unit, which had come loose. He jokingly scolded me about how he came to ride with me but then watched me disappear up the road with the front group in the beginning. I laughingly filled him in on my master plan of how he'd catch me on the climb, which he had just done, and we rode the rest of the day together. We used to do a lot of big rides/training together but life happens, covid happens, and our schedules and ride types just hadn't aligned over the last year or so. It was so good to spend the day riding with him and catching up.

We reached the top of Kimsey Mountain where checkpoint #1 was located. I was so happy to see the familiar faces of Graham Skardon and Cassandra Riddle. We rolled through, stopping very briefly to say hi, and then began our descent down the chunky, bone-jarring McFarland Road. We shared the beating with Gary and Jon.

We finally finished McFarland Road, which put us back on smooth, fast, downhill gravel. We made our way through the undulating Forest Road 236 until we made the final descent down to the pump house on the Hiwassee River, around mile 45. The scenery there is just stunning!

Crossing the bridge, we ran into Steve Baptiste and Kevin Greten, who had inadvertently gone the wrong way at the initial split and were just riding the route in reverse.

After the bridge crossing, there are a few miles of flat pavement which are great for scenery and refueling.

After paralleling the Hiwassee River briefly, we headed north on Childers Creek Road for a few miles of pavement before returning to gravel on Towee Pike. We passed checkpoint #2, waving and rolling on through. I think it was Chris, Jon, and Gary that were there. It wouldn't be long before Chris would catch us yet again; he was having tire issues and stopped to put air in it several times during the race.

Towee Pike is so beautiful with serene pieces of property and quaint farm houses. It also seems to only go up; I normally ride this in the opposite direction. I guess this is probably where I started to feel some fatigue set in, around mile 60 or so.

Manis and I turned left onto Ivy Trail which would lead us over to our last sustained climb of the day, Starr Mountain. Only a few minutes in, Chris came rolling up behind us yet again. Remember, he was also riding a single speed. For you people that are in the know, his gearing was a mind boggling 38x20. Holy shit! We chatted briefly and he rolled on past us. It was the last time we would see him.

We approached Starr Mountain around mile 65 and began the ascent. The approach was easy on the eyes and luckily this was the easy side to climb. At the top, we hit checkpoint #3; Manis and I both decided to stop to get some water. These weren't aid stations, per se, but they had water and a few sugary snacks should someone need a lifeline to get back to camp.

After checkpoint 3, we had a ripping fast descent off the other side of Starr Mtn, which brought us back to Tellico Reliance Road. From there, a few miles of pavement, right hand turn onto Spring Creek Road, which was where we started, and 5'ish miles to the finish. I was feeling the fatigue and getting some intermittent hamstring cramps. The road is fast but I swear it felt like I was pedaling against a partially squeezed brake lever! We rolled by the shooting range and a loud BANG! nearly made Manis wreck because it startled him, hahaha! A brief bit of laughter to hide the pain, I suppose.

I had been watching the clock and had a goal of 2:00 p.m. for my finish. It was 1:55 and we were close. And out of no where came, what seemed like, a gust of 30mph headwind. We both just laughed and shook our heads and kept grinding. With two minutes till 2:00, I told Manis to get on my wheel, put my head down, and suffered through all the pain, pushing hard to roll into the finish at 2:00 on the dot! We were the fifth and sixth finishers with a time of 7 hours (technically 6:56 or something like that, I think we started a few mins later than 7am).

At the finish, they had a fire built for us, beer on tap from Copperhill Brewery, homemade chili (meat and veg!), a raffle where I won a free nights stay at Fireside Outpost, and racks for our bikes. I think I could do a whole different write up just on how great Kim and Shannon were to us and how well this event was run.

Afterwards, later in the evening, there was a lot of campfire sitting, beer drinking, eating, laughing, and story telling. I know this pandemic hasn't gone away, but it sure was nice to forget about it for a weekend, tucked away with my wife and great people in foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm looking forward to a lot more of this.