New Bike Break In On The Cohutta Cat!
I drove up to Chatsworth that evening where I slept in my mom’s car in the Ingles parking lot. Some fine accommodations. I realized when I got there that I forgot a cache battery, phone charger, charging brick, and food for the morning. Luckily Ingles was open late, so I got most of that figured out. While I was lucky Ingles was open late, it also meant people were parking right around me when I was trying to sleep which was pretty annoying for a while. Still ended up with some good sleep, though.
Day 1- 100 miles, 12k ft
Our group was Cody, who was crazy strong, Eric, who was crazy strong and on SS, and Matt, who was crazy strong. There seems to be a pattern there… We parked at the ranger camp at the bottom of West Cowpen, and made our way backwards for a long way on the same route I rode a few weeks ago on my last bikepacking trip. It was fun getting used to the bike. It felt crazy efficient, even loaded down with a crazy amount of gear. My seatpost started slipping both down and tilting back which started to become a problem for my knees. The seatpost clamp didn't have a torque spec listed, so I had just tightened it to the spec of the one on my old bike. The tilting saddle had definitely been tightened properly, but oh well. I never actually fixed that problem for good until day 2, but at least the height was ok once I fixed it.
The group made the decision to skip the many hour hike-a-bike time suck that was Sylco trail, and thank goodness we did as the briars were still in full strength as we found out later on route. I had a little crash after overcooking a corner descending into the Thunder Rock campground. Thankfully it was minor and the only one of the trip. We refilled on water and headed through the rest of the Ocoee trails. It skipped a lot of rough trails that I remembered from the Vista which was a pleasant surprise. The Brush Creek trails were actually tons of fun in this direction as it trended downhill.
After those trails we stopped for a gas station resupply and then for lunch down the road at Bradford’s BBQ. It was a small restaurant that seemed probably family owned/employed. A teenager/low 20s dude who may have been the son of the couple that ran the place lost his sunglasses and absolutely thought we stole them. They were “real nice” apparently.
After that I believe the route was unfamiliar territory until I realized we were about to start the Mountaintown climb. I knew there was a big climb ahead, and thought we’d be going all the way to the top. Almost as soon as we started the climb we passed two massive road graters (maybe that's what they're called?) coming the opposite way. Great. We had gone through a small patch of grated road at the beginning of the route, and it SUCKED. The tough climb was going to be even tougher. The surface turned out to be slightly better than expected, but bad nonetheless. There were usually packed down spots, but you would have to cross the soft, loose no man’s land in the middle of the road to get to it every time. We stopped and talked to a hiking trail work team a few miles before the top before wrapping the climb up. It had been a long day with some tough climbing, and everyone was ready to have a real meal and get some sleep.
We descended down the way that TNGA comes up into the Cohuttas, and I will say it's a heck of a lot more fun the way we did it. After a ripping descent, we rolled for more miles than I had expected on paved roads into Blue Ridge where we would spend the night. We were ready for a night in a warm, cozy hotel, but we opened the motel door to a wall of awful stench. Fun. The whole place was dirty and had some mystery stains all around, but at least we had a roof and climate control. We got a wide assortment of pizza and various snacks to help gain back some calories. I brought my sleeping pad for the night, but everyone else got beds. This was my own decision, they didn’t kick me out or anything. I got a solid 8 hours before our 6am alarm.
Day 2- 115 miles, 13k ft
After 3 pieces of pizza right after getting up, for some reason I thought it would be a wise idea to also order a big breakfast at the Waffle King next door. Yes, Waffle King. Blue Ridge does things a little different. I ate as much as I could, but couldn’t eat more than a couple bites of my waffle which I felt bad about.
We got on our way with overstuffed stomachs for a few miles of pavement before getting on gravel. I think that the first 30+ miles out of BR might have been some of the most pretty riding I have ever done. The roads were twisty, the trees were colorful, and the gravel was mostly good. Something like 35 miles in we were descending down to the Toccoa River Suspension Bridge when my bars twisted backwards which was super scary. We stopped to check it out, and somehow the top two face plate stem bolts had backed themselves out considerably. For whatever reason, this stem uses T15 bolts which is almost unheard of from my experiences, so obviously nobody’s multi tool had a bit that would fit properly. We made do with the closest allen key we could find, and went on our way. Crossing the bridge the locals (tourists) were super nice (obnoxious) by giving us plenty of room (blocking the bridge). People weren’t really doing us any favors as we tried to maneuver packed down bikes over the tiny swinging bridge. Nobody fell over the side, though, so all was well in the end.
Just after that we started up the fish hatchery climb. I would’ve never guessed that the two were in such close proximity. It was actually pretty enjoyable as it was rolly and smooth. We stopped at the top for a small lunch. The descent down Cooper’s Gap was a blast, and after that we started on Jake and Bull trails. I had looked at the route in the morning and knew the Bear Hair climb was coming up, and man was I dreading it. It really never gets easier. I cleared more than normally, but there was still a lot of hiking. The downhill of the top was fun, but rough even after letting out some air from my tires.
