Today we climbed Skyline Drive on our first day of the trip to the Tour de Georgia. The ride was really nice and since it was the middle of the week and the weather wasn't great, the road was very quiet. The entrance to the park is off a busy road. Normally we should have parked in town and rode up to the gate, but since we didn't know that, we ended up driving there. Because it was so quiet, the ranger let us pay to enter and then park just beyond the gate. While this isn't normally allowed, it was quite nice of her to let us do that today. It was great to ride on roads where there was no frost heave damage. About the time we got near the second peak, we say a whole bunch of deer. We had a long way to go or I'd have stopped and took a picture. Funny, they didn't seem to notice or care that we were riding by. I commented to Tom that my nephew Hunter would have loved to see these deer. Here are some pictures and brief comments:
We didn't take any time for pictures on the climb, but it must be beautiful on a nice spring or summer day. It was windy and cool but really didn't get bad until the last part. During the last few miles when we were over 3000 feet, the temperature plunged and the winds really kicked up.The temperature was 37 degrees at the top of Hogback Mountain and there were severe winds at the summit and here at Hogback Overlook. Needless to say we snapped a few pictures and hurried to get back down.
Tom at the summit …note Tri Shorts! Once again, the Crew training comes into play ....
As we got closer to the car, the weather improved a bit and while still very cold, we stopped briefly for a few pictures. Here is a view of the road near the first summit.
It seemed like the small patches of sunlight were just teasing us off in the distance. Here is a view into the valley … the suns rays were spectacular.. just not on us!
Doug at the summit.. Note thin blood and winter dress!!! Obviously not a Crew guy, a little smarter to dress warmer, but still not too bright for being there!My feet were frozen at this point and I want please about having to ride 20 miles in a stiff wind to get to the car. Luckily most of the ride was downhill. There was one spot were we were descending pretty fast, and we were hit by two gusts of wind the literally stood me up on the bike and I thought I was going to stop in my tracks.
