BRAT Day 6 - Lake Tansi

Last day of the ride. Today was 37 miles with a nice ride and beautiful weather. The hills were reasonable but still a little work. If only all of the days were like this! Not much more to say. Being a shorter ride, we only had on sag stop today right in downtown Crossville at an outdoor amphitheater off the courthouse square. Today we happened to pass by the home of one of Gregg’s high school friends from back in New Jersey. He was out of town, but we stopped to take a photo on the bench in his front yard.

It was a challenging week of riding overall. The company and the camaraderie were the best part of it. We’re all packed up and heading home. Time to start planning for the next ride.

BRAT Day 5 - Fairfield Glade

Best place to grab lunch in Fairfield Glade is Tony’s Place. It’s 12:30 and we’re already finished with our ride today and may just try that!

We rode 46 miles today. There was a longer option of 66 miles, but they cancelled that early this morning due to incoming rain and storms. As expected, the weather forecasters nailed it. We never saw a drop of rain all day. We did have cloud cover all day however and that made the ride a more pleasant without the sun beating down on us.

Matt and I decided to take a break here in the photo below on the edge of a lake. 100 yards farther down the road is one of the toughest climbs of the week. We took a break to let some bikers and cars get started up the climb so they woudln’t slow us down, if you can imagine that. We managed not to walk our bikes up any section of the incline. It was tough and there were conversations about walking, but we gritted it out and took a rest at the top.

There’s not much else to say today. The ride was one of the more difficult rides this week. We only have one more day and it’s a shorter ride of 37 miles. The plan is to take is easy on this ride and take a few more stops and photos. Numerous riders have commented that this has not been a particularly scenic ride. Between that, and just trying to focus on getting past each hill, there has not been a lot to write or talk about on the rides compared to previous years. So, for a change, I will turn it over to Matt for a little bit to talk about the ride, what we have been doing, or anything else. Oh, and Tony’s closed early, we had to find another place for lunch.

Hey all, Matt here. I’m here to give you a quick rundown on the ride along with what we’ve been doing afterwards. The ride has been tough. I thought North Carolina was tough the first two days but this has been a lot harder. It got easier after the first two days due to us knowing what to expect. The cabin we are staying at is nice, it’s got AC, and it has a pretty decent size TV. Which brings me to my next segment, movies we watched because we needed to stay up until 9 pm at least.

While browsing the tv channels, I stumbled upon a lesser known film, Avengers - Infinity War. We had it on and would break to prepare for the next day on the commercials. This led straight into Avengers - Endgame. Unfortunately it was getting late (around 9) and we had to call it a night. Luckily, my dad brought an unused Apple TV that I plugged in and set up. I own the film, so we picked up right were we left off the next day and finished the critically acclaimed movie that ended a 20 movie Saga. Our typical move snack was a beer and some salty snacks. A quick note; below is our beer selection that we stocked up on before we left and did a pretty good job cleaning it out. We had 4 of each kind, and the three on the left are empty and used just for this photo.

On the second to last day, having finished up the incredible, emotional ending that is Avengers Endgame, we decided on a more relaxed comedic film, Thor Ragnorak. One of my favorite films in the Marvel series, and by far the best Thor film. I Highly recommend it. Right now as I’m writing this, its 7pm and I’m thinking of the last film to end our stay at the cabin. I’m feeling like Captain America - The Winter Soldier as it is my all time favorite film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and it works so well as a stand alone film.

Thats all I have, so I hope you enjoyed reading. We have one more day of hills… but I don’t want to write about them or really think about them until I have to go up them. Thanks for reading.

BRAT Day 4 - Potato Farm

Best day of the ride so far. 55 miles with slightly easier rolling hills and only one significant descent and incline. We were done riding by 1:00 today.

There was no potato farm. We just rode a good portion of the ride along Potato Farm Road. Nothing there other than some spotty development as it’s on the edge of Crossville, TN.

It was a fairly quick ride to the first sag stop and then another fairly quick ride to the second stop. This second stop was at a microbrewery operating in what almost looked like the garage of a residential home. Myself and Matt had nothing there to drink as we were more concerned with the descent and climb coming up in a few miles. Gregg was fearless and had what he said was an excellent pint of beer.

On the way to the third sag stop, after the big descent and climb, we learned that the magic liquid goo inside Gregg’s tubeless tires cannot seal a hole as big as a thumb tack. So he got a little ride by another ranger to the next sag stop while me and Matt rode there. Gregg has probably owned his only and last pair of tubeless tires.

We were rewarded at the sag stop with ice cream from a bakery/ice cream shop right at the stop. After a long rest, we got back on the road for the eleven miles back home. A good riding day. Tomorrow’s route will be a little shorter and a little hillier. There’s also a good chance for a little rain. We hope to be out and back before that hits.

BRAT Day 3 - Watts Bar Lake

No walking today! Fantastic!

