Georgia Neurosurgical Institute Team Training Camp

This past weekend my Georgia Neurosurgical cycling team had its annual training camp.  Epic riding, good eats, and a great time with my teammates - Bill, Cal, Cody, Jeff, Robert, Tina, Tony, Tyler, and Van (we missed you, Robyn!) - what a bright spot in the bleakness of winter!

Weather

Back in September my team started planning our training camp.  We picked the last weekend in January as the date and Chattanooga as the destination, a combination that was somewhat a roll of the dice weather-wise.  We won!  The weather was great, particularly for midwinter.  Temperatures ranged from the 40s to 60s during ride time both days.  On Saturday the sun shone in a deep blue sky.  Sunday was cloudy but still quite pleasant for riding.

The Crash Pad

Chattanooga has become a happening destination for outdoor recreation.  It draws hikers, rock climbers, and even triathletes with its inaugural hosting of an Ironman last year.  We cyclists like the challenge of the climbs surrounding town.  Chattanooga has built on these natural amenities by revitalizing its downtown with great restaurants, arts, and an overall energized vibe.  Right after my team decided to go to Chattanooga, my friend Jimmy Deane posted on Facebook about a hostel called The Crash Pad.  It turned out to be the perfect place to stay for training camp: inexpensive, basic, and hip.

The Crash Pad has mostly bunk beds plus a few private rooms.  The bunks are quite comfortable, featuring blackout curtains, a shelf with outlets, a light, a fan, and a lockable storage area underneath.  Linens are provided.

Each floor has a men’s and women’s restroom.  The restroom is very clean and has two stalls and two showers.  Towels and washcloths are provided, but you do need your own soap.  I forgot to bring some, but I was able to buy a bar of fancy, good smelling, handmade soap for $1 from the front desk.

Do-it-yourself breakfast is included in the price.  A staff member sets out locally produced eggs, artisan breads, and various spreads.  The fully stocked kitchen is also available for cooking any time of day.  The kitchen counter has these cool cycling "fossils":

Other hostel amenities include free Wi-Fi and computer access, free parking, and an outdoor pavilion area with a gas grill and fire pit.  They even have $2 bottles of (good, i.e., craft) beer available in a big refrigerator.  Conveniently, you get a bottle opener on your keyring, along with a fob to access the building and sleeping quarters and a key to your bunk storage area.

The Crash Pad is located in the Southside neighborhood.  This used to be a very run-down part of town.  You’d never know it now with all of the activity, energy, and refurbished buildings like The Flying Squirrel bar.  The Flying Squirrel is right next door to The Crash Pad and has the same owners.

We didn’t go to The Flying Squirrel this past weekend, but Robert visited it with some college fraternity brothers last summer.  He said it really gets going about 10:00 PM (when we serious cyclists are going to bed).  I suspect that some of our hostel mates spent time at The Flying Squirrel.  A young woman with blue hair talked with Ginny (Tyler’s wife) on Saturday morning after the team left for our ride.  Blue Hair had stumbled in around 4:00 AM.  We tried to be considerate of others in the hostel, but a certain amount of noise is inevitable in the common bunk areas.  Apparently, the cleats on our cycling shoes woke her up as we left the building around 10:00 AM.  Blue Hair asked Ginny if the cyclists were going tap dancing.

The Rides

Of course, the rides are the focal point of training camp.  Having spent a month in Chattanooga last summer, Jeff, a.k.a. Stony, planned our routes.  They were challenging, to say the least.  But that’s what training is for!  I had a great time.

Although Stony, Van, and Cody were able to get to Chattanooga early enough to ride on Friday, the first chance that all of us had to ride together was on Saturday.  The main route that day was 101 miles, but several people planned shorter options.

Stony, Tyler, and Robert - ready to ride!

Georgia Neuro on the road

We headed north toward the Cumberland Plateau.  The first major climb of the day was along Suck Creek.  It lasted about five miles and had about a 7% grade.  That’s too steep to suck wheel, but I definitely was sucking wind.  I hung with the front guys until about the last mile up the hill, when Stony attacked.  This guy is a mo-chine!  Everyone regrouped at the bottom of the descent.