Matt had started to have some bike issues on day 1 that never was worse than a creak or ticking that would go away after backpedaling. Popping out of the trails, it had gotten significantly worse. We stopped and looked at it, but couldn’t figure out the real cause of the problem. After some debating, he said he’d ride it until it blew up and then figure it out from there. Nobody was expecting the climb up Nimblewill Gap, and man was it stout! It never seemed to let up for a long, long time.
I was hoping for easy miles to the restaurant for dinner, but it was anything but. The Other side of Nimblewill was absolutely atrocious. I think my brain got rattled straight out of my head within the first hundred feet. You couldn’t go fast at all, and after all the fatigue from the 75 hard miles that day it was miserable. We all made it down, and it was almost all paved to the restaurant, although still slower than we wanted. Coming up to the restaurant, there were cars lining either side of the road for maybe a tenth of a mile. The place was packed. The place was supposed to close soon, and we had doubts of being able to be served. Instead of waiting in line, we found open seats at the bar and sat there. The place was definitely on the nicer side, and I felt very out of place wearing tights and being sweaty and dirty. The dinner was fantastic, and I was absolutely stuffed with pasta by the time we left.
We slowly cruised the couple miles to Aska trails for the last climb of the day. In stark contrast to all my other experiences with those trails, it was all rideable which I was pleasantly surprised about. The downhill was a blast in the dark, and the Klite dynamo light was crazy crazy bright. After that was just a couple short miles back to the hotel. It had been a long day, and we were thoroughly exhausted.
Day 3- 75 miles, 10k ft
After a few miles of regular empty roads, we had to ride on a highway for a quarter mile before turning onto a neighborhood street. It turned out to be one of the toughest roads of the trip. Every hill was just impossibly steep, with grades regularly passing 20%. What the heck!? They had also paved seemingly ransom sections, so it would go from pavement to gravel and back with no rhyme or reason which was just odd. I was glad to be done with that. More normal miles before meeting a new friend. A goat! We were extra generous and fed him pepperoni pizza which he seemed to enjoy. Just after that the gravel turned into a jeep road that almost had a creek flowing down the trail. That was super odd since the route had been pretty dry the whole way. It wasn’t terribly long, so I didn’t have time to get too angry.
More pavement miles with a bit of gravel to get to Pinhoti 2 where we started following the trail up to P5 I think. Instead of turning left to get on the last one towards Ramhurst the way TNGA goes, we turned left to get on basically a goat path. It was steep. So steep. There were trees down every few hundred feet and it was super overgrown. I usually don’t mind hike-a-bike too much, but with all the weight I had packed on my bike, there was not a single thing I liked about it. I had to stop every 30 seconds because of thorns in my hands or just because I was hypoxic. I was happy to hear the busy road just above until I saw that the section of trail leading up to it was the steepest yet. I think everyone should collectively agree to let that trail be swallowed up by the forest and a reroute made. The Fort Mountain state park store was like heaven, and we feasted before descending a rough, rocky next handful of miles.
Fort Mountain certainly didn’t give any breaks. Just as I remembered from a few years back, it was leaves over loose rocks for miles. Lots of super tight switchbacks that I couldn’t make and downed trees made even the downhills excruciatingly slow. At least we popped out onto an actual gravel road for the last couple miles.
Another pavement transfer over to the Mill Creek climb, the last one of the route. It isn’t steep, but just another long one. I expected to climb until the road intersected West Cowpen which would make for a fun finish to the ride, but of course it couldn’t be that easy. We took a turn onto a forest road I had never noticed before. It was actually pretty enjoyable until Eric got a flat after hitting a rock pretty hard. We plugged it and pumped it up just for it to go flat a few hundred yards later. Another plug did the trick and we were back on track. It was getting dark fast, so the lights switched on just before some more crappy singletrack. Again we were met with long forgotten, overgrown paths with thorns everywhere. We were just so tired of it all. Luckily it was only a couple miles before we could descend to the cars.
Overall the course was far more challenging than I expected. With the three day format with hotels in between, I was honestly ready for a fun weekend without too much strain, but I was definitely mistaken. It was a great ride though, and I look forward to laying down a fast time. The official start is at Mulberry Gap instead of Cisco where we parked, so just about all of the stupid stuff is over with by mile 40 when you’re still fresh.
I tested out a lot of new gear on this trip, and it was all great. The bike was absolutely faultless and smooth from start to finish. I commented that the Klite Bikepacker Ultra was so bright it was almost obnoxious, and that was amazing! Basically the only time I would need any sort of head lamp would be while stopped looking through my bags. I also used the Aeroe Spider rear rack which was ultra stable. On day 1 I had some issues with the dry bag slipping, but I figured it out was totally my own fault setting it up, and fixed it after that. It is super well built and the attachment system is pretty clever.
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