2007 Tour of Georgia Trip April 19 2007 Journal

Today we rode a good portion of the Time Trial stage .. all the way from when the climb of lookout mountain started until we reached the finish line. It was neat, we actually rode through the finish line, which is not something you can do in Europe. After finishing the route, we descended down Lookout Mountain towards Chattanooga. This was one of the scariest yet most fun descents I’ve done. We were stuck heading down the steep grade with traffic and had to hug the white line at 20-30 mph. This descent was the one used in yesterday’s stage prior to ending up in Chattanooga. Afterwards Tom decided to reverse the course and climb the hill we descended and then meet me over on the climb for the TT. I continued back to the car and drove it up the mountain. It was much easier than in France as I was only about 25 minutes ahead of the road being closed and still found an excellent spot to watch the race. Tom showed up a few minutes later.

While I was waiting, I saw George Hincapie, Tom Danielson, and Levi Leipheimer climbing the climb on their reconnaissance ride. They were laughing and joking as they rode by. Later when they rode past Tom, he said they were flying pretty fast.

Thanks to some great artwork by Gretchen, we had a great sign to hang on the car to root for Tom Danielson. Turns out that we received all kinds of attention. One guy came over and took a picture and said he was going to post on velo news … well, who believed him. As it turns out, he really did. See the link below and look for the Tommy D vs the World sign picture at the bottom. We also have one of the official press photographers take Tom and my picture in front of the sign and she said she was going to send the picture to Tommy Danielson and he’d get a kick out of it.

We borrowed some chalk form some folks across the way and marked up the road!

Our spot was pretty good, on an inside corner so the riders were cutting close to our car. They literally would be inches from us as they rode past

David Millar

Tyler Hamilton

Gilberto Simoni

Tom running with Tommy Danielson

Tom running with “Big George” Hincapie

Levi Leipheimer showing his Stage winning form

Christian Vandeveld

"Fast" Freddie Rodriguez

After the stage finished, we were able to quickly get off the mountain.. unlike France when you can spend hours waiting.

Along the was we stopped at one of the dams that were constructed as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority Program. There was a very neat railroad running from this dam to one further up stream. What made the railroad interesting was the fact that it ran along a ledge about 100 feet over the water.

We then rove to Helen Georgia where we’re spending the night before seeing the stage to Brasstown Bald.

Big ride for us tomorrow … Uricoli Gap, Hogpen Gap and the finishing climb up Brasstown Bald …. 40+ miles of climbing fun.