At about 38 miles in, we had a store stop in Dunlap (store stop photos courtesy of Robert):

The Stony Grinder: the pain is real

Bill and Cal

Me, Tony, and Tina

Cody, Van, and Bill

After the store stop, Tyler took a shortcut back to The Crash Pad.  He wanted to spend some time with his family, and he also volunteered to be our chef for Saturday night.  Soon thereafter, Bill, Tina, and Tony also headed back.  Cal, Cody, Jeff, Robert, Van, and I forged on.

About 53 miles in, we had our second big climb of the day over Pitts Gap.  It was about three miles long and had grades as steep as 17%.  I climbed well and was actually the third to the top!

Riding a century is hard enough.  Riding with the big dogs like Stony is even harder.  Throw in a couple of monumental climbs like Suck Creek and Pitts Gap, and that’s about all I’ve got.  I didn’t doubt that I would make it back, but it got harder and harder for me to keep up with the group.  Stony suggested a three-mile addition to the route, an out-and-back to a hang gliding area that has a water source.  I opted out of the addition, figuring that I could find water at a fire station or church, if not another store stop.  Robert sweetly accompanied me.  Even with the significant headwind on the return trip, my ride felt much more manageable the rest of the way.  By the way, I’m very glad I didn’t do the extra mileage; later I learned that it included another steep climb to the hang gliding area.

The long descent off of the Cumberland Plateau was welcome relief!  As my elevation decreased, the words of that great 1950s classic “The Great Pretender” played over and over in my mind.  The thing is, I kept singing it to myself as “The Great Descender,” and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what the real title was.  My brain had been pretty well fried in the Stony Grinder.

I woke up at 7:30 on Sunday morning, refreshed from a nine-hour sleep and feeling ready to ride again.  My body was fatigued, however, because I was working hard even on the warm-up as we left downtown Chattanooga.  Actually, everyone but Stony seemed to be feeling the same way, but we hammered anyway.

Sunday’s route headed south into Georgia, near Cloudland Canyon State Park.  One of the guys had told me that there was one climb, but it wasn’t anything like Saturday’s two climbs.  He lied.  Sunday’s climb may have been slightly shorter (about four miles long), but parts of it were stupid steep – approaching 20%!  Looking back, I’m not quite sure how I made it up.  I just ground the pedals and focused on the moment at hand, not thinking about how much farther I had to go.

Because the route was long and skinny, it was easy to shorten it.  Cody, Robert, and I did just that, taking a shortcut after the steep climb and subsequent descent.  We rode about 50 miles instead of the full 75 miles.  That was plenty for me.  Besides, that let Robert and me get home to our dogs sooner!

Good Eats

We kicked off the festivities on Friday night at Alleia, an Italian restaurant within walking distance of The Crash Pad.  Bruschetta, Caesar salad, and gnocchi with kale and chicken sausage gave me lots of good fuel for the coming rides.  In addition, Robert and I splurged on a great bottle of wine – Montepulciano, a variety that we don’t get to have very often.  By the way, I made the restaurant reservation for our group, and I put it under the name Mario Cipollini.  Heh heh.

For Saturday night’s dinner, Tyler got us going with an appetizer of sausage he made himself from wild hog.  It was delicious!  I enjoyed it with a glass of wine as I kicked back around the fire pit with my teammates; I can’t think of a better way to wrap up a good, hard day of riding.

The main meal included pork chops that Tyler cooked on The Crash Pad grill, baked sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes, broccoli, and bread.  I made a salad, too.  We hadn’t specifically planned for dessert, but we got to have some anyway thanks to Tina and Tony, who brought a king cake.  It is Mardi Gras season after all!  Also, we go not just a cake, but a whole party in a box:

I donned the mask and distributed the beads and coins from the box.  Then we decided that Cody, our new team member, should wear the mask as initiation:

King cake season begins with Epiphany on January 6 and ends on Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), the big celebration before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the reflective season of Lent.  The king cake always has a plastic baby or other trinket to represent the baby Jesus.  I got the piece with the baby, which means I have to buy the next king cake:

Yep, there's the baby

What a great weekend – now on to racing season!