Announcement | Schedule | Ride Descriptions | 2004 | 2003
This year the Fat Burner rides will be on Tuesdays again, beginning in April. The rides are all around 100 miles, except Madison County and Cherokee. Actually, they only feel like 100 miles; all have about 8000 ft of climbing. Thanks to Ralph Draves, the rides will be added to the club web site for your personal reference (once bikehighway.com is back online). Detailed information will be sent out one week before each ride.
Safe Cycling!
Wes Garbee, 274-5315
| Date | Route |
| April 5, 2003 | Hot Springs Ride |
| April 12, 2005 | Caesars Head Ride |
| April 19, 2005 | Green River |
| April 26, 2005 | Reverse Doggett Ride |
| May 3, 2005 | Rosman - 215 Ride |
| May 10, 2005 | Roan Mountain Ride |
| May 17, 2005 | No Ride |
| May 20, 2005 | Assault on Mt. Mitchell |
| May 24, 2005 | No Ride |
| May 31, 2005 | Cherokee |
| June 7, 2005 | Madison County Loop |
Description: This is traditionally our first ride each year. It's time to shake the dust off your chainring, and plan your first all day ride of the year. We will leave from the parking lot between First Baptist Church Asheville and the YMCA, as in the previous 15 years. We will get rolling at 8am and head to Hot Springs. It is the same route as in years past, except Ralph added a short loop over Rector Corner to get the mileage to 100 since we never quite got 100 in the past. The 100 miles include the short cut in Spring Creek over Caldwell Mountain, then along the river to the far end of Spring Creek. It is always a group decision regarding stopping in Hot Springs for a snack. As always, keep your fingers crossed for nice weather, but we will plan to ride short of a hurricane. No tee shirt this year! Hopefully the map will be on the club web site by then, but I will have a few copies of the route for anyone unfamiliar with the route.
Summary: What a great day for cycling yesterday! I guess since Trevor is an ex-weatherman we can give the credit to him. It was a little chilly when we set out, but almost summer time on the way home. It makes you feel guilty complaining about a little wind now and then, but we don't want to get too comfortable! We had 19 riders: Rob Resnick, Roger Derrough, Michael Murphy, Mike Thornhill, Sarah Carothers, Trevor Wallis, Brady Hamby, Tim Hinman, Leslie Meadows, Kris Sjostrom, Tommy Harris, Don Acton, Mike Nix, Jackson Mccarter, Ron Blain, Randall Barnett, Jim Ashburn, and Bill Reichart. I can't leave out our wounded sag Charlie Clogston; hopefully he will be riding soon. Ralph's little detour through Rectors Corner was a nice addition, and it gave us 101+ miles if you included the Caldwell Mountain loop around Spring Creek. My altimeter showed 9200 feet of vertical gain--not bad for the first ride of the season.
Description: follows a portion of the Spartanburg Freewheelers route to the base of the climb. We will leave the Liberty Bicycles parking lot at 8 am. Be sure to park away from the retail shops. We will take the same route as in years past; I don't think Ralph was able to sneak in any extra miles on his map. We will drop down into South Carolina on Old Highway 25, then down Gap Creek for a beautiful approach to the foot of Caesar's Head. We will return via Dupont Forest, Horseshoe, Fletcher and then back to Liberty. It should be 100 miles or so, with only 7600 feet of climb. We can at least hope for another splendid day to ride. I hope you can join us.
Summary: Brady Hamby tells us that riding in the rain makes us tougher. Maybe there is still hope for a few of us! We had six brave souls show up for our ride to Caesar's Head, all fully aware of the weather predictions. The first 60 miles were dry, and we were sure we could make it back to Liberty in spite of the forecast. While enjoying a snack at the top of Caesar's Head and trying to remember the punch lines of all the jokes we heard from Michael on the climb, the bottom suddenly dropped out! We got split up into two groups of three riders on the way back in the rain, but the three of us straggelers enjoyed hot chocolate and cappuccino in Horseshoe while the rain subsided a lot before continuing. It was really another great ride in spite of a little spring shower. It was also a good time to meet the new man in town, Dan Blaine, who recently moved to Pisgah Forest from a long career in Germany. The riders included Brady Hamby, Michael Murphy, Ron Blaine, Paul Endry, Don Blaine (no relation to Ron!). 103 miles, 7600 feet of climb, 3" of water.
