Ring of Fire

I designed a 200K permanent over two years ago named Brimstone Creek. Technically, nobody has ever ridden it.

We tried. Right after RUSA approved it we went out to Cookeville, TN, to ride it, but the bridge was out and we had to take an alternative way. We got credit for it, but were not able to do it as designed.

When we moved back here from Florida in September, I looked at the Tennessee Department of Transportation website and saw that the bridge was due to be completed in October. Since the long section of gravel makes this a permanent best done with a long day -- plus the fact that all of the tree canopy makes it best on a warm day -- I decided to wait until Spring.

But Spring has been slow to come this year, and very wet. It finally got warm enough this past weekend, and the early weather report called for a fairly dry Sunday, so Jeff Bauer, Alan Gosart, and I drove out to Cookeville again early that morning.

And Spring decided to be wet again.

But, hey, we're flexible. We decided to start a little later than 7 am, and went to get breakfast. Still raining, we dawdled for a while over coffee. When it was still raining at 8:30 am, we decided that maybe we should test-ride another route that I've been mulling ...

The Ring of Fire Populaire.

Basically, it's just the middle 65 miles of the Brimstone Creek 200K. I'm going to call it Ring of Fire because there are a bunch of signs that Tennessee put up on the major roads of the route saying that you are now on the Ring of Fire trail ... whatever the heck that is.

We drove up to Gainesboro, parking at the grocery store there, and then headed onto the route. It was still drizzling on us as we turned on Big Bottom Road -- which is nice, quiet, and paved. You know that the road has turned into Brimstone Creek when the pavement ends.

Still, it was pretty smooth and mostly rut-free stuff -- what my Dad used to call "crusher run." We slowed down a bunch, since there was enough loose stuff to mess you up. And the road, itself, messed us up (I now have a filthy bike that I've got to clean some day this week).

Best of all, when we got to the bridge ... well, there was a bridge again.

It even had already been decorated.

So, for the first time in over two years, we were able to ride Brimstone Creek Road all the way up to where the pavement comes back. The pavement celebrates its return by kicking up its heels ... with a really nasty climb.

We stopped briefly at the little store in Moss, TN, then made fast work of the stretch down to Celina. From there, we headed east on Highway 52. This road has seen some huge changes since the last time we went this way.

What you can't see here is that this spot is just past another tough little climb. I think that this new section will eventually connect up to Celina, so we could come up this way instead. Sure, it's a four-lane, but the shoulder is huge, smooth, and has no rumble strips. If they keep it that way, and if the grade down is as gradual here as it seems, this will make this route a piece of cake.

Eventually, we turn off Highway 52 and go into Standing Stone State Park. The road through here is quiet, but has a quick little downhill followed by another tough climb. The up and down kind of continues through the park and the farms beyond, until you get to the control at the little store in Hilham ...

Which was closed.

Everybody there now has to go to the WalMart in Livingston. Apparently, that's the American Way.

TdF (Tour de Flood)

There's a wonderful thing that can happen sometimes when you go out for a long ride on a crappy-looking day, knowing that you're just out there to slog through some miles and keep a little tone in your legs: You set the expectations for the day so low that you are almost bound to exceed them.

It rained all day Saturday. A lot. I'm talking flooded streets, leaky basements, and some really nasty chafe for the folks doing the Music City Marathon in downtown Nashville. It slacked during the afternoon, then came back for one last blast during the wee hours Sunday morning.

But RandoGirl and I needed to ride, so about 9 am we headed out into the cool, cloudy, ominous day. We weren't even able to head out via our usual route, since it was flooded, and instead had to go down busier Southall Road to Leiper's Fork. Along the way, we saw this.

That's the Harpeth River. It's usually not that wide there. In fact, it got so wide there that it turned the field next to it into a lake.

A little closer to Leiper's Fork, it had apparently been higher earlier.

But the river had returned to it's almost-normal size when we got there after 9 am.

So, we're riding on these wet roads, worried about some of them being closed, and RandoGirl has a good idea: Let's take the Trace down, instead. One good thing about the Natchez Trace is that, since it's a very well-made Federal road, it drains well and they've built it up to avoid flood-prone areas. It was, indeed, a much drier road for us to take, and the sun even came out once or twice on the way to Hwy 7 and the store in Fly.

We had a candy bar and filled bottles, then got on Leiper's Creek Road heading towards Watertown.

Leiper's Creek itself was also pretty high, but wasn't flooding. Watertown looked ... well, watery.

 

RandoGirl, on the other hand, looked spiffy on her new Specialized Ruby.

The wind had come up by then. It was blowing the clouds away, but made it tough to go southwest. Fortunately, at this point we were able to turn east on Water Valley Road and climb up and over the ridge to Santa Fe with the wind almost at our backs.

We stopped in the market there for another candy bar and more drinks, then worked our way over some hills to the end of Dark's Mill Road. All of the creeks down that way are normally pretty quiet, and seemed to be doing fine. We took the long climb up Theta Pike, and then down again to Knob Creek Road.

Knob Creek itself was up, but was staying away from the nice smooth fresh pavement.

A warning to whoever buys that hay: It may be a little wet.

Even Theta, at the top of Knob Creek, had a bunch of leftover water.

We came down Sulphur Springs Branch Road. The branch was washing over the top of this fellow's driveway ... but just barely.

A little ways past this, the storm had blown a tree down. It was only blocking one lane, however, and Sulphur Springs Branch Road is so quiet that we had no trouble getting by.

Back on Leiper's Creek Road, we had our miles in and the wind was behind us. We quickly zipped northeast on the fairly flat (and dry) road, stopping at Puckett's for lunch. A band named Local Reverb was playing inside, and we listed to them for almost an hour while we got our food and ate. They seemed to be able to play almost anything from Glen Campbell to surf music, and were another example of the incredible wealth of musical talent available in this town.

We still had chores to do back home, unfortunately, so we got on our bikes to ride the short two miles to our house. Along the way, we found that the Harpeth River was still up.

About half a mile further down, we came across a half-dozen cyclists from New York and Seattle, WA. They were finishing up a tour that they had begun in Natchez, staying in hotels as they biked up the Trace, and were on their way to the end of their tour in Franklin.

We apologized for not having better weather, but they didn't seem to mind it a bit. They'd apparently had a great trip, and loved the beautiful scenery and fabulous roads. And, the more that RandoGirl and I thought about it, the more we realized that they were right ... we live in the middle of cycling heaven.

Sometimes it just takes a low-expectation ride on a dreary day to make you realize how good you've got it.