I had been looking forward to this race since my DNF four weeks ago in January. After an early dinner and a good, if fitful night’s sleep, Jonathan and I were geared up by 7:30am and headed to the “Snake Pit” at the Trade Center. We got signed in, and planned on sitting in the warm car until the shuttles started to load. After loading our bikes onto the trailers, we returned to the car to find it locked. With the keys inside. Along with our water bottles, helmets, and camelbaks.

Fearing a repeat of January’s RV hydraulics debacle that put us on the race course almost an hour after most riders had started, I went into quiet panic mode. Luckily, 30 minutes later we had the car unlocked (thanks to the towing company owned by the father of one of the race volunteers) and were seated in one of the shuttles to the race start. Panic mode was quickly replaced by pre-race jitters.

In years past, the shuttle to the race start has been provided by old, used up school buses driven by crazed blue-hairs with no reason left to live. After we signed up for this year’s race, Fred told us about a past year when the combined weight of 50 adults (as opposed to 50 4th graders) overwhelmed the brakes of one of the shuttle buses as they were driving down a mountain road. The driver was passing cars in the oncoming lane on a curvy, poorly paved road, all the while cackling madly. This year the buses have been replaced by more modern transportation and slightly less deranged drivers.

Since Snake Creek Gap is a time trial event, everyone started individually with around a 30 second gap between riders. You ride up to the line, a race official counts you down, and you are off. I left around 9:30am. I settled into an easy pace and let Jonathan try to chase a group of money class riders who caught up after starting just behind us. Two miles later I reached “Dry Creek”, which was anything but. The water was upper thigh deep and moving swiftly. Jonathan was waiting at the banks of the creek because he wanted to see my reaction to this first obstacle. With no other options, we shouldered our bikes, slogged through it, and quickly got underway; hoping that movement would keep us warmer than stopping to change into dry socks.

If the high creek wasn’t an obvious indicator of the rain that North Georgia had received in the past week, the mud was. Soon after beginning the first climb, I started to get chainsuck every few minutes. Every time the trail would pitch up, I would hear the chain threaten to bind against the chainstay. I quickly lost Jonathan, and settled into a rhythm of climb, stop, swear, walk. The downhills posed no problem, and the trail offered a surprising level of traction in the mud, so I tried to regain a little time whenever the trail pointed down.

By around 12:30 I crossed the road and entered the parking lot of the halfway point. I was still feeling good, but knew that I had 17 more long miles to go. I stayed at the aid station just long enough to mix another bottle of Hammer Perpetuem, and headed back onto the trail. There were several people with damaged bikes who were forced to bail out by this point. Between missing derailleurs, broken chains, flat tires, and used up brake pads, 27 of the 108 riders who started the 34 mile route weren’t able to finish.

The trail from the 17 mile Aid Station immediately pitches up into a long climb to the top of the ridge. Just like before, my chain would suck into the chainstay every time I applied additional torque. If I listened closely enough, I could pick up the warning sounds and backpedal quickly to clear the chain before my bike stopped cold. Even with this setback, the top of the ridge came faster than I remembered it from the January race.

At the bottom of a long downhill, I decided to finally change into a pair of dry socks. Another rider rolled to a stop on the trail next to me and spoke into a radio “Last rider on the 34 down here near the creek before the fire road Sag”. He meant me. We rode to the base of the fire road climb, where chainsuck stopped my bike right in the middle of a creek crossing. Dry socks now wet.

The fire road climb to the last aid station was muddy and longer than I remembered from January. Trace (my new riding buddy) and I sprayed our chains down with chain lube again to try to free up some of the grime that was contributing to my chainsuck problem. It was just before 3pm at this point, but there were only 8 miles to go, and only 6 miles left before the pavement descent back to the start.

It’s a bit misleading to say “6 miles left” as if it is a short distance. Anyone who has completed this ride can attest that this particular 6 miles is the hardest part of the entire 34 miles, and likely the hardest part of the entire 100+ mile Pinhoti Trail in Georgia. Almost immediately after turning from the aid station back onto singletrack, the rock gardens start. And don’t stop.

“I don’t have any strength left to finesse my way through this. ” I said to Trace, who responded “There’s no finessing this stuff, you just have to power through it. Momentum is your friend.” Good advice, but momentum was getting harder and harder to maintain.

The additional torque required to clean these rock gardens, in addition to the 30 odd miles I had already ridden that day was quickly taking it’s toll. Every time I would shift my weight, or apply power to ride through a pile of volleyball sized rocks, my quads would threaten to cramp. Many of the rocky sections were too technical for the level of fatigue I was experiencing, but dismounting didn’t make things any easier. Each dismount meant walking through the cramping while pushing a 25 lb bike. After pushing my bike up an incredibly steep section that locals refer to as “The Wall” (maxing out at 34% grade), Trace said “I have good news and bad news. Good news is we’re done climbing. Bad news is the most technical section is between here and the radio towers”.

Any endurance athlete can relate to the “dark place” that you sometimes find yourself in during an event. It is that point where the body or mind may each be willing (protesting, but willing), but the combination of physical fatigue and mental exhaustion starts to become overwhelming. In this last 6 miles, I spent a lot of time in that dark place, and it was no additional comfort to hear Trace’s GPS beep every time he stopped to let me rest. The last thing I needed was a reminder of how slow I was moving from a local who rides this trail regularly.

Even with my slow progress we continued to press forward. Ride for a bit on a smooth section, dismount when I would fail to muster support from “friend momentum” to carry me through. Eventually the radio towers came into view at the top of the last rise. The trail smoothed out, and I could hear the generators at the base of the towers humming as we rode out of the forest onto a gravel road.

With all of the fatigue and cramping replaced by elation that I had actually finished this race, we rocketed down the gravel road to the trailhead. Once back on pavement I tucked in tight and held on for the 40 mph descent down the mountain to the Trade Center. Even though the parking lot was mostly empty I sprinted for the finish line and crossed it under power, 6 hours and 32 minutes after I started.

Jonathan, who finished the race in 6 hrs, 14 minutes adds this comment:

I was absolutely miserable for 30 of the 34 miles with feet frozen and soaked. Soon the numbness from toes and feet started to creep into my legs turning them into ice cycles attached to ice cubes. There was no amount of miles, spinning, cranking or hard peddling to counter the cold and keep my legs from this incurable cold exhaustion. There was no strength left in my legs. The wet cold simply zapped them into worthless scrap. My new TiMax functioned flawlessly and the race was no match for it. This race was a test of mind over matter. Not fun, enjoyable or fondly remembered. Although, we will be back in March…

- Jonathan

More information about the Pinhoti Trail system, the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial series, and this year’s results can be found at the Northwest Georgia SORBA (Southern Offroad Bicycle Association) website at http://www.nwgasorba.org/the_snake.html