6-27-2020 Holly Shelter Race Postponed This weekend’s Holly Shelter gravel grinder race is postponed because of North Carolina group number restrictions. They are working on rescheduling.
6-26-2020 North Cooper Lake Park Closed The Skills area at the North Cooper Lake Park MTB Trails is currently closed through the first of next week. MTB Atlanta is upgrading and repairing elements of the skills park!
6-25-2020 Ian Garrison Named to Olympic Long Team USA Cycling has named Ian Garrison to the Men’s Road Olympic Long Team for Tokyo 2021. Congratulations Ian!
6-18-2020 Georgia Games From the Georgia Games: With the reopening of Georgia, we are going to host the 2020 Georgia Games CYCLING Championships competition this year. See our website for details: www.georgiagames.org. In order to host these events for the athletes, we will need to institute some changes and modifications to schedules, waivers, venue, social distancing and protective wear, etc. We will post these on our website as we get them updated. EVERYONE will be required to wear a mask or official face covering at all times except during direct competition. Trish’s Notes: The crit and TT are at West Oak in Marietta, home of the Tuesday Night Crit (TNC). The road race will be at Cass High School in White, GA (some of the Bud Plant/Sosebee Bike Park area). The dates are July 11-12. There are only 3 road events that I know of this summer, so take advantage of this one!
6-16-2020 Twice Baked Century Ride Sunday, July 19 Twice Baked is a grass-roots effort to raise awareness about mental health and the role that exercise can take in the treatment of mental illness, while raising funds to support local mental health programs. Just 38 miles west of Atlanta, Twice Baked may very well be the most well-marked course ever, with over 500 markings for the various ride options. All this with limited traffic and drivers who actually seem to like having cyclists sharing their roads!!! Ride options include 14, 28, 50, 64 and 100 miles. Rest stops are numerous and will be fully stocked with goodies in order to beat the heat. We’re moving forward while adhering to the latest COVID-19 safety guidelines. (Trish’s Note: I did this ride a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun! I hope to do it again this year. It’s for a great cause!)
6-15-2020 Black Owned Cycling Business in Atlanta Over the last week I’ve thought about what can Southeastern Cycling do? We are anti-racism, bigotry, and hate, and we want to support the cycling community. SE Cycling just pays the bills, so there isn’t thousands or even hundreds of dollars to donate to worthy causes. We are and always have been huge believers in supporting your local bike shop. I decided to publish a list of Black owned cycling businesses in the metro Atlanta area. I reached out to Shellie Dimery at Twisted Spokes Bicycles and Nedra Deadwyler oo Civil Bikes for their input and to see if this was appropriate. Below are the give businesses that are highlighted. If you know of another Black owned cycling related business, please contact me. I’ll be happy to add it! Support these great local bike shops in our community!
Twisted Spokes Bicycles in Johns Creek is a full service bike shop that also services handicapable devices such as wheelchairs, walkers, physical therapy devices, scooters and other things like strollers, etc. Among the bikes they carry are Bianchi, Marin, Rocky Mountain, Devinci, KHS and Raleigh as well as e-bikes. Brent is a former aircraft engineer and a biomed engineer, which makes him a master wheelbuilder. He can fix any mechanical problem with a bike. Twisted Spokes Bicycles is a bi-lingual shop as their 2nd level mechanic, who has been with them for 3 years, is displaced from Venezuela. During the summer they have 4 deep in the mechanic bay. Shellie, a former active duty United States Marine, is a Bianchi Dama Ambassador and Rocky Mountain Ambassador. She provides one-on-one bike instruction for both kids and adults who want to learn to ride & clinics (both road & MTB) to improve their bike handling skills as well as health & nutrition. The shop also provides maintenance classes & ride-a-longs. Shellie started bike clubs in Fulton County schools with the approval of Superintendent starting 4 years ago. TSB serves as the bike shop of choice for the credited program for Alpharetta High School’s Outdoor Academic Program. TSB sponsors JCAAM team, HOOCH Gold Card, is involved in community, safety & legislative awareness concerns regarding laws using Shellie’s knowledge & 25 year legal career. Shellie also started a Non Profit AMindful Ride, Inc. after surviving being hit by a car over 2 ½ years ago. Brent and Shellie are also race promoters and the first and only to this date to own and operate as minorities. The 3rd Coast Enduro Series was the first to bring enduro to the southeast in 2014. For those who are familiar with the Big Creek Quick Six Enduro, they are ones who do the timing and scoring every year.
