Day 3: Jasper to Roswell, 56 miles
It’s 7:30AM in Jasper, Georgia and it’s time to ride. There’s only one problem, though–it’s raining and it’s raining hard. There’s nothing more depressing than a room full of cyclists staring at the weather radar waiting out the storm. We decide on a delayed start and kill time for over an hour, waiting for a hole in the rain tog get going. Three miles into our ride, it starts pouring, so we take refuge under an awning in downtown Jasper. We stand around for almost 30 minutes, and finally get going.

Here we are with our fashionable ponchos from CVS. They kept us warm.

We are officially the last people out of Jasper. We will not be the last people to finish the ride, though. It’s pretty wet for the first 16 miles and then the sun tries to peek out while we are stopped in Ball Ground. It would have been a great 55-mile ride if we could see through the wet, but because we delayed, we stayed a lot drier than most of the riders.

Our end spot today is Roswell, which is good and bad. BRAG is spending 2 days in Roswell this year, and it’s just too close to home for us. After lunch at the Old Blind Dog restaurant (that’s the salmon BLT above), we head for home and 2 nights in our own bed. Randy and Claudia are staying at our house, and it’s great to have them with us.

Day 4: Roswell Loop Ride, 43 miles
The mayor of Roswell is a cyclist. That’s why the city has gone all-out for BRAG, with signs welcoming us, parties, and a heavy police presence to protect us. Unfortunately, a warm welcome can’t hide the fact that there is way too much traffic here and it’s really hard to ride in Roswell during a weekday. The cars are not happy that we are here and go flying by, passing dangerously and causing a lot of stress to the stokers.

Under clear skies, we do a 43-mile loop ride, which takes us on some roads that we have not been on, but still has too much traffic. BRAG is all about rural rides, and this ride is all urban. Those in charge of the ride should never take it within 40 miles of Atlanta.

Lunch after the ride is at Nine Street Kitchen in Roswell…

Dinner that night is at Cheeky, where we get to pour our own beers at their tap tables. The four of us consume about 80 ounces of beer.

In our next installment, we ride to Winder and then on to Cornelia. Stay tuned for details…

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