Morning Ride

Groceries

Nice mix gravel and pavement

Samford short

Grocery walk

The heat was almost unbearable for a good chunk of the day on Days 1, 2, and 3 on my trip back from Viriginia. I was pretty exhausted, but I was stopping enough to cool off in gas stations and get more ice that I wasn't in a clearly no-success state from the start. This was the real problem - I was soooo much slower than anticipated that I couldn't stick to my scheduled night-time ITT. The thought of having to start out the race in the middle of the day was daunting enough that I was either going to have to spend the entire next day somewhere in Clayton (after arriving about 9pm) and start that next night or just go for it middle of the day next morning after doing laundry at the laundromat. The real problem with the day-time option though is that doing so means that every single store/refuel point will be closed until Mulberry Gap (except maybe Cherry Log because I always hit that place middle of the night - so this would be opposite schedule which means maybe things would have been open there, but it was risky enough that I felt like I was going to have to take more than 24 hours worth of food (definitely was going to have to filter ton of water, so no additional problem there - but the thought of loading up and carrying 4000+ calories with me from the start was so unappealing that as I was waiting for my laundry to be done, I decided it just wasn't going to happen ... so instead of 356 rugged miles just to get to the Alabama border, I opted for 278 "easy" miles to get all the way home. I put "easy" in quotes because ain't nothing easy in bikepacking. 

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Brian Toone

Sadly, TGA instead of TNGA

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Morning Ride

Groceries

Nice mix gravel and pavement

Samford short

Grocery walk

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