Aztec Cycles in Stone Mountain can help take care of your bike needs from new bikes to repairs. They carry Fuji, KHS, and Felt. Aztec also has a mobile service that is known for rescuing riders from mechanicals at centuries and charity rides. (Trish’s Note: They saved my ride at the Covington Century last year when my tubeless tire decided to go flat.)
Clutch Bicycle Shop is owned by Kenny Oladapo. His custom BMX builds are legendary in Atlanta. He also provides full service repairs on all bikes.
Bklyn Tech Bicycles is located in Lithonia. I have not been out to this shop before but need to visit.
Civil Bikes provides bicycle and walking tours in Atlanta. They “bring attention to unseen and unheard stories about Atlanta in a unique and accessible way that creatively builds a just community and inspires action. All tours are carefully curated and provide space to build awareness, knowledge, and understanding with sensitivity and skill.” Tours cover a wide range of topics such as the Civil Rights movement and neighborhood history. Civil Bikes is not currently leading tours in light of what is happening in the streets and social media. Owner Nedra Deadwyler said “In the future, our offerings will be a better reflection our intention. Stay connected www.civilbikes.com, subscribe to our newsletter. We do accept donations through our fiscal sponsor. For purchase are our Civil Bikes and Preserve Black Space tees, 10% of proceeds are being donated to a racial justice organization, The Black Mecca Project.” (Trish’s Note: To order a t-shirt, DM Nedra Deadwyler on Facebook. Tell her you saw it on Southeastern Cycling. Tshirts are $25. They arrive this Friday, and she will ship! I ordered mine!)
6-11-2020 Chainbuster Racing News RCR Postponed From Chainbuster Racing: This morning while enroute to the Iron Maiden 24/12, we received a message from our USFS Ranger asking us to postpone Red Clay Ramble. While our local Forest Service rangers have been very optimistic and ardently working with us for the past 4 weeks, they received alternate guidelines 2 days ago from Washingtonn. While reviewing those guidelines, they came to the realization that a postponement will be necessary until we receive greater clarity on what will be required. Also, because Mulberry Mayhem and Shake N Brake are also subject to these same guidelines (which are unknown to Chainbuster at this point), we have suspended registration for those events until we have greater clarity from land management on the guidelines and potential restrictions associated with events in USFS locations. The route for Red Clay Ramble is actually on 100% county maintaining roads, so we are currently looking for a privately owned staging location. Once that is finalized, we will announce the reschedule date. On a positive note, we also received notification that Reclaimed! @ Cloudland Canyon State Park can proceed as scheduled!!!
6-10-2020 Georgia Commute Options Article I think everyone knows I have a corporate day job that I enjoy. I was recently interviewed by Georgia Commute Options about teleworking for their blog. The second part of the article will run for Biketober later this fall.
One Love Cancelled From MACC Hello Everyone, Due to the Governor of Georgia’s mandate that all gatherings of more than 25 people be prohibited unless 6-foot distance can be maintained, we will not be able to host our beloved event the One Love Century this year. The result of the Governor’s order makes it almost impossible to secure the necessary municipal and school board permits required to host our event. In the meantime, we are working with a major sponsor in the virtual cycling world to try to bring you a first-class virtual experience including racing as well as touring opportunities on the One Love elevation profile. Keep posted for further details. Stay on your bike. One Love! (Trish’s Note: This is the worst news of the week–although we totally understand. We are all sad now! One Love is one of the best rides around that benefits some great organizations.)
Allatoona Work Party From SORBA West Georgia Join us this Saturday at 9am for our first Post- COVID work party. (at Allatoona Creek Park) A lot of you have expressed interest in giving back and this is your chance. We will break into groups of ten and practice social distancing while giving back to our trails. Lunch will be provided. If we have enough folks, we would like to tackle 3 separate projects. 1. build a bog bridge between Mason’s Bridge and the Bluff. 2. rock armor the creek crossing on Driftwood. 3. fine tune flow and finishing work on the Mason’s Bridge reroute.
6-6-2020 Centuries Cancelled Last week both the Covington Century and the Tony Serrano Century were cancelled for 2021. The promoters said they would be in contact with those that pre-registered.
Group Rides Some group rides in the Atlanta suburbs have started up again. Please use your best judgement if you choose to attend. Follow the ride leaders in keeping groups small, social distancing, and doing any nose blowing/couching/hacking off the back of the pack. I’m not going to update every ride as there are too many to keep up with–check with your favorite ride to see if it’s back on. I haven’t heard of any group rides ITP being ridden officially.
