HuRaCaN: The Return

Fresh off the heels of a surprisingly good showing at the CFITT, I traveled back to Ocala, Fl at the end of January for another go at the HuRaCaN. This year, Karlos bumped up the timing of the race to the end of January instead of the middle of March. I think this suited everyone (at least me) well since 90+ degree days last year were just about my undoing. This year I was prepared. I had dialed my kit in and would be traveling fairly light. Continue reading HuRaCaN: The Return

TransNorthGeorgia Day 2 [Unfinished]

Waking up this morning was the driest I’ve been at a campsite in a long time. A quick cup of coffee, a tube of jerky and a refill of the water bottles in the creek and we were on our way up to Tray Gap.

Within ten minutes of starting the day, I had already convinced myself three times over that not riding this stretch the previous night was the right call.

Roads like these...It ended up taking us another 3 and a half hours to make it to the place where I’d planned on camping while doing our ride planning. Continue reading TransNorthGeorgia Day 2 [Unfinished]

TransNorthGeorgia [Day 1]

[Preface]

Jump straight to the ride

With my recent success on the Huracan350, and always eyeing bigger and more challenging things, I decided to try to take on the TransNorthGeorgia route, which traverses the northern part of the state from South Carolina to Alabama.
Screenshot 2015-04-29 08.45.00
Like the Huracan, it’s better than 90% dirt. Unlike the Huracan, this route is not flat. Over the same distance (325ish miles), it climbs upwards of 55,000ft vertically. For some perspective, The GreatDivide which is 2700+ miles, climbs 200kft, so this is somewhere on the order of 2.5x as much climbing per mile.

Ouch.

For a little more perspective, that little blip towards the end of the elevation profile between 255 and 280, that’s Snake Creek Gap.

This is a serious route, listed as one of the top ten bikepacking routes in the US over at singletracks.com, with the warning: “If you’re thinking this might be a good beginning bikepacking route to tackle, think again…” Continue reading TransNorthGeorgia [Day 1]