Today was a 63 mile ride. We got out a little earlier today. It was a longer ride and we wanted to hit all the sag stops a little earlier and get the majority of the ride done before the temperature got into the eighties. The rides always starts in the Cumberland Mountain State Park. As we head out, we ride over a stone bridge with the view below. There was a forecast of fog this morning but luckily it stayed away from the route and hung around the mountain valleys.

We did not see any steep inclines or descents today, but still had a lot of rolling hills. A lot. You can see the profile below - one longer descent and then an incline that was around 2 miles, but only around a 6-7% grade. The low area of the profile was along Watts Bar Lake. As we eventually left the lake, we found ourselves on very rural roads - two lane roads in the mountains with nothing much around. Surprisingly, this was an evacuation route should anything bad happen at the nuclear power plant 5 miles away. Seemed odd.

We had no major gear or bike problems today. However, Gregg’s front tire did spring a leak… twice. His wheels are tubeless tires that contain, along with air, some kind of high tech liquid that seals leaks when they happen. The first time it sprayed the liquid all over everything while he was riding before it finally sealed the leak. Then second time we were stopped and talking when a hissing started from his tire. We could see the pinhole. He just rotated his tire so the pinhole was at the bottom. Done. Very cool. A stop at the mechanic to make sure all was good followed at the next sag stop.

In three days, the ride mechanic helped all three of us with gear problems. He looks happy doesn’t he? He’s a lawyer who apparently enjoys this more than his profession. There wasn’t a bike question we couldn’t ask ask him for which he didn’t have a thoughtful answer. In fact, his answers all had the hint of a lawyer’s response.

Tomorrow is a 55 mile ride called Potato Farm. We’ll see if we pass or stop at a potato farm. We hope it’s a little less hilly. It looks like it may be. We are three days in and this has so far been the most difficult organized ride. We laugh as we talk about how we have been constantly fighting hills one after another every day. No flat roads here, yet.

BRAT Day 2 - Ozone

We have driven or rode our bicycles by a sign for this location the last two days. Today our route took us by the location. We had to get a picture.

While we planned on a 58 mile ride today. It was a little shorter. We’ll get to that in a little bit. Again it was a beautiful day with beautiful rolling hills. There was only one true significant climb similar to yesterday, but the rolling hills were surprisingly steep.. With 58 miles, we had 3 sag stops. The last one was at a golf course. We took some extra time and had a burger before the last 12 miles - lunch.

The incline around 30 miles in was almost as steep as yesterday’s hill, but much longer. We ended up walking part of it again. None of us expected to be walking our bikes on the rides at all and now we have two days in a row. And we walked even more than we expected today for another reason.

On the downhill side of the only big incline, we had a decent as steeper as the incline as you can see. The road was not the best so a lot of braking was needed. Matt blew out both his rear inner tube and his tire while descending 25 mph. Luckily it was on a straight section of the decent so there was no crash or spill. I was probably 1000 yards ahead of him an heard the tire burst with a loud pop almost like a gin shot. I stopped immediately and turned around. We were about 4 miles from the sag stop so a lot more walking ensued until a call ahead brought a new tire to us 30-40 minutes later.

Little did I know that all the walking tore up one of my shoe cleats. Once we had Matt’s tire fixed and got back on the road, I realized one of my shoe cleats would not click into the pedal. It was mostly shredded. We limped to the SAG stop a few miles away and saw that the mechanic had already left for the next sag stop down the ride. So we hitched a ride from one of the rangers to the next step. This cut about 12 miles off of our total ride. Gregg gutted it out and decided to ride the 12 miles. He met us at the next sag. We had our burgers, commiserated over the day, and headed home.

Tomorrow is a 66 mile ride with…….more hills.

BRAT Day 1 - Pikeville

Time for another cross-state bicycle ride. This year we are riding the BRAT. This ride is organized and management completely by the TN State Parks organization. We will have numerous state park rangers with us throughout the six days supporting the routes. Myself, Matt, and Gregg are riding the full six days. Gregg worked with me years ago in Atlanta. He also rode the North Carolina Mountains to Coast with us a few years ago. Gregg and I also rode the BRAG (Bicycle Ride Across Georgia) back in 2009. While called the Bicycle Ride Across Tennesse, due to COVID, they decided to manage the ride out of one base camp the entire ride with different routes starting and ending at the base camp.

A beautiful day to kick of 6 days off riding in Tennessee. Temperatures started in the mid-50’s and were in the high 70’s by the ride’s end. Today’s ride was 48 miles. Not a bad distance for the first day and the rolling hills were relatively easy and impressively scenic. We did however run into a few inclines that were frankly the steepest climbs I have even seen on my bike - two and a half miles averaging a 14% grade. We ended up walking a 16% grade section of the incline - first time I’ve done that in over 20 years. I like to think of myself at a pretty good climber. I did pass two other riders while walking my bike! Here’s the elevation profile for the day.

We finished around 1:00 and took it easy the rest of the day preparing for a longer ride of 58 miles tomorrow. We see another climb tomorrow similar to the one today, perhaps not as steep an incline. We’ll see.