Gone Riding Cancels SERC and GCS From Gone Riding Update: Good News…racing will be returning in July (please check our 2020 schedule for the latest). However there are some new rules and procedures so please check each event page for the details including the social distancing requirements. *GSC / SERC update: Due to the safety concerns, the timing and the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic plus the limited amount of available event dates left on our calendar this year, the window of opportunity has unfortunately closed for Gone Riding to successfully produce both a meaningful and quality race series that are the 2020 Georgia State Championship series and the 2020 South Eastern Regional Championship series, therefore both of these series will be not be held this year but will be returning in 2021.
6-4-2020 Tour of North Georgia From TopView Sports After much deliberation and planning we are finally ready to announce the return of BIKE RACING. We are proud to announce that TONGA (Tour of North Georgia) is now a 2 event Omnium spread over two months. With so many national events cancelled this is the only 2 weekend, 8 race omnium in the country at the moment. TONGA Part 1 will be held on June 26-28 and Part 2 will be on July 24-26. Part 1 will include the Demorest Elementary Criterium on Friday evening. The Rock Springs Baptist RR and TT on Saturday and the North Georgia Tech RR (Oakey Mtn. RR) on Sunday.
The July event(Part 2) will have the same Friday and Saturday but the Sunday course will be the same as last year’s TONGA from the Habersham High School. We will do our best to keep everyone safe during these crazy times but we do ask that if you are sick please stay home. If you are uncomfortable with the small crowd of a bike race then please stay home. We can assure you that there will be less people at the bike race than at any given Walmart. We will need to enforce field limits of 50 riders per field. So that means only 50 masters, 50 pro 1-3, 50 cat 4-5 etc. This is just so we can keep the event safer during this time. Please register early and don’t wait until gameday or you may miss the boat. There is a plan to offer an overflow field ONLY if the fields fill on the currently offered categories. We also ask that you be patient with us during this restart to the season. We know that not everyone will agree and that’s ok, but please keep those comments to yourself. Like your momma said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.
6-2-2020 New Women’s Everlasting Record on Hogpen Gap From Velonews “On Sunday, Lauren De Crescenzo set a new Everesting world record with a time of 9:57:29. A week before that, the former pro and current research fellow at the Center’s for Disease Control (CDC) ended a 60-day COVID-19 emergency response deployment. For now, in the hours after her 29, 777-foot attempt (yes, she went over the 29,029 requirement), Everesting takes the cake in terms of difficult life experiences.
De Crescenzo and her fiancee Jim used the Hog Pen Gap climb, two hours outside of Atlanta, Georgia for their attempts. The segment measures 2.1 miles, averages 9.8 percent grade, and perhaps most importantly, is very straight. De Crescenzo says that she averaged 45 – 50 mph on the descent. After 24 laps, she’d broken Katie Hall’s record. The extra half lap was to make up for GPS discrepancy. De Crescenzo credits both Hall and Ruth Winder for blazing the trail and providing some good teaching points re: Everesting.”
6-1-2020 Track Removal on SCT Extension Started From the Cobb County Courier: “An eastward expansion of the beloved Silver Comet Trail is now underway in earnest, with former CSX Corp. rail tracks being removed on a 2.3-mile extension that will take the trail inside the I-285 perimeter for the first time.
“We’ll make this the best part of the Silver Comet yet,” said Ed McBrayer, executive director of the PATH Foundation, an organization hat builds trails throughout metro Atlanta. “We hope to be under construction by the end of the year.”…… Track removal for the current extension began at the south end and is moving north. From there, Cobb County will survey the corridor and PATH will begin design work this fall, with construction beginning soon after. McBrayer said the new portion will be 14 feet wide, which is two feet wider than the rest of the Silver Comet Trail.
Blanket’s Creek Dirty 30/15 From Mountain Goat Adventures: I FINALLY have some GOOD news to report! We have spoken with Cherokee County and we are being allowed to proceed with the June 27th event at Blankets Creek provided we maintain social distancing and safety guidelines as outlined in the Georgia Governor’s latest Executive Order.
We are committed to providing a safe environment for our participants and event staff, so this means we will have a lot of operational changes which will be communicated to you all as we get closer to the race – but here are some of the major changes to expect (full details specific to each venue will come out in your racer update about a week before each event):
▪ Event sizes limited to avoid over-crowding on trails and at venue
▪ No mass start – participants will be given a pre-assigned start time between 11 am – 12 noon based on category, with roughly 5 riders per start wave. No parking lot loop at start.