Description: This was our second riding of Ralph's ride. Our next ride will be Tuesday April 19. We will leave from Liberty again at 8 am. We will be doing Ralph's famous Green River century for only the second time - several years ago was the first time. I remember one short steep climb out of the Green River gorge and a lot of nice scenery. It will be 100 miles and ~ 7000 ft of climb. I hope you can join us.
Summary: The weatherman was good to us yesterday while we rode Ralph's Green River century. It was a beautiful day; lots of flowers and trees were in bloom. As luck would have it, we met up by accident with my cousin Tommy as we reached the top of the climb out of the Green River gorge. He rode with us the next 15 miles, then headed back to "Ruf-ton". Some of us opted to omit the final climb up Locust Grove in the interest of getting back to Liberty Bicycles. Our mileage without Locust Grove was 105, with 8200 feet of climb. We had 15 riders counting Tommy that included Tim Hinman, Brady Hamby, Sarah Carothers, Ron Blaine, Dan Blaine, Michael Murphy #1, Michael Murphy #2, Paul Endry, Jackson Mccarter, Kris Sjostrom, Michael Thornhill, Rob Resnick, and Rostand Smith. This was the one year anniversary of Mike Thornhill's first century (Rosman 215 - April 20, 2004), and Rostand's first Fatburner.
Description: This is a pretty ride over Betsy's Gap and up the back side of the Doggett. We will begin at the parking lot between the Asheville YMCA and the First Baptist Church at 8 am. The ride will take us out Newfound Road toward Canton, on back roads to Clyde, over Betsy's Gap to Trust, up the back side of Doggett, home through Marshall along the river and back to our cars. Hope you can join us. I will have copies of the map Ralph made for us. It is not yet available on the BRBC website library.
Summary: Our ride over Betsy's Gap and up the back side of Doggett was
a lot of fun - 5 climbs on the ride with as many beautiful valleys in between.
No flat tires this week; I guess since we had 3 on the Green River Ride!! Robbie
was still strong after his Beat-the-Bounds ride 2 days before. A little April
shower at mile 80 for about 10 miles was the only bad weather - not too much
wind either - just chilly. Just 5 riders this week - bad
weather predictions, I'm sure, were a factor. The riders included Michael Murphy
#1, Jackson McCarter of Travelers Rest, Charlie Read - one of the Fatburner
originals, and Robbie Sweetser (our Brady Hamby for the day). we did 103 miles
and climbed 9300 feet !! Thank goodness for the hot coffee and pastries in Marshall
before getting wet for the first time - really, we had blue skies and sunshine
off and on all day.
Description: We will meet at Liberty Tuesday a.m., May 3, to do the
Rosman/215 ride and plan to leave by 8 am. The route takes us on a slightly
different route to Etowah thanks to Ralph and his map magic, then we will be
on John McCollum's old route to Rosman before tackling the mother of climbs
to the Parkway - home on the Parkway. Hope you can join us.
Summary: What a beautiful day we had on back roads to Rosman and climbing
to the Parkway - the views as you near Devils Courthouse are hard to describe.
The weathermen did a good job! Lots of the talk on the ride surrounded the unfortunate
demise of our friend, Greg Wilcox, and we felt there was no better way for us
to remember him than dedicate our ride to him. I will always think of him when
i write these notes about our Fatburner rides because he was the one that editorialized
my notes for inclusion on the club web site. I may have to rename these Fatburner
rides since I'm the only one with fat to burn - we had 13 lean riders and I
made 14. We need to tip our helmets and give a round of applause to our new
rider, Wade Macfie, who completed his first century. Bill Reichert met us in
Pisgah Forest and joined us for the climb to the Parkway and returned down 276
for a metric century. The other riders included Rob Resnick, Robby Sweetser,
Wade Macfie, Randall Barnett, Michael "The 3rd Place Master In the Hillclimb"
Murphy, Michael CPA Murphy, Kris Sjostrom, Brady Hamby, Sarah Carothers, Paul
Endry, Jackson McCarter, and Tim Hinman. We did 106 + miles as Ralph's map predicted
and climbed 8800 feet.
Description: Our first of 3 remote starts - only 3 more Fatburners this season. Tuesday, May 10, we will meet at 6:45 to carpool to Burnsville from the parking lot between the Asheville YMCA and the First Baptist Church. We will park in the lot beside the Town Hall near the Nu Wray Inn. Hopefully, we will begin riding at 8am to climb the Roan - we drop down into Tennesee and climb back up Iron Mtn to return to Burnsville by way of 197 for our 3rd climb. I have always said this was my favorite ride and this is the only Fatburner I ended up doing by myself on one occasion - please join me Tues.
