S Cove Dr in pictures

View from the middle of S Cove Dr shortly after the blind corner
There is a road near my house that drops 240 feet in 0.3 miles, which works out to an average gradient of 18%. Since it is relatively flat (-5% to -10%) at the top and bottom that means the middle section is well over 20% for close to 0.2 miles. They have been doing construction work on the driveway at the “commit point” of the descent so I decided to take it slow today and stop to take pictures to document the descent.

I discovered that they were doing construction work earlier this week when I came around the blind corner in the middle of the descent to come face-to-face with a cement truck backing into a driveway. Fortunately, I had also noticed pick-up trucks in the driveway visible before the corner so I had already slowed down and aborted the descent. I came around the corner, saw the cement truck and had plenty of room to maneuver around it on the wrong side of the road. If a car had been coming up the road, I would have had to scrub into the driveway under construction.

S Cove Dr elevation profile.

Before going any further, let me emphasize that this is an extremely dangerous descent. I document this to warn people that this descent should not be tried at speed, and the posted speed limit of 30mph should be observed.

Here is a blow-by-blow of the descent starting from Panorama Dr …

Intersection of Panorama Dr and S Cove Dr – turn right here, enjoy a second or two of what looks like a gentle descent before the bottom drops out quite rapidly

After making the righthand turn from Panorama onto S Cove, the descent looks deceptively gentle. I normally abort the descent if there are any cars going down the hill here. You can see the road bends to the left. What you can’t see is that the gradient jumps abruptly to -20+% around that gentle bend.

Even though the gradient is above -20% here, you can still brake and stop accelerating if there are any cars in front of you or if anything else looks/feels off (e.g., construction vehicles parked in driveway and alongside road). The righthand turn up ahead is at the steepest part of the descent, and it is completely blind. I call that turn the “commit point”.

Pressure washing in the blind corner – finally, the construction work is done! This is just before the “go/no go” decision must be made. Once you round that corner, if you haven’t braked hard yet then you physically cannot stop your bike before the next intersection. So you have less than a second from here to scan for obstacles and brake or switch to an avoidance mode where you are looking for an escape route instead of an emergency stop.

This is the view just after the blind corner. Here you can see the next portion of the descent, and here you must decide whether you are in brake-mode or avoidance-mode. Although, any good safe cyclist should always be prepared to do both at all times.

The next blind turn. This gentle left has two driveways on the right and three driveways on the left. The safest place to be is just to the right of the center-line. Although this means you have to be super vigilant for oncoming traffic. But this gives you extra clearance if somebody were to be walking/jogging up the hill (rare) or backing out of a driveway on the right. At this point though, you should be anticipating the road being completely blocked and know your escape routes.

Around the final turn you have a small run-out before the three-way stop. You have to be on the brakes really, really hard through here. Fortunately the road kicks back up just a little bit before the stop so that helps the deceleration process.

That is the South Cove Dr descent in pictures. I did this descent twice today – once to take the pictures, and once at normal speed. But again this descent is super dangerous. Observe the posted speed limit of 30mph and stop at the three-way stop at the bottom!

Panorama view from near Lover’s Leap on top of Bluff Park

And finally, here are some other pictures from my ride today:

View from Altaloma looking towards my neighborhood

This should give you an idea of the slope on S Cove Dr

I took this picture while leaning into the sharp turn at the bottom of the downhill that leads to the middle step (shown) of the Vesclub climb

This is the state flower of Alabama – the Oak Leaf Hydrangia

View of Red Mountain, Birmingham, Homewood from the high point on Vestavia Dr

View of Samford University from Vestavia Dr

S Cove Dr elevation profile.

Vesclub elevation profile.

Birmingham ridges, part ii

My bike at the Cahaba Beach road bridge. You have to hoist your bike over the barricade and carefully ride the planks to make it over to Cahaba Beach road. Watch out for the holes straight through to the river!

A post about climbing the ridges in Birmingham wouldn’t be complete without my favorite ridges southeast of town – especially the two high ridges on Double Oak Mountain. I rode out there today armed with my camera and ended up taking more than 50 photos. I picked out the best ones and created a topocreator map to highlight the ridges southeast of Birmingham.

Two screenshots merged to form a complete ride profile (10 mile, 250ft scale). The numbered ridges and creeks are labeled on the topocreator map below.
Topocreator map of the ridges southeast of Birmingham out to Double Oak (click to enlarge) or download the hi-res version (6.5MB)

This view from the high point on Dolly Ridge road inspired me to call this ride the “ridge to ridge” ride because you can see the ridges stacked on top of each other – each one higher than the one before!

Looking back towards the Vesclub part of Shades Mountain over a particularly hilly stretch of road.

Heading towards Cahaba Beach Rd – so rural there is no need to clear the road of a tree if it only falls halfway across!

My bike at the Cahaba Beach road bridge.

Rope swings over Little Cahaba River

Nice Rouge Roubaix style climb on Cahaba Beach road

A fairly small red tailed hawk flew across the road in front of me and perched in a low branch next to the road as I started my climb up Double Oak Way

Looking up at the first steeper section of the Double Oak Way climb

Looking up ahead at the Double Oak way gate – the steepest part of the climb is just past the gate when the road turns directly into the gradient of the hill

Double Oak way at the start of the 25% section – you know it’s steep when the road is grooved for traction

Once you summit the first steep section, you have several miles of rolling and false flat climbing on a “hit or miss” road that requires somewhat careful navigation

At the top of what I call the lower Double Oak Mtn ridge line … my Garmin was reading about 30-40 feet too low.

The view looking down the Double Oak Way roller coaster that separates the lower ridge line from the upper ridge line – 50mph descent both directions!

The rocky, narrow lower double oak mtn ridge line

Looking back down Double Oak Way towards Oak Mountain

Annotated view at the precipice of the Double Oak way descent

Another view shortly after the 25% drop-off looking towards Leeds. I took this picture because AL-25 crosses the farthest ridgeline at a spot just behind the trees on the right – and there is a spot where you can look backwards from AL-25 at the spot where this picture is taken from.

The Double Oak way ridge line from near the Shoal Creek saddle on Co Rd 41

Greystone Crest – a picture never does the true slope justice!

Looking back down Greystone Crest towards Oak Mountain and seeing this ridge line wrap around towards Highland Lakes

View from the Brook Highland / Meadowbrook ridge line looking northwest towards Birmingham

View from the Brook Highland / Meadowbrook ridge line looking southeast towards Double Oak Mountain

Another view from the Brook Highland / Meadowbrook ridge line looking southeast towards Double Oak Mountain from a different part of the ridge line – this time the Doppler Radio tower on top of the high ridge of Double Oak is just barely visible above the Greystone Crest ridgeline

US 280 at about 5:30PM – looking towards Birmingham from the low spot where 280 crosses the Brook Highland / Meadowbrook ridge line.

Tornado damage off of Caldwell Mill Rd from the April 2011 tornadoes

More tornado damage off of Caldwell Mill Rd from the April 2011 tornadoes

Tornado damage on the “tornado loop” from the April 2011 tornadoes

This set of switchbacks on the tornado loop reminds me of Italy

The ridge lines visible from my neighborhood

Home sweet home

Two screenshots merged together to form a complete ride profile (10 mile, 250ft scale)

Complete ride profile at 15 mile, 500 ft scale

Double Oak Way ridges ride stats part 1

Double Oak Way ridges ride stats part 2