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The Skyway Epic was amazing. Epic doesn't even begin to describe it. I had some phone issues to deal with from the rain so I didn't get very many pictures, but I kept on thinking over and over probably 100+ different pics I wanted to take to remember a particular spot or moment. Immediately after thinking this, I would tell myself I'll just make a mental note and blog about it later. I have a pretty good memory, but I'm pretty sure that I had several out-of-memory errors based on the sheer number of things.

The wildlife - one rabbit, one deer, one wildcat (maybe a bobcat, the small wild ones), several turkeys, several birds including one very LOUD one at the top of a long climb, and no people.

The start - sleeping in the car ahead of the start after seeing my kids play in the school drama - the mayor (Joisah) and the sheep (Analise). The official nonchalant rollout happened at 3:20AM after we had all gathered by the picnic bench area that has so many memories now from the last 7 years of the race. You know a race is epic when it's measured by wall clock time instead of an official race stopwatch.

The course - the opening singletrack rode well despite the rain. The dams were extremely wet, not with mud but with so much water spraying up. The spillway crossing on wiregrass was flowing, but rideable. I kept my boot leg up in the air to keep it from getting wet. Also, the gallon bag I had taped around it was pretty water proof and stayed on all the way until I hit the pavement at the base of the Cheaha climb 90 miles into the race. This kept the infection risk lower on my foot. I took off the bag, which had developed a few small holes on the bottom, but was still intact and waterproof on the top. I used it later in the race when I got to the next trail section (yellow trail at the horse camp).

The horse trails rode really well. Micro-navigation is one of the things I love about mountain biking, probably because you never or rarely have to do it road biking. Micro-navigation is the fancy made-up word I use for "picking a line". There are many types of places and reasons you have to micro-navigate on this course. The singletrack sections require you to pick good lines so that you can take the corners fast and avoid the bigger roots and sharp rocks. The doubletrack and gravel road descents require a different form of micronavigation based on the terrain, which is very steep. Because the race is so difficult and long, you don't want to use your brakes AT ALL on any of the descents. You want as much speed as possible to get up the next steep hill, which almost always comes instantly after you cross the bridge or creek at the bottom of the hill. This means picking the right lines so that you are on the banked inside section of the gravel turns. You have to weigh the potential washboarding on the inside lines vs the less banking or even off-chamber on the outside part of the lines. And you have to be able to read and make the decision as you approach the turn with typically one 1 or 2 seconds lead time. The straight, steep climbs on the gravel roads require another form of micronavigation, finding the most firm, least gravel surface with the most traction to get up the hill. This boiled down to the following choices: left side off the road, left tire track, dead center, right tire track, or right-side off the road ... or somewhere in between or all of the above or sometimes none of the above on the same hill ... hence the need for micro-navigation! The skyway, itself, is an old scenic road that is now impassable except by people with 4x4 offroad vehicles. In fact, there are clubs of 4x4 trucks that use the skyway to test the limits of their trucks. This means that you have to micronavigate large ruts, mud puddles, huge rocks, small rocks, trees alongside the road. The skyway stays surprisingly mud-free as there is usually one side or section of the road this is on solid rock. The trick is that it's not always the same side so you have to micronavigate to find the right line. Finally, this brings us back to the horse trails. This was a surprising find as you have a lot of singletrack in a remote area of Alabama that I never even knew about. The horse trails rode really well, but introduced one final form of micro-navigation especially with an open wound on my foot - avoiding the horse poop! There wasn't very much of it, but it was just often enough that you didn't forget about it so it was easy to see and avoid.

One of the other highlights was through the horse camp area, and it was not just seeing the tornado damage from a couple weeks ago, but riding literally right through the middle of it. The forest service does an amazing job in Alabama and they had cleared not just the forest service roads, but also most of the trails we were on.

After the horse trail area, we climbed up and over Duggar Mountain and the very light misty rain that had been periodically happening for the past few hours turned into a heavier (but still light) rain straight into a strong wind blowing from the north. With air temps in the mid 30s by this point, it went from being chilly to downright freezing. At this point I knew I would have to abandon the race if I couldn't find warm clothes in Piedmont, 155 miles into the race and only the second place to get food (the first being the Cheaha store at 90 miles in). I found a CVS next to the McDonalds but their clothing selection was very limited. The lady working the check-out counter told me there was a Family Dollar just down the road. I took off to get to the family dollar and found the perfect emergency clothing find - a fleece flannel hoodie on clearance $6.50, fleece sweatpants, thermal socks, and two oven mitts for thermal gloves. I put all this on and as I was leaving the store, the checkout lady said "you may look homeless now, but at least you're warm!" And she was right, I went from being cold to downright hot even though the temps continued to drop all the way to 30 degF at one point. I had to waste a bit of time either taking the clothes off, or putting them back on. But at least I was warm and not going to have to pull out of the race because of hypothermia!!!

I made it all the way to Heflin and refilled water and powerade at the McDonalds. Well, I wanted powerade, but this particular McDs only had tropical punch kool-aide instead. I made a big mistake, though, because I wasn't the least bit sleepy. I didn't get anything caffeinated. Seeing as how this would be the last store that would be open until the end of the race (the Cheaha store would be closed because it was 3 in the morning), this was a big mistake. I got extremely sleepy as I started the long slow climbing on the steep hills on AL-281 leading to Cheaha. I couldn't ride in a straight line and more than once nearly fell off the bike from falling asleep. One time I was fully asleep and only realized it last second because I started to fall which woke me up in time to correct and stay on the bike. The only thing that kept me going was the plan I was working out in my head for sleeping at Cheaha. I had 3 options that I worked up over the nearly two hours it took me to go the 15 miles from the beginning of 281 all the way to Cheaha. The first option was to try to get a room at the Cheaha hotel. I wasn't sure if there was anyone who would be able to rent the room for me. So, the second option was to sneak into the chapel at the top of the mountain. I assume it would be 24 hour, not locked, and maybe have some benches I could sleep on. But that chapel is at the very top of the mountain instead of 300 feet lower where the store and hotel are located. The last option was to lay down on the cement next to the ice storage container at the store or the vending machine/ice maker at the hotel. I figured it would have heat coming from the equipment that would keep me warm as I just slept for a few minutes. Fortunately/unfortunately the first option worked out as I was able to rent a room - but it cost $90 and it took forever (nearly 20 minutes) for the lady to figure out how to use the system to find out if there was a room available and how to rent it to me as she had only done it once before. Also, if I had just slept on the floor somewhere it probably only would have been 15-30 minutes. Instead, I slept for an hour and a half at the hotel. This made for a much more enjoyable race, but it also meant that my final time was at least an hour slower than it would have been otherwise. Of course, I might have been sleeping involuntarily on the side of the road if I hadn't stopped at all!

I'm really glad, in retrospect, that I stopped because the next morning was cold but stunningly beautiful. If I had continued on, I would have finished nearly the most beautiful parts of the race in the dark. Instead, I got to see all the skyway has to offer in perfect morning sunshine taking me all the way to the finish. Brent and Jacquelyn have done an amazing job with this race year-after-year. Huge thanks!!! I am going to type this up on my blog with maps and data, but I wanted to go ahead and share my finish line photo with all my facebook friends! Also, a huge shout-out and thanks to my beautiful wife Kristine who had a crazy busy weekend with the kids to manage on her own on her birthday! Even though the race covered the entire 24 hours of her birthday, I was able to call her and talk to her numerous times and I owe her a birthday month now!!!

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Brian Toone

2018/04/07 Sylacauga, AL skyway epic 280 first place!

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