Stats Thursday, September 9 – Columbia, TN to Chattanooga, TN. Day distance 127; ride time 8 h 20 m; ave speed 15.2; total climb 5,853; total miles 2,934.7
Central Tennessee headed toward Chattanooga. Such was the goal for today. And today, a bonus. Jeff Manly, Mickey’s cousin who lives in the Chattanooga area, is coming out to ride with us. Jeff is a serious triathlete. He “front doored” us all the way.
About an hour into the ride we meet. When Jeff first saw us he thought we were motorcycles. Then he remembered, “Oh yea – that’s right. They’re caring gear!” There’s Jeff with his lightweight “tri-bike.” And us, with our “trucks.”
Jeff was a huge help the entire day. And at the same time he killed us. With so little effort he kept our speed up. But we (more me) still had to push to stay with him. Also, since we are off the Trans America Adventure Cycling route we no longer have access to elevation info on the maps. On the second half of the day a 1000 foot climb greeted us followed by 8 miles of rollers. Eventually we got to descend a 1000 feet again.
We wanted to make it all the way into Collegedale (which would have been 160 miles - Collegedale is on the east side of Chattanooga). But we (again more me) ran out of energy (and daylight).
We stopped for the night at the base Lookout Mountain.
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