Fool’s Gold 100

Dahlonega, GA
Saturday August 21, 2010
by: Harry Precourt

Armed with a plane voucher and a free weekend, I found my way to Travelocity.com and eventually to a plane ticket bound for Atlanta.  It had been awhile since I visited below the Mason Dixon and I was keen on making sure the Appalachians were still putting the “hill” in hillbilly.  Helmet in hand, I made my way to Georgia for the Fool’s Gold 100, hoping southern hospitality left me feeling more fit than Southern Comfort usually does.

Flying with a bike is what I imagine flying with a small child to be like.  The packing is stressful and labored, transporting the thing to the airport at o’dark thirty in the morning equally so.  Once at the airport, the fun truly begins as you awkwardly drag your not-so-little one around searching for the appropriate check in desk, which is usually at the other end of the terminal.  Then there’s the kicking and screaming, elicited from yourself of course; the noise and attention the dependent attracts go without saying.  Making it to the desk without excessive questioning from the authorities or an elderly couple on their way to Orlando should indeed be considered a great success, if you haven’t already left the thing at Dunkin Donuts and booked a one-way trip to Aruba that is.  The best thing about flying is the airline desk schmooze, which generally involves flattering the nice lady behind the counter, only to be informed that it’ll cost something like $109 million to put your bike on a $250 flight.  But anyway…

After some rental rallying to Dahlonega, I hit up Waffle House for dinner and made my into the mountains.  The weather forecast wasn’t exactly ideal, but with the report of automatic weapons in the proximal distance, who worries about mud and brake pads?  I turned up the country music and readied the bike, hoping I didn’t look too much like a threat to national security as I traversed the woods bordering Camp Merrill the following day.

Things started easily enough as we rolled through an ominously dewed field in the 7am fog.  Things quickly got not so easy as we charged a starkly steep fireroad in a 7:01am deluge.  I wasn’t aware Georgia had a monsoon season, but we were certainly in the thick of it as we clawed our way up the opening climb. 

At first, it was almost fun, something meekly heroic, racing through hill and dale on a mountain bike in absurd conditions.  Hindsight is indeed 20/20, however, and I wonder instead how awesomely dumb we must have looked to the casual observer.  But “to hell with it” I remember repeating to myself; with good legs and some fun(nny) people to ride with, the miles fell quickly and singletrack was soon to be had.

I was fortunate to have some well-suited tires for the Class V rapids we encountered on the skinny stuff, and had a grand time letting ‘er rip and hoping the mud was just deep enough to soften the corners and keep my ego properly inflated.  Everyone seemed to be in the same boat and actually enjoying the trial of sorts.  We ignorantly laughed about not having spare pads and let the hooting and hollering drown out the squeals of quickly dying brake compounds…which is hogwash-speak for nervously mumbling something about packing tents for the second lap and uncontrollably yelling at the trees to get the hell out of the way because that upcoming, quick left hand turn was soon to be a lot less quick.  I guess hindsight isn’t always 20/20…

I do have to admit that the course was great, the volunteers incredible for merely getting out of bed, and indeed were the true heroes for indulging our insanity.  I cruised into the last aid station, somebody hooked me up with some cookies and a fresh bottle, and I was on my way.  Good stuff.  Excitement over a second lap quickly ceded to nervous daydreaming, however, as my pads ceased screaming and instead dragged what was left of their metal backing against the rotors.  It was going to be a long nine miles of Flinstone-esque braking technique. 

I did my best to keep it upright and maintain what little momentum there was to be eeked from the soupy Georgia clay.  Going back and forth with some fellow racers, we didn’t really say much, and not much needed saying.  If you weren’t hoping the aid stations would be stocking cyanide on the second lap, you had probably already popped one and were waiting on that fuzzy feeling.

In all honesty, I did spend the last 15 minutes of the race crafting a scenario where I would tell the race organizer I sure as hell had no brakes left and that my revelation would be the deciding factor to cutting the race short at one lap.  Long races have the habit of making you neurotic, as the length of this report can attest.  Luckily, drama was averted and I was told the race was over as I forded the raging crick a few yards before the finish line.  I grabbed a beer and waited on the fuzzy feeling, happy it was within shouting distance of a hot shower, and not a camouflaged army platoon too deep into the Appalachian hills.