Most of the riders were my regular rando buddies. A group of eight of us rode together the whole time: Andrew, Arlinda, Brandon, Graham, Jeff, Julie, Scott, and me.
Brian, the route designer, made some significant revisions from last year. We also rode this brevet about a month earlier this year, before North Georgia is crawling with leaf peepers and pumpkin seekers. For these two reasons, traffic was much less of a concern this year than it was last year.
At one of the convenience store controls, I saw a cool relic for us Atlanta natives:
The route took us just north of Dahlonega into the heart of Georgia wine country. I had started with strawberry flavored Skratch Labs in my water bottles. At the first convenience store I bought lemonade flavored Powerade, and at the second convenience store I bought fruit punch flavored Powerade. Each time I had a little left from the previous flavor. If I had stopped for some wine at one of the wineries, I could have added it to the brew in my water bottles and made brevet hunch punch.
My riding companions had on some stylin' cycling duds:
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| Andrew's most excellent blue-footed booby socks. All he needs now is some blue cycling shoes. |
The last control before the end was an open one near Big Canoe, a swanky development in Pickens County. We opted for the nice IGA grocery store. It had a couple of the old-fashioned kiddie rides outside. Because I hadn't had enough riding that day, I put a quarter into one of them:
The horse gave me a surprisingly long ride, definitely worth 25 cents. It also played a tinny, electronic version of The William Tell Overture. My father always says that you're not truly cultured unless you can listen to The William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger. I ain't cultured.
The Amicalola Foothills Ramble was a great reminder that cycling is all about having fun riding bikes with your friends.
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