Fried Green 50

Mississippi State had the weekend off from football Saturday, so I decided it was time to try to get myself back into some type of riding shape. As luck would have it, my friends down in the OMBA chapter of SORBA were hosting the Fried Green 50, which takes place just outside of Juliette, GA in and around the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge.

I didn't take my camera with me (Bad blogger, bad blogger), so I have managed to steal some relevant photos from other websites. The photo above comes from a blog called "The Urban Baboon".

Juliette, GA is just off I-75, about 10 miles from Forsyth. This is all just a few miles North of Macon. Juliette is famous for being home to the Whistle Stop Cafe (above photo), which was used in the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes". To trade on this single point of celebrity, the town host the "Fried Green Tomato Festival" twice a year, and the OMBA guys have started running this bike ride in connection with the festival.

The cafe really is right there in town. I would have missed it, though, but for being stopped by a train running through town on my way to the River Park, where the ride started. I noticed a lot of trains rolling through town during the few minutes I spent in the River Park, and there was even a man there with the sole responsibility of stopping traffic for the trains. Safe to say the Whistle Stop Cafe is aptly named.

Our bike ride did not interfere with the Festival, other than taking up some of their potential parking space. The ride was not a race, but it wasn't a group ride, either. OMBA had marked the course and gave us helpful laminated maps, and was supplying SAGS, but after that it we were pretty much on our own. They had some cups for us, and I tried some samples of the new endurance formula GU....all in all not a bad deal for a free ride.





The Ride started across the river from this Dam. Pretty park, good view of the River.

This photo is also from The Urban Baboon






I pulled into the river park and saw a few old friends. I parked right next to Matt and Becky Kicklighter, Mark Johnson was there, and of course Monte Marshall was kind of running the thing. Out on the ride I ran into Ed Hamilton and Jesse Dunn, two men I have raced with quite a bit in the past, and got to chit chat with them quite a bit until my lack of fitness kicked in.

The Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge is mostly a vast Pine forest, with some hardwoods, that has been used to relocate and restore several species of wildlife. It is a safe haven for all manner of birds, and one that they are particularly proud of is the Red-cocaded woodpecker.


This little endangered species lives in the pine trees, and fees off the sap. We were told we could get a free T-shirt if we got a picture of one. They shouldn't have been too hard to spot, since the trees they live in were marked with white stripes. I'm not sure if the woodpeckers themselves painted the stripes, or if that was work done by the Wildlife Refuge, but either way it seems no one was home whenever I stopped to check them out.

So, onto the ride. The Wildlife Refuge is pretty particular with access to the their land, and they have a brochure full of rules you need to follow. While they do allow bike travel on some of their roads, they clearly won't allow trails to be built, and a lot of roads are still foot travel only. Basically, keep your hands and feet in the vehicle at all times, and horseplay will not be tolerated. They obviously will not allow a race to be run, and they wouldn't even allow the course to be marked with tape or signage of any sort. This could have been problematic given the complexity of following the refuge map:



But, they did give OMBA permission to put down flour on the roads, hash style, so they could mark arrows at the intersections. OMBA did an excellent job of marking the course, and it was really tough to get lost. I thought I was lost once, but it turned out I was wrong. My friend Mark Johnson took a wrong turn, but that's probably just because he was going too fast and missed the arrows.

So, we had two rides, one 50 mile and the other a little over 30. Gravel roads and some paved road, and I had no idea how much climbing. The two routes were the same until the second sag, so I figured I would attempt the 50, and if things weren't going well at the second SAG I could bail.

I started out the ride with the lead group, and it was pretty much like a typical Georgia road ride, which quickly becomes an unofficial race. We had two pace lines chugging along the dirt roads, reaching speeds of 16mph or more, and my heartrate was out of control right off the bat. when we got to our first sustained climb, about 8 minutes into the ride, I took the opportunity to drop off the back. I didn't need to to maintain that pace.

At the 4.7 mile mark, we had to dismount and walk amost a half mile on a gravel road. This wasn't too bad, and gave us all a chance to slow down and enjoy the forest. I hate walking, though, and I definitely would prefer a re-route to skip that little section. But we all got through it okay.

I made it to the second sag in just over 2 hours. I was averaging well over 10 mph, and felt good except for the fact that I forgot to use any chamois cream. I also forgot to ask for any cream at the SAG. That honestly might have saved the rest of my ride.

I went ahead and soldiered on for the 50 miler, but within a half hour my rear was really getting sore, and my legs were incredibly fatigued. The climbing out there was all fairly moderate, but sometimes it was surprisingly steep for brief sections. Tired legs and a sore bum are not a good combination for grunting your way up steep climbs. I had also fallen into the old Winter trap of not drinking enough water. In the Summer, you sweat and get thirsty, and you will drink water every chance you get. In the Winter, you are still sweating, but you don't tend to feel the thirst so much. Sometimes you have to force yourself to keep taking in liquids, even though you're not really in the mood. I did a poor job of monitoring this situation, and 4 hours into the ride I had only downed 3 hours worth of water.

I took me an hour and half to get to the 3rd sag, which was about the 35 mile point. I was 3:45 into my ride, so I had slipped a little below my 10 mph average. The guys at the SAG assured me the last 15 miles were almost all downhill, which was not quite as big a lie as I had guessed. We still had some short, steep grunts that had my lower half griping, but for the most part it was big ring fun along flats and downhills back to the finish.

I got back in right at 5 hours. Not a very good finish time, but I had stopped to talk to some friends and to search for some of those woodpeckers. I still had just enough time to drive home, and catch the second half of the Auburn-LSU game.

I didn't get any fried green tomatoes while I was down there, though. I guess I'll have to head back sometime, and maybe take in some of the 50 mile course while I'm there.