General Jackassery

Well, we’re back from the Blue-Ridge Parkway safe and sound. My buddy Kari rode a phenomenal 28 hours straight for a total of 344 miles on the Blue-Ridge Parkway two days ago. Here’s how the last couple of days have gone from my perspective.

I went to bed at about 11:00 on Monday night and was up at 4:20 on Tuesday morning. Kari showed up at my house at 5:30 and we loaded up the bikes and stuff for the trip and headed out to pick-up Rodney at work. By 6:45 we had Rodney’s stuff loaded up and we where on our way to the Mountains. We stopped at South Pittsburg, TN for gas and food and then headed off to Cherokee, NC. At about 2:00 in the afternoon we where in Cherokee at the start of the BRP and Kari and I took off on our way.

To give you a feel for how the BRP is, Cherokee is 2000′ above sea level. The BRP starts there and works it way up to 5150′ in the first 10 miles. Then you go back down about 3 or 4 miles and you start back going up to 5700′ after another 5 miles of climbing. After that you have a 9 mile descent back down to about 3100′ before you climb to the highest point on the parkway at over 6000′. It took me 2 hours 20 minutes to ride over the first two climbs and down to the base of the climb up to the highest point on the parkway. Rodney took over after that and rode for another 30 miles or so. By the time we reached the Pisgah Inn, 61 miles in, Kari had created a 10 mile gap between him and us. In other words, Kari was 1 hour ahead of Rodney and me.

To put things in perspective, Rodney has ridden the BRP many times and he said they used to always leave Cherokee early in the morning and it would take them about 7 or 8 hours to get to the Pisgah Inn. Rodney and I rode that distance in 4.5 hours and still Kari was 10 miles ahead of us.

Anyway, Rodney and I picked up our bikes and drove ahead to catch back up to Kari and as we were heading in to Ashville Kari saw a sign that said “Folk Art Center 2 miles.” He pointed at the sign and indicated he wanted to stop there to grab some food. So I drove ahead to the Folk Art Center and parked, I figured as fast as Kari was riding I could hop on my bike and start heading up the hill out of Ashville and Kari would eventually catch me, so I took off. About 30 to 40 minutes later, Rodney come driving up and asks if I’ve seen Kari. I said “no” and immediately thought, there’s no way he’s ahead of me, but if he is, I’ll never catch him and he hasn’t had anything to eat. About 3 miles later I see a flashing red tail light and realize “Holy Crap, that’s Kari ahead of me!” Then I think to myself, “HOLY CRAP, I’M CATCHING KARI GOING UP HILL!” That was bad news because it meant that Kari was slowing down. It was also bad news because he had gone an hour past where he wanted to go for eating. It took Rodney a while longer for finally decide that Kari must have past us while we were getting my bike ready. He finally found Kari and me about 11 miles into the climb out of Ashville. It was dark and I was ready to call it quits for the night so Rodney took over riding with Kari and they climbed another 7 miles before finally making to the top of the climb.

Fast forward….it’s now 3:00 a.m. and Kari is finally ready for a 15 minute nap. Kari has ridden from Cherokee, NC to Blowing Rock, NC a distance of about 170 miles. Rodney takes over driving and I nap off an on for the next hour and a half for a grand total of about 30 minutes of sleep. Kari is swerving all over the road, but he’s still going like the energizer bunny. It’s now 4:30 and Rodney is starting to get sleepy again, we’re going up a long hill and I say, “Just stop right here and let’s do a Chinese fire drill.” So we stop in the middle of the road, get out and run around the car and I’m driving again.

It’s another 3 hours before we make it to Doughton Park, 229 miles into the parkway. We stop and have breakfast and discuss options. Kari has been on the bike for 17 hours and at his current average speed it would be about 1 or 2 the next morning before he finished. So we decided to just turn around and ride back towards Ashville. We figured he would still get a lot of miles in and we would be closer to home with every mile. By now, Kari is starting to get pretty tired and his speed has slowed down such that Rodney and I have no problem staying with him. Actually, Kari was starting to have a problem staying with us. Of course, we had roughly one-third the miles in our legs that Kari had so it makes sense that he might be tired. Anyway, Rodney and I alternated about every 20 miles or so for the rest of the day until we got back to the entrance to Mt. Mitchell state park. I had planned to ride up to the top of Mt. Mitchell, but there was a thunderstorm approaching and I just didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught in nasty weather. So instead of climbing to Mt. Mitchell I rode down the mountain to Ashville about 26 miles away.

By the time it was all said and done, I had ridden 126.5 miles and been in the saddle for a total of 8.5 hours over the course of a 29 hour period. I had a lot of fun and I think I rode pretty well.

After we got done we headed into Ashville and got a hotel room so we could get showers. Then we headed out to grab a bite to eat before heading home. It was about 8:30 when we got on the interstate to drive back to Huntsville and within about 30 minutes of driving Rodney and Kari were out like lights. I made it almost all the way to Knoxville before I got dangerously sleepy and had to pull over in favor of another driver. Rodney took over and I tried to get some sleep between Knoxville and Chattanooga, but was not terribly successful. I think I might have gotten another 30 minutes or so and the rest of the time I was just resting my eyes. Anyway, we got to Chattanooga and Rodney had had enough so we switch out again and I got us back into Huntsville. It was about 2:30 when I finally got back home and probably close to 3:30 before I was able to wind down and get to sleep. All-in-all I was awake for the vast majority of a 47 hour period, rode by bike 126 miles and drove my car about 700 miles.

Now, that’s the life right there!