As the name suggests, it is a brutal event, with a total ascent over 7,000 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here's the elevation profile of the ride:
You'll also notice that the biggest climbs are mostly at the end of the ride, which makes for an extra challenge. Somehow I managed convince my friend Chris to do the entire ride with me, and we started in West Jefferson, NC at 8 am.
It was easy going for the first 8 miles or so, and even the first climb didn't seem so bad. Then we hit our first really major climb around Mile 15. This climb sent us up, up, up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we would be riding for the next 20 miles. We huffed and puffed our way up this climb and agreed to stop when we reached the summit, just past Mile 17. I wanted to remember to keep up with my chosen nutrition source -- Clif Bars chased with Gatorade Endurance, so my plan was to stop every 15 miles or so to make sure I ate some solid food. I also took a selfie with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background.
It was a slightly hazy day, about 70 degrees, which is quite cool for North Carolina in August. The temps were forecast to rise only to about 79, with a 40 percent chance of rain. Just about as perfect as you can get this time of year! The next section of the Blue Ridge Parkway was glorious, with long, fast downhills and relatively short climbs. Traffic was much lighter than we expected as well. Since we were self-supported, I had searched the route to make sure we could stop to buy supplies along the way -- especially WATER! The first stop was planned for Mile 37, but it was about a mile off our course, so when we spotted a store right on the Parkway at Mile 25, we took the opportunity to stop there instead. I knew there was another store at Mile 45, and if we filled up here we could easily make it to Mile 45 without an extra side trip.
That's Chris's bike on the left, with my ride behind. After our stop, we continued along the Parkway for another 10 miles or so, with stunning views on both sides. We had some fantastic descents and enjoyed very light traffic, so it was a bit of a disappointment when we had to leave the Parkway and return to the Real World with its tractor trailers and annoying dudes in pickup trucks. When we arrived at the gas station / store at Mile 45, we were ready for a break!
I bought a gallon of water and a Kit Kat bar, and Chris and I filled our bottles, with only maybe a liter to spare in the jug. We chatted with a local who asked where we were going, and when we explained the route he said "you are better men than I am!"
"We haven't done it yet," Chris noted in response!
"You'll make it," he called to us as we rode off.
If you look at the elevation profile, you'll see that there are several "small" climbs of 2-300 feet in the section from Mile 40 to Mile 70, and while none of these took too much effort, added together they took a significant toll. At Mile 70 we would arrive in the town of Jefferson, very near our starting point in West Jefferson. But of course we couldn't just stop -- we needed to continue for an additional 32 miles! That said, I had found a coffee shop online in Jefferson and was looking forward to an iced coffee to propel me on to the finish of the ride. It was just a couple blocks off the official route, so we headed down the main road in town to find it. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the shop had closed down! We had to settle for the local drug store, where we bought more water and some cheese and peanut butter crackers. The crackers really hit the spot, and soon we were ready to make our final push to the finish.
After a somewhat-annoying busy road out of Jefferson, we finally turned onto a less-traveled road and were able to ride comfortably and enjoy the local scenery. This fellow (and his tractor) have probably seen better days, though!
Gradually the grade increased and we headed up the biggest climb of the ride. The road got steeper and steeper, and then it started to rain! Somewhere around here the Garmin route that I had downloaded from the Blue Ridge Brutal site started to fail me, so we reverted to Plan B, which was a route loaded onto Chris's phone using the Ride With GPS app. The phone would tell us when to turn, and it worked pretty well as long as it wasn't too noisy when you needed to hear the directions! As we headed up the hill, Chris started to have mechanical issues with his bike. His derailleur would skip when he was in the lowest gear -- just in time for the steepest gradient of the course. My Garmin has a "gradient" field and I could see we were hitting 14 and 15 percent. I couldn't imagine trying to ride that hill in second gear -- I was getting out of the saddle in my granny gear! Finally I made it to the top as the rain began to pour harder. Chris arrived a couple minutes after me, having had to walk the steepest section of the hill.
We took a moment to refuel, then began the descent as the rain really started coming down hard. My bike has rim brakes, so I feathered them often to try to dry them off. If this hill was dry, we probably would have hit 40+ MPH on it, but in these conditions we didn't feel comfortable going much faster than 20. The rain was coming down so hard that it smacked painfully on my cheeks. With the noise of the bikes, we couldn't hear Chris's phone directions, so we began to worry that we might miss a turn. Then I remembered my third backup route-finding plan, a printed cue-sheet with mileage. My Garmin was still accurately recording mileage even though the route-finding was off, so we stopped and figured out where our next turn was on the cue sheet. Here's what the sheet looked like after the ride -- it was soaked even through a ziploc bag! This is a reminder for everyone to make sure you laser-print a cue sheet. An inkjet printout would have been completely illegible if it had gotten this wet!
The rain continued, harder and harder, as we headed up yet another huge hill. We rode through yellow patches of runoff from gravel driveways, through puddles, rain completely soaking us. At one point it was raining so hard that we were riding up a river, an inch or more of water flowing down the road at us. I tried to imagine that I was riding faster by focusing on my speed compared to the water rather than the pavement. Chris saw it the opposite way, as if the river was pushing him backwards instead of forwards. Finally we crested this hill and headed down again. Only one more big hill and then we would be finished!
At Mile 88 we began the final major climb, 750 feet of vertical. The rain had subsided a bit but we were still getting drenched. Fortunately it wasn't quite as steep as we had feared, and two miles later we were at the summit. From here it was rolling-to-downhill, all the way to the finish. We turned onto a familiar road -- the same road we had started on! Only a mile to go! Unfortunately it was an uphill mile, but knowing we were nearly done fueled us, and finally we turned into the parking lot where the car was waiting.
I was pleased to see I had remembered to pack some icewater to drink at the finish. I swilled down a liter in just a minute or two. Here's the obligatory photo at the finish, looking somewhat worse for the wear:
30 minutes later we were enjoying burgers and beer at a local brewery! Having finished my first century in over 30 years, I felt like they were well-earned!