▪ No pre-race group meeting – this information will be sent via email before the race. Any last minute additions will be posted at check-in so you can photograph and read back at your car.
▪ Early Thursday night check-in still available – at an outdoor location staffed by me, location TBD. If you check in early, you can just show up and go straight to the start line at your start time.
▪Socially distanced and contactless Saturday check-in (waivers should be filled out at home, 10′ spacing between tables and people in line, only one person per check-in station at a time, 10′ line spacing, masked check-in staff, hand sanitizer available)
▪30 Mile Riders may pre-place bottles/coolers/etc in the skills yard for use before their second lap. 15 Mile Riders need to be self sufficient as there is no aid station on the 15 mile course. A Hammer Gel and Fizz will be included in your race packet.
▪Results will be uploaded to an external website, so you can view them on your mobile device from your car or elsewhere at the venue.
▪No group awards ceremony – prizes for top 3 in each category can be picked up individually at a given time at the event.
▪We strongly suggest wearing a face covering to pick up your race packet, however you are not required to wear a face covering while exercising outdoors.
NO RACE DAY REGISTRATION AT THIS EVENT – YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER – APPROX 50 SPOTS AVAILABLE
15 and 30 mile courses available – each lap is approximately 15 miles and includes most of the trails at Blankets Creek. All non-virtual riders receive a super comfy tri-blend event shirt and pint glass. Prizes and Medals for the top 3 in each category. We have also added a VIRTUAL category to each event, so if you are not comfortable coming out on race day, but you would like to support the event, you can register in the virtual category and ride the course at any time up until the race date and submit your time. We will mail you your race bib and and t-shirt after the event. There are no prizes/medals for the virtual race, but an overall finish list will be posted. We strive to provide a safe and comfortable environment for all of our crew and participants, but any activity in the presence of other humans presents a potential risk of being infected with COVID-19. If you are the least bit hesitant to come out, are sick or showing signs of sickness or illness (running a fever over 100.4 F, having a cough or shortness of breath, have been diagnosed with COVID-19, had symptoms of COVID-19) or come in contact with a person that has or is suspected of having COVID-19, please sit this one out – there will be other races we’d love to see you healthy at! We hope you all are excited to get the competitive juices flowing again and hope that these events will provide some motivation to keep staying active. We miss seeing everyone and are looking forward to being together again – while maintaining a safe distance – at these upcoming events : )
5-29-2020 Silver Comet Restsooms (Said in my best deep voice) …AND WITH THAT COBB COUNTY HATH SPOKEN! BATHROOMS AND FACILITIES WILL REOPEN JUNE 1. What does that mean? Bathrooms along the SCT will reopen Monday, June 1. Restrooms in Paulding County are open at Tara Drummond but still closed at the Caboose. Trees are abundant–watch out for snakes and poison ivy.
5-23-2020 AP Challenge Bike Ride From the promoter: Join us for the upcoming AP Challenge Bike Ride on Saturday, August 15th! Bike Ride Registration begins at 6:45 AM & Bike Ride starts promptly at 8 AM. The meeting place is Assembly of Praise @ Lula. The scenic route will take cyclists through the wondrous landscapes including Apple Pie Ridge. The route options include the 20 mile, 50 mile, and the metric century. All routes are well marked with SAG vehicle support and have well stocked rest stops. Registrants also receive a delicious post-ride meal. Early registrants receive a free T-shirt and discounted registration fee of $35 if registration is completed by August 1st! (Registration/Event Waiver forms along with payment are needed for application process to be complete.) We look forward to meeting you at the AP Challenge Bike Ride and we are thankful in advance for your help with this most worthwhile cause. If you have questions about registration or would like to make a non-taxable donation to the AP Challenge Bike Ride, ple]
MTB Time Trial Series at Road Atlanta Come support our local middle and high school Georgia League mountain bike teams every Tuesday evening in June. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to ride the private Fox RaceFace XC Course at Road Atlanta which is only open to the public a few times a year. This is a 4 race series in June with an overall championship on June 30. See more information here.
5-22-2020 Calendar Updates I’m putting the races back up at the top of the page. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE PROMOTER TO MAKE SURE THE RACE IS STILL HAPPENING. I’m trying to keep everything updated, but things change daily. All calendars are updated for the June races as of today. I’ll start updating July in a few days.
