The official website for
is: www.blackandbluerelay.com
It wasn't quite light enough.
As the riders leave the sky magically gets brighter.
Jane drops off the mountain quickly and is out of sight.
Jane will ride the first 50 miles, Jana the second 50. They'll alternate 25 miles each for the last 100 miles.
Jana rode more of the up-hills.
We had Jane riding most of the technical descents.
Jane takes her vest off.
The elevation chart says plenty of down-hills and curves for this first 50 miles.
ay
Right away there was way too much scenery.
Above is the exchange zone where riders hand off the "wrist baton".
Jane pulls one of the stronger riders for a bit.
Soon the ladies would be on the Blood Sweat & Gears course.
Jana starts her 50 mile segment here as they exchanged the baton after Jane rode her 50 mile segment.
Too pretty for words!
An Amish quilt on a barn. Mast General Store is below.
Jana goes under the Blue Ridge Parkway from Shulls Mill Road.
Jane and I stopped to help a rider with a flat tire and gave him a spare tube.
Now the "Low Country Ladies" ride part of the Bridge to Bridge ride.
221 is always pretty.
Waterfalls are everywhere.
Looking away from the Grandfather Mountain entrance.
Jana makes it look easy but she's not 100 percent today. She's a little under the weather but no-one can tell.
Jana finishes up a very hard "climbing leg" of the ride.
Jana is glad to get shed of the baton for a while.
Now Jane has to climb over Hanging Rock Road and descend Gouges Creek.
Hanging Rock Gouges Creek
Jana helps me navigate and goes over her segment coming up.
4,000 acres of mountain biking is on this Chestnut Flats Mountain in front of us.
The man in red.
Jane tops Snow Hill.
Roan Mountain is looming over Bakersville.
Jane flies into Bakersville.
Bakersville is a cute little town.
Jane turns toward Loafers Glory, Red Hill, and Tipton Hill.
One of my favorite barns is this one just beyond Red Hill.
Looking toward the Blue Ridge Parkway.
A Youngblood Cycles rider, Camille, is tough and plays hard about every week.
Jana has a very good segment over Horton Hill and up the Cane River.
Jana will ride 25 miles this time from Tipton Hill to Cane River Middle School.
Jana pulls the group a while. The man in blue is a solo 200 miler. He's getting a bit tuckered out.
Jana always being a good sport will pull.
Jana gets shelter for a while..
The Cane River area combined with Jacks Creek make one of the finest loops in the area.
Camille loses her bottle. She leaves it.
Jane and I pick it up, fill it with cold water, and give it back to her. She's very pleased.
Jana pulls into Lewisburg.
Jana approaches the exchange zone.
The exchange of riders takes place at Cane River Middle School near Burnsville.
Jane climbs up Paint Gap (near Burnsville).
The downhill coming up can be 60 mph. Don't try it. There's a bad curve at the bottom.
One of our comrades will not make it down this hill and around the curve at the bottom.
Jana and I were stunned but the cyclist had friends and family who were hurting..
In one moment we're trying to get to Asheville and it's important that we hurry.
In an instant we're contemplating so much and so differently.
Jane finishes her leg. Jana goes on but doesn't have the heart so much for it now.
Jana will start this last leg over Paint Fork (near Barnardsville).
After Jana grinds over Paint she'll have Ox Creek which is unbearable.
Ox Creek is immediately followed by Elk Mountain which would kill Elvis for sure.
Above Jane returns after her hand-off. Immediately below Jana ascends Paint Fork.
Now Jana will fight with Ox Creek.
I explained that this was very hard. I said that coming down this a cyclist could easily hit over 50 mph.
This is excruciating. It's just like a lot of insanely hard climbs, but harder, and longer.
Jana is digging into her suitcase of courage. There is no scenery. There's only pain.
Some of the grade here has to be over 20 %.
Jana would defeat the beast of Ox Creek but my camera would not survive.
Jana would crawl over Elk Mountain and plummet into Asheville only to find that the city is rife with hills.
The ladies finished their endurance ride of 200 miles in 11:29.
This made them the first in their "mix-a-roo" division and 6th over all.
The Low Country Ladies were the only "all ladies" team.
Jana had the most climbing and rode about 6 hrs and 10 minutes.
Jane rode about 5 hrs 20 minutes.
Both Low Country Ladies rode really hard up, over, and down steep mountains all day long.
Below at Beech Community below the
Barnardsville Paint Fork is where my Garmin, very dependably, quit.
My Garmin GPS didn't register Ox Creek or Elk
Mountain.
You can see how the "dots" in yellow disappear at "Beech" and I've
colored the route in with yellow.
This was 186.4 miles. Jana would ride another 14 miles or so to the
finish.
To this point the Low Country Ladies climbed 24293 feet and averaged
18.6 miles per hour.
These figures were taken off my Garmin GPS.
Ox Creek and Elk Mountain would eat into their average a little.
The last (26 mile) leg would take Jana 1 hr. 50 min. Hard stuff.
That's not a bad time for riding this section though.
Of course we're talking of mountains that most folks can't or wouldn't
climb.
The above photo was taken with my phone.
My camera died. Making this one about the tenth camera to have departed
by unnatural causes.
This is taken from Buzzard Rock which is the summit of Elk Mountain
Scenic Highway.
The mountain in view is Town Mountain which is a playground for cyclists
right in the heart of Asheville.
Soon enough we were dining at the Laughing Seed in downtown Asheville.
The official website for
Tony and I rode a 300K one year in the middle of April.
That was actually 194.4 miles. It felt like 195 though.
We rode from ProBikes in Asheville on Merrimon to the Bicycle Inn in Bakersville, NC.
We went on River Road to Marshall.
Then we rode to Shelton Laurel, Devils Fork, Spivey Gap, Green Mountain, and so on to Bakersville.
At the Bicycle Inn we turned around and rode back to Asheville the same route in reverse.
It rained about all day.
We finished 194.4 miles in 10 hrs and 50 minutes.
Tony and I were a team that worked together all day.
We did spend a little time stopped by a train.
We took a little time for bathroom breaks and gathering food.
After 130 miles or so Terry Arnold pulled us through Shelton Laurel at over 30 miles an hour.
Even though he came unglued at Marshall, Terry had strained our gizzards.
He moved us along but also gave us a good whuppin.
As we were riding over Walnut I told Tony that I couldn't hold this pace.
Tony turned his head to me and said, "we've been riding as a team and we're going to stay a team".
Of course nobody slowed down a bit though.