Southern Cross Weekend Wrap-up

Panoramic view from a grassy knoll just below the summit of Brasstown Bald – the highest point in Georgia at just under 4800′

Wrapping up a wonderful weekend of riding, racing, and climbing in the beautiful North Georgia mountains outside of Dahlonega that included the Southern Cross Ultracross race, I headed out for one last ride right after the nice breakfast provided by the awesome folks at the Hiker Hostel. My daughter’s church choir program was at 5PM back in Birmingham, and I really wanted to be back in time for it – so my original plan of 85 miles and 11-12,000 feet of climbing got scaled back to 65 miles and 9,000 feet of climbing.

Having thrown out my original route plan, I decided on a modified route that included 4 major climbs (Cat 2 or higher) and a few smaller climbs (Cat 3 or lower). I climbed Woody Gap from the R&R ranch and then proceeded backwards on the Six Gap century course climbing over Wolf Pen, then heading out to Jack’s Gap and taking the 180 spur all the way to the top of Brasstown, turning around at the top and reversing my course but this time heading up Neel’s Gap on US129. The final climb of the day back to the Hiker Hostel had the steepest gradients with a crazy steep driveway access road that climbs up and over a couple mini-ridges before turning into a dirt power-line trail with gradients well over the 30% that ended up getting recorded on my iBike.

iBike data for the ride

3D map of the route annotated with gaps and mountains (click to enlarge)

2D annotated map with roads and mountains labeled (click to enlarge)

Maps from Cheaha

I forgot to post the maps I made for the weekend of riding … if you are curious about the topography of the entire area, then download the super hires ultra resolution (20MB) map of my Cheaha ride (the last map).

Three days, just under 300 miles of riding

Read my ride recaps and see the photos I took for each day here –

Day 1 – 72.1 miles – commute into work and ride from samford to pell city
Day 2 – 81.1 miles – exploring the oxford – anniston – jacksonville ridge line
Day 3 – 141.6 miles – riding from oxford back home to hoover via mt cheaha

Really fun route from Oxford to Anniston to Jacksonville and back via Fort McClellan – includes two Cat 2 climbs

Oxford to Hoover via Mount Cheaha – mountains of eastern alabama annotated Or click here to download the super hi-res 20MB version of this map.

Alabama topography annotated

Click on the map for a huge (7.2MB) detailed annotated map with a few major Alabama mountains annotated.

When I was looking at the state map of Alabama that I had made using topocreator, I noticed how you can see that the Smoke Ridge climb is connected to Skyball from the Tour de Cullman. I was inspired to make maps for both my Sunday Adventure to Smoke Rise and also for the Tour de Cullman. Enjoy!

Topocreator map of the Smoke Rise route with major Alabama mountains annotated. Click the map for a medium version (2MB) or click this link for a really huge detailed version (16MB)

Tour de Cullman annotated mountains. Click the map for a medium version (3MB) or click this link for a really huge detailed version (12MB)

The topography of a hilly commute

If you have ever wondered what it is like to ride on one of my commutes through Birmingham, I’ve included a map and video from my commute yesterday. I discovered that Google Earth Pro (the trial version) lets you record a 3D flyover movie of an imported GPS route. Enjoy my 1 hour 45 minute commute home condensed into a 17 minute video. Or check out the 3D annotated topocreator map below the video. You really get a sense of all the rolling hills in Mountain Brook from minute 5 until minute 12 in the video. The only Cat 3 climb on the route is at the beginning climbing Old Hwy 31 to Hwy 31 to Vestavia Dr. When the arrow is moving fast, that means I was going downhill fast. When the arrow is moving slow, that means I was climbing slowly.

3D annotated commute route home from work. This view is looking southwest.

Thankful for mostly traffic free roads

An annual tradition for me for the past three years (including this year) has been to incorporate some of the more busy roads around Birmingham into a Thanksgiving morning ride since there is relatively little traffic out on the roads on this holiday. This year I hit all four US highways that run through Birmingham (31, 11, 78, and 280) as part of a ride that climbed nearly 8000′ in just over 56 miles.

Topocreator ride map with lots of annotations Download huge version (4MB) here – http://toonecycling.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tday11map.jpg

Ride elevation profile

Looking northeast along the Red Mountain ridge line towards Ruffner Mountain

UAB and Birmingham-Southern

Downtown Birmingham – annotated Carraway Hospital closed in 2008 – http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/metro.ssf?/base/news/122457692457320.xml&coll=2

Standing at the base of the lookout fire tower.

Steep switchback on the way back down from the lookout fire tower.

The last part of the climb up to the top of Vestavia Dr. A tornado leveled the trees here in April 2000, the trees that were planted have started to grow back (scroll down to the bottom of the church history page, righthand column to read about the tornado).

View looking northwest from Vestavia Dr towards Samford

View looking north towards Homewood from Vestavia Dr

Descent off of Hwy 31 – looking towards Oak Mountain, Indian Crest, Little Valley Mountain

Complete interactive ride data on Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/2444715