A Little Ride over the Unicoi Mountains. (Cherohala 2004)
by Ed Carmack of the Birmingham (AL) Bicycling Club
http://bhambikeclub.org/

A group of us from Birmingham made the trip up to Tennessee for the Cherohala Challenge. The group included the pleasantly plump Spokesman editor- me-AKA Ed Carmack (whose plumpness once again caused him considerable suffering), Barbara and Jim Dailey, Barbara Gower, Eddie “Reststop” Owens, Mike McDaniel and our very own dignitary, BBC president Doug Daughhetee, There was another Birmingham contingency, mainly GC riders lead by Dan “Dirtdog” Watson. These two bands were loosely joined during parts of the rides but as expected the GC crew finished ahead of most of the BBC crowd.

After getting there we found a room at the Sweetwater exit, fixed my tire that had suddenly blown out while lying in the back of my truck in the sun. After that we connected for some Italian food (pasta) at a restaurant run by Greek folks. This is almost as good as the Mexican place in Inverness run by Chinese folks. Italian restaurants do a good business the night before a century.

Next morning arrived at the high school in tiny Tellico Plains. Doug wasn’t registered and there was some doubt that they were going to let him in since they had stated a 400 rider limit; but they did. He was fully prepared to pirate the route had it been necessary. That would have been tough being as there is only one store on the entire 115 mile route. I forget how many rest stops there were, but there was a pile of them and I stopped at every one of them and that includes the one at 108 miles. Plus I made several of my own. The mass start was at 8:00 but we started about 15 minutes early specifically to avoid the mass start. Also we thought that the start was at 7:30 due to confusion on somebody’s part, so we were ready.

Left Doug with the GCC crowd we thought, but it turns out that they left him too. He caught up with us around mile 20. Twenty miles by yourself trying to run down a pace line is no way to start the Cherohala Challenge but he was up to it. The humidity was extremely high, it may as well have been raining, the road was wet and it looked like it may rain at any time.

Typical Smoky Mountain morning weather. We got into the Dragon, which is the road that runs along the south side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and has 318 curves in 11 miles. It has some pretty significant climbing in it but nothing compared to the Cherohala Skyway.

Immediately after the second rest stop the road is very steep and has some sharp switch backs and the road was wet. Well, in the third switch back, I took the bend too fast and my rear wheel broke loose. I felt it happening and had some time to react. Being as I have considerable experience at crashing, I have gotten pretty good at it. I went down on my back and slid about 20 feet down the road. Fortunately it was brand new asphalt and the damage was minimal. It didn’t even tear up my jersey and shorts. My $5 mountain bike seat that fits me fine got skint up pretty good. When the others caught up, (I did mention I was going to fast didn’t I?) I was standing in the middle of the road putting my chain back on. They didn’t know anything had happened until I told them later.

At something like mile 70 the real climbing starts, you enter the Skyway and start a 2000’ climb to the next rest stop. The section from mile 55 to mile 80 has about 4200 feet of net elevation change. Except for a section of 3 or so miles the climbing is pretty much continuous. This is only ten miles from the previous one. That is one long climb. During this climb, hurray! The sun came out! We were moving at 5 mph and had a 5 mph tailwind with high temps and high humidity. I very nearly overheated on this one.

The next stop is at about 3800 feet. It was a wonderful sight. After that the higher elevations lowered the temps back to pleasant conditions and things dried out as well. The high point is at 5390 feet and up there things were nice. The Skyway goes along the top of the Unicoi Mountains for a few miles and the climbs are only a few hundred feet at the most. This year, unlike last, my level of misery was low enough that I was actually able to enjoy the view.

Then the really fun part begins. The long, long descent. It would be perfect except that after descending a few miles at around 40 mph you get to climb again. It is only a Coosa Mountain sized climb but after being thoroughly cooled down it is tough. Then you do the same thing all over again, complete with another Coosa Mountain sized climb. These climbs are in some ways worse than the big climbs up the Unicoi range. They suck on many levels. Well I did the last 30 or so miles with just me and other miscellaneous stragglers some of whom I got to know pretty well. The other good part is that the last 7 miles go down along the Tellico River and with a slight down grade. The hills are in your past. The shower was wonderful. The grub wasn’t bad either for century food. Once again a great job by the SMW on doing an excellent century on a spectacular route.