V-200 - North High Shoals

Last Saturday it was time for another 200K in the Virtual Brevet Series 2020.  Originally, I planned to ride south to Irwinton and Toomsboro with a lunch stop at Maebob's for fried chicken.  However, my instincts told me they might not be open the day before Easter.  I checked their Facebook page several times late last week but didn't see anything.  Then, I checked one more time when I got up Saturday morning.  Yep, Maebob's would be closed that day.  So, I had to come up with an alternate 200K route pronto.  Plan B turned out to be excellent.

Sometimes I do a roughly 75-mile route to Madison that's really nice.  By adding some roads from a few Audax Atlanta brevets/populaires, I came up with a V-200 route that made a loop to North High Shoals.  I decided to forgo any store stops and rely only on food I carried with me.

Flowers and Folk Art

It was in the 40s when I started!  That was somewhat of a shock because overnight lows have been trending into the 50s and even 60s.  I was kind of bummed to have to get out the winter riding gear yet again, but it was worth it to be comfortable on my ride.  Happily, it got warmer quickly with a high around 70 degrees that afternoon.

The day was beautiful with the pastels of spring: bright, blue sky; fresh, spring green vegetation; and various colors of wildflowers.

Crimson clover and a lovely purple wildflower whose identity I don't know

I made a slight jig-jag as I approached Rutledge, which would have required a control if our virtual brevets had controls - heh heh.  This gave me an extra mile or so to ensure that I rode a full 200K, but more importantly, I wanted to revisit a farm that has all kinds of cool folk art on display.  I think you can tour the farm, but there are a lot of pieces visible right from the road.

First riding lawn mower

Two Unexpected History Lessons

From there I looped into Hard Labor Creek State Park from the west.  Then began the lollipop on the north part of my route.  The other end of the lollipop "stick" and beginning of the "candy" was in Bostwick.  I stopped at a bench in a nice city park and refueled with some peanuts and raisins.

I continued northward, unaware of the two history lessons I was about to learn.  I rode by Mount Perry Missionary Baptist Church.  The hundreds of crosses on unmarked graves caught my attention.

Missionary Baptist churches often are African-American, and so I wondered about all these unnamed souls.  Were they slaves, or are the graves newer?  When I got home, I did some Internet research.  I didn't find any information about the unmarked graves, but it turns out that this church and cemetery have great historical significance.  In 1946 four African-Americans were lynched near Moore's Ford Bridge between Monroe and Watkinsville: George W. and Mae Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom (two married couples; additionally, George Dorsey and Dorothy Malcom were siblings).  The KKK is suspected of the lynchings.  Both Dorseys and Dorothy Malcom were given funerals and were buried at Mount Perry Missionary Baptist Church.  George Dorsey was a WWII veteran yet was treated as less than human upon his return.  The lynchings received national attention.  A friend sent me links from Find a Grave that gives more information about this brutal history:

George W. Dorsey

Dorothy Dorsey Malcom

Amazingly, an article about this case was published in Time magazine only two weeks ago, which another friend told me about.  A federal appeals court ruled that the grand jury records from this case cannot be released.  Unbelievable.

Grand Jury Records From 1946 Georgia Lynching Case Can't Be Released, Appeals Court Rules

"The past is never dead. It's not even past.” - William Faulkner

The northernmost point of my route was the town of North High Shoals.  I rode south from there, the opposite direction from the way I usually ride this road on Audax Atlanta brevets.  North High Shoals lies on the Apalachee River.  As I crossed the river, I noticed something unusual: a county line sign on each side of the bridge - Morgan County to the east and Walton County to the west.  I was leaving Oconee County, and so that means all three counties converge at that crossing on the Apalachee River.  Because I was going downhill pretty fast, I chose not to turn around and go back for a picture.  However, I mentioned this curiosity to Robert when I got home.  As a land surveyor, he knows some fascinating history about North High Shoals and the Apalachee River.  This is the northern point of the territory that the Creek nation ceded to the U.S. in 1805.  This territory was distributed to U.S. citizens via a land lottery a few years later and was the first land lottery in the world.  According to the treaty, the boundary begins at "the high shoals of Apalacha" (the Apalachee River), continues southwesterly in a straight line to what is today the mouth of the Alcovy River (not too far north of where I live), and encompasses all the area between the Ocmulgee River and Oconee River to their convergence at the Altamaha River.  Here are a sketch from Robert showing the line from North High Shoals (blue circle) to the Alcovy River (green circle) and a map showing the Ocmulgee/Oconee/Altamaha watershed.

The watersheds of the Ocmulgee River (to the west), the Oconee River (to the east), and the Altamaha River, into which the other two flow.  The Altamaha flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

Although I'd never consider myself a true history buff, I do like learning Georgia history, particularly about places right around me.  It gives me even more connection to my home.

The Rest of the Ride

As I came back into Bostwick,  I stopped for a few photos.

Old cotton seed house

Cotton gin building.  The gin is still used when cotton is harvested in the fall.

I couldn't help but think of how cotton originally was farmed on the backs of enslaved people, the ancestors of people like George W. and Mae Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom.  I love the South, but I'm a Bitter Southerner.

I stopped at the park in downtown Rutledge to eat my hard boiled eggs and apple.  If I had thought about it, I might have gotten a sandwich from The Caboose.  Maybe I'll do that if I ride another V-200 through Rutledge.

From there, I rode eastward on Dixie Highway toward Madison.  This is a favorite road of local cyclists.  I've always thought it would make a great time trial course.  Speaking of which, I was tickled by this sign:

Honest, Officer!  I was only going 15 mph!

I felt slightly deflated by my low average speed, but there were logical reasons why I wasn't very fast.  I didn't get to draft off of anyone the whole time, and there was significant headwind on some portions.  Also, my Trek with Yogi Bear picnic basket mounted on the back is ideal for these virtual brevets, but it's not the speediest cycling setup.  However, I was well within my allotted V-200 time limit.  Most importantly, my main goal was to have fun, which I definitely achieved.  Still it's sometimes hard to turn off being competitive.

I had carried two large bottles of Gatorade with me but needed more fluids toward the end of my ride.  I knew just the place to stop for water: the checking station at the B. F. Grant Wildlife Management Area.  Robert and I have used this as a stop on the BBQ Bass ride several times.  There's an outdoor spigot and a comfortable spot to rest.

That was just the boost I needed to get me to the end.  I got home a little more than an hour later.

Stay tuned for the V-200 to Maebob's...