North Georgia Jan 2010

In tradition of a couples years past, Steve and I are keeping the SGC man trip alive. We still have hopes that one of these years, we will find a way for the rest of the crew to find a way out of work.

Here's a report of the 4 day weekend. Thursday night arrive in Ellijay at around 12:30 PM. Have camper set up at Mulberry Gap and finishing a beer around 2 AM. That late night helped us get a slow start on Friday. We finally rolled out of camp to go ride Bear Creek to P1, P2 and possibly P3 at around noon. This lead us to a pretty good amount of forest service road climbs but the views and the fog/clouds layer was pretty awesome. Bear Creak was ripping until the creek crossing, Steve got a flat. At this point we realized that we did not have a CO2 cracker which left us with my pump from circa 1993. (1993-2010, does that classify it as an antique?) Well as it turns out my faithful pump let us down that fine day. The seal in the internals was allowing air to release as quickly as it was pumping air into the tire. So after breaking off I think 2 valve stems, we finally tip toed down the remaining section of the Bear Creek. We decided that we would limp home to Mulberry Gap but on the way down Bear Creek road we passed a couple mtn bikers from ATL. They had a pump! But we proceeded to break off another valve stem. ATL guys were cool enough to let us just leave their pump on the side of the road so they could finish their ride and we could deal with our problems. Or at least Steve could deal with his problems as I sat back and laughed.

Flash forward - Steve and I find our way back to camp at Mulberry Gap and work our way into town to get some parts and catch up with the one and only Mike Palmeri at Cartecay Bike shop in Ellijay, GA. If you have not been in to visit or support this guy, you need to on your next trip to the area.

Saturday we decided to stick around and wait for Carebear (Mark Peterson) to arrive with a group of his close friends. Rumor was that they were going to do P1, P2, P3, with a P4 option which sounded pretty good to Steve and I. Started off at 11 AM with them and rode most of P1 with them but they had a big group and regrouped quite frequently so Steve and I rode on. We still got in P1-P3 but no P4.

Sunday, IT RAINED. I should have taken some pictures of the rain but I think I was so depressed that we were not able to ride that I just drank beer and ate. Luckily Mulberry Gap has a barn that is filled with bike paraphernalia courtesy of Bruce Dickman, a huge flat screen TV, surround sound, ping pong, weights, and a dart board. I will let Steve insert a ping pong report because I am pretty sure that I got schooled.

Monday we arose to clear skies and went for a quick forest service road ride so that we could pack up and get back to Albany.

Probably wasn't the most epic of man weekends but it still was a chance to get away and recharge the batteries.