3 State 3 Mountain

Fiance Susan and I decided to do 3S3M in Chattanooga for a little "weekend getaway."  Travelling to Chatt and getting to the ride start late were both stressful.  During a 100 mile bike ride is not the best way to re-connect with your spouse.  Here's what we did: 

These guys are team "No Whiners" from Michigan.  Their team jerseys display pigs and their motto: "FORK MORE PORK." They have been around a long time, I used to ride with them on RAGBRAI.

Fortunately this is not as bad as it looks.  Susan was stretching her back at the rest stop.  We were both out of shape for this ride so we took it nice and slow. 

With a little goofing around, the tension started to lift and we started having fun again.

The ride offered some spectacular views.  I imagine the scenery does not get better than this unless you are in Colorado or by the ocean.

These guys were wearing the "3 Feet" jerseys.  This refers to the Tennessee law that a vehicle must give a cyclist 3 feet of clearance when passing.  Or maybe for safety you should keep 3 feet between yourself and other bike tour riders?  In any case, the roads we were on were spacious and uncrowded all day.

At the next stop I saw the most impressive "disrobing through road rash" that I had ever seen.  If you notice in this photo, this guy tore the arm off his jersey, and the side/front off his shorts.  He is actually covering his johnson with his bike-gloved-hand.  I guess you could rate this crash as Full Johnson-Baring.  He blew a front tire on a descent, and the rest-they-say-is-history.  Gods grace that his worst worries were wrecked bike clothes, road rash, and finding a sag home.  He could have hit his head and started writing a self-congratulatory race report on crashing.  The guy had ridden another 20 miles to get to this point, before he could get first aid, but they did not have emergency johnson covers here.  In this picture he is talking to his girlfriend on the cell phone so she can come pick him and and give additional, you know, first aid. 

Finally we made it to the last descent, coming down Lookout Mountain.  Awesome!  There is no feeling more fun (or more frightening) then flying down a twisty mountain road.  I realized something though; my advice on descending is correct.  I would slide my butt back on the saddle, take a deep breath, and control my speed with the front and back brake. 

Finally we made it to the finish in the impressively unimpressive time of 9:18.  We celebrated by eating some Krystal (a ride sponsor,) and being glad to still be engaged.