Rolling Party
We were in western Georgia to follow the Tour de Georgia professional bike race. We used to do this back in the early/middle 90s for the Tour DuPont in North Carolina and we were looking forward to doing it again. Our plan is to try and catch the race as it passes by in one or two spots then heading to the finish line to see the riders come in. Today’s plan was to drive south and catch them near Franklin, leapfrog around them to see a sprint in Cedartown, leapfrog again and end up in Rome for the circuit finish.
Our timing in Franklin was near perfect. We were the 4th car back when the State Troopers shut the intersection in front of us. The riders were going to the left and our escape route was back the way we came in. We got out of line and parked in a local eatery’s parking lot. Donna and I picked a good spot near the apex of the turn to watch them come around that curve. While we waited we chatted with a fellow from Rome who had talked the local paper into letting him cover the race as a freelancer. As it turned out our spot was about a 100 yards after a feed zone for the riders and after a while he headed down there to try and get a picture or two. Pro racers don’t pull into a country store and get a bottle of Gatorade like we do on a Club ride, each rider gets a bag with water bottles of water and/or fruit juice, some power bar things and/or the snacks of their choice. They ride right by, while team support members hand them a little bag while they pass. The riders then take what they want and ditch the rest. Apparently it is good fun to try and toss this stuff near spectators as they pass because they make nice souvenirs. Here I am looking through a viewfinder trying to take pictures and all of a sudden water bottles and mussets start landing around my feet with splats. I felt a little like one of those guys in those old western movies that the gunslinger fires bullets at the ground near him and says, “Dance.” We picked up three bags and about 7 water bottles to take home. After they passed we went in to Buddy’s where we parked and had some lunch. Figured that was the least we could do for parking there. Besides it would take a few minutes before the traffic would clear. Donna and I split a fried catfish dinner and it was pretty darn good.
Because we had a sit down lunch we were going to be too late for the sprint in Cedartown, so we just headed up the road to Rome. About the time we got into town, just as they were closing the streets, it started to rain lightly. The rain only slows the cyclists a bit on turns, nothing stops these guys. After zigging and zagging around the closed roads we finally made it into downtown by blind luck and ended up parking just a block or two from the finish line. There was a three lap circuit around the streets of Rome before they actually crossed the finish line, so we would get a few good chances to see the racers flash by. While we waited for the rolling party to arrive we checked out the festival area near the finish were they always have sponsor booths and a souvenir stand and of course the jumbo TV for watching highlights of yesterday’s stage. At the Tour DuPont (or France) it would have real time race coverage, but this is only the first year, maybe after this Tour is established they’ll get that too. After we watched the racers do the initial pass of the finish line, Donna and I then made our way towards the Clock Tower to see these guys struggle up a mean assed little hill that we learned about earlier. I don’t know what the grade was but it looked like a climb of about 100′ of elevation at about a 50 degree angle. These guys are awesome machines who usually average near 30 miles an hour for a 130-150 mile ride, but they were reduced to 8 or 9 MPH by this bump in the road. We even saw one rider resort to tacking up the hill like a weekend duffer.
Because it was still raining we didn’t stick around much, we just headed back to our hotel in Cartersville about 25 miles away. Fortunately the cable was back on so we could check the Weather Channel to see that tomorrow looked like a nice sunny day for the riders (and us spectators) in the mountains.
Purchased Today: $12.25 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $118.82
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 61