Today was the day for the Caesar’s Head 200K Brevet in South Carolina.  Well, maybe that statement is not completely accurate.  Today is the day that the Caesar’s Head Brevet was scheduled and the day it was run, but it wasn’t really a very good day for a brevet.

    Anyone east of someplace way back west knows by now that a huge, gigantic, cold front moved across the country over the past few days.  They had snow in Alabama in March, a blizzard in Cleveland, Ohio, Flooding in Boston, and tornados in Florida!

    Thursday was a very nice day here in the Carolinas, but Friday it rained.  A lot.  Warm rain.  The rain mostly stopped sometime last night in Spartanburg, South Carolina and we began the brevet at 7:00 AM on wet roads, under overcast skies, into a head wind that was blowing 20 to 30 miles an hour, and with promises from the weather forecasters that it would get colder and windier all day, and clear in the afternoon.  That’s pretty much the way it was.  

    I, along with a lot of others, were looking for a way to get out of this event and about a dozen found the way soon after the start: just turn around, go back to the start, and say, “No Way.”  As it turned out, the weather wasn’t as miserable as it seemed it would be, the route was well chosen, the riders were amiable, and we surprised the weather forecasters by finding a little snow, or hail, or sleet depending on how randonneurs describe small white pellets of frozen precipitation.  I think there were about 22 of us left by then and there wasn’t a consensus as to what we should call the precipitation.

     Nina and I drove the 162 miles to Spartanburg in the rain yesterday, and, since neither of us had never been to South Carolina, we left early.  After crossing the boarder, we stopped at the South Carolina welcome center were we found a full page Greenville newspaper page about bicycling in the “Up Country” taped to the wall inside.  It was mostly about century rides, but under that there was a good sized article about randonneuring.  That randonneuring article mentioned today’s brevet, but it was written when statistics say that the weather should have been fine with temperatures in the 60’s.  Anyway, we were excited to see the press.  We were so excited, we went on to Greenville to see their special downtown park -- very nice -- and we stopped in at the newspaper to see if we could get a copy of the paper.  It was probably there, but we went through lots of old papers and didn’t find it.  All I knew is that it was in a Tuesday’s paper.

    We began the ride in farm country with light development here and there along the road.  Where the fields were big, the wind was strongest so pretty much everyone found a pace line.  Some gusts from the side made them ragged often enough, but we did our best to keep them together.  I rode with people I know most of the time and met some new faces as well.  There were a number of riders on their first brevet and there were some training for the Assault on Mount Mitchel.  That is a big event in South Carolina Up Country.  I might remind everyone that we were in George Hincapie country riding on roads he trains on when he’s at home in Greenville.  My guess is that he is a big reason bicycling is so popular in the area; that and that the roads beg to be ridden on.

    After 40 miles we got out of the rolling country and began to work our way up into the mountains.  We spent a good bit of time riding along the Saluda River through neat little towns like Pumpkin Town.  Since some of you haven’t ridden much in this part of the country, I should say that a town is often a crossroads with a store; or maybe a crossroads where there was a store once.  This is country with a lot of history so it wasn’t surprising to pass a little stone bridge that was built in 1820 or to see an abandoned log cabin now and again.  Some of these roads have been here a long, long time and some of them were trading trails before that.  Evidently, there was a lot of trade between Greenville, where they had mills on the Reedy River, and Asheville in North Carolina.  The little stone bridge was on that old road.  There are also lots of waterfalls and great big cliffs.  The thick woods were still missing their spring finery, but the perennials were in bloom and added a lot of color to a mostly grey day.

    Up and up we went, and sometimes back down, which wasn’t very exciting because I knew we’d have to go back up again.  Then, six and a half miles from the turn around point at Caesar’s Head State Park -- this is an out and back brevet, the road turned up and didn’t relent.  Except for a very brief stretch where a creek cut down the mountain, we were on a steep climb.  I was on my 34X26 the whole time and had to get out of the saddle on many switch backs.  It took me about an hour to make that climb; maybe a little more.  This is where we found the sleet/snow/hail, but the climb had me hot enough that I unzipped my jacket and still got damp with enough sweat to make me very clammy.  

    With a good bit to go, Jerry and Branson, a couple of North Carolina randonneurs and PBP ancniens, came zipping down the mountain.  We hollered, “Hello,” to each other, but they were by in a flash.  At the top, Bethany, the RBA and her husband, Steve, manned the control and had some hot chocolate and snacks for us.  I didn’t stay long because even though I felt bad for them on top of that mountain called Caesar’s Head, I didn’t feel bad enough to stay and suffer with them.  Nor did I relish the idea of staying on the road too long because it was supposed to become quite cold after dark.

    I put a vest on under my jacket and nitrile liners under my wool gloves, and started down the mountain.  It took me 19 minutes to cover the road that took me an hour to ascend.  I do think the cold and wind kept the traffic way down on our roads and I was especially glad for that on the steep mountain decent.  But I wasn’t glad for the decent itself because it put a deep chill into me that took me twenty miles to work out of.

    When we made our turn at Pumpkin Town, we found a nine mile stretch where the wind finally really got behind us.  I was rolling in my big gear (46X14) and had a good cadence going without much work.  I didn’t have a computer on the Red Randonneuse, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t stay above 25 miles an hour that whole stretch; even on the rollers.  It was fun.

    At the end of this stretch was a store where I stopped on the way out and again on the way back.  After riding most of the morning with John, I left him on top of Caesar’s Head because I knew he wanted to wait for Tom and Mary and I wanted to get moving after one picture of a lake and some of the other peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains that I snapped from the lookout.  I hoped they would show up at the store and they did just as I was preparing to leave with the crowd I rode in with.  So Tom, Mary, John, and I finished the ride together as we finished the 300K a month ago.  On the way in, we picked up another John, whom I also spent some time with today.  This was his first brevet and we assured him that with the climbing and the weather, it was a tough one.  You could tell that some of the first timers wondered what they’d gotten into and there were lots of comments about Holiday pounds that still want to be shed.

    In the last forty miles, we had one more good sized ridge to summit and then it was easy pedaling the rest of the way.    Sometimes we had cross wind, sometimes it was calm, and sometimes we had a tailwind, but soon enough we were at the finish.  It was just after 5:30 and we’d done over 11,000 feet of climbing on a cold windy day.  

    Bethany had asked that we bring folding chairs so we could sit around at the finish and welcome riders in.  I think most of us loaded up our bikes, said goodbye to our friends and asked what brevet was next on their schedules, stuck around long enough to wave to the next group that came in, and left.  It wasn’t visiting weather in the parking lot.