Summary: Brady Hamby always says when you ride in the rain it builds
character - we always seem to have an abundance of characters on our Fat Burner
rides, Brady not withstanding !! The trip to Roan today was as I always remember
it - magnificent views, lots of white water and old barns. Sarah estimated that
our rain drizzle as we left the top of Roan lasted about 5 miles but the temperature
drop was evident in her purple lips at the end of our descent into Tennessee.
We had a brief visit from Michael Davis in his pickup in Tennessee as he was
concerned about the weather and our safety - always a prince! Ralph's new additions
to the route to ensure we get 100 miles were enjoyed by all that read their
maps! We had 11 riders today that included Michael Murphy, Rob Resnick, Jackson
McCarter, Brady Hamby, Charlie Read, Sarah Carothers, Robbie Sweetser, Michael
Johnson, Tim Hinman and Roger Derrough. We did 100 miles and climbed 9300 feet.
The climb into Burnsville at the end of a long ride always gets a lot of comments.
Description: **I need to have you begin now to check your schedules to see if you will be able to ride the next Fatburner after Roan - we will ride a van to Cherokee and cycle back on the Parkway. I have reserved a 15 passenger van and bike trailer and driver (our friend, Ladd Painter, who drove us in 2003) for the trip - first 15 who sign up have a ride, others will need to arrange their own shuttle. We will divide the rental fee among the riders and buy Ladd's breakfast on the way out. That will be May 31 - Tuesday - the day after Memorial Day.
Summary: Next time we do the Cherokee Fat Burner we will need to charter
a Young Bus. I wish we could
have had a larger group in the van but all those who went made enough noise
for the rest of you this time. The weather was almost perfect - a slight chill
at times was welcome - the black threatening clouds over Richland Balsam quickly
vanished - the views were as I had remembered from 3 previous trips (spectacular,
except 2 years ago it rained the first 1/2 of the trip). Tim needs to do Boston-Montreal-Boston
or Paris-Brest-Paris: something with
more of a challenge - he makes it always look so easy. The riders included Randall
Barnett, Robbie Sweetser, Michael Johnson, Michael Racine, Roger Derrough, Tim
Hinman, and two new friends: Joe Sinfield and Jim Clark. We got 10,000 ft of
vertical climb in the 81 mile trip - but Mitchell is still a lot tougher with
all of its climb at the end. Our van driver again this trip was Ladd Painter,
a dear friend, whom I will never be able to repay for all the times he has hauled
me around for cycling events.
Description: Our final 2005 Fat Burner will take place Tuesday, June 7, and will be our annual tour of the less frequently travelled roads of Madison County. We will meet at 7 am and car pool to our remote start in the suburbs of Petersburg at the home of my friend Harold Phillips (between Mars Hill and Marshall). This will not be a century but always feels like century to me - 75 to 80 miles if memory serves me and will again take most of the day - a lot of hills in Madison County. We ride up Grapevine Rd, visit the coffee shop near Wolf Laurel, pop in at Spillcorn, see Guntertown, Chapel Hill, White Horse, Laurel, Shelton Laurel, Belva, and of course Sodom (now Revierre) before going back over Walnut Mountain again to return to Harold's. Hope you can join us - we will be visiting a beautiful section of Western NC.
Summary: Another season of all day weekly spring rides has come to a close - the final chapter found us winding our way around the beautiful lesser travelled roads of Madison County on Tuesday this week. Could not have had a nicer day for cycling - Brady and Dolly would have been dissapointed though - no rain!! Did not have a bull to ride behind on East Fork Road this year like we had 2 years ago but we were able to chase Tim all day. Not many stores on the roads we travelled but the medical clinic in Belva gave us water and restrooms as in previous years. The coffee and biscuits at the Little Creek Cafe hit the spot as usual. Harold and Kathleen Phillips gave us a banquet of snacks at the end of our ride, for which we were most grateful. The riders included Jim Ashburn, Tim Hinman, Roger Derrough, Michael Racine, and Rob Resnick. We pedaled 84 hilly miles and climbed 7270 cumulative feet.
Hope to see you on the roads or in town in the weeks and months to come
Safe Cycling
Wes Garbee
The photograph on this page is courtesy of the Bonneville Bicycle Touring Club, from their July 2002 pictures. Used with permission.
© Blue Ridge Bicycle Club Inc. 2005