Mike Swift (3)

Last year my buddy Buck and I committed to completing the ITT Series in 2024. We set about a training plan, equipment plan, route research and several trips to East TN to ride portions of each of these routes. The first experience that I had in the region was in Sep 2023 when we rode the Death March (DMR minus Mulberry Gap lollipop loop), at that time I stated that it was the hardest day I ever had on a bicycle!
After completing the Tellico and D130 earlier this year we had marked 28 Sep as our opportunity to complete the series. Our schedules left no room to push to the right even though there was a terrible storm that ravished much of the southeast. My story for this ride is simple, the weather was bad, the conditions were terrible, and route is extremely challenging on a good day.

Bike was my Trek Superfly 8 (2015 edition), aluminum frame hardtail with 100mm suspension up front, running Conti Terra Speed 2.2 tires. I saw several ride reports with folks on gravel bikes, it’s too rough for me on my gravel bike, I liked my MTB choice, but to each their own! I carried two bottles and camelback hydration pack. The fuel plan was 200 – 300 calories per hour with a combination of drink mix, gels and solid food.

My planning process had come to an expected ride time of 12 hours and 15 minutes plus stops. Leading up to the ride I kept hoping that I would be able to complete the ride with stops in less than 13 hours. Usually, my faffing around really adds to the elapsed time, so I’ve been conscious about “keep moving”.

With common sense completely through out the window we pushed off at about 0630, in heavy drizzle and fog under headlights and headlamps up the first climb, started down the first decent where we were met with a stream crossing through a closed road with about 10 – 12” of running water. It was up and down all morning on rutted and washed-out forestry roads with many downed trees. Water refill at Jacks Campground, filtered creek water and then pushed on to the decent into Mulberry Gap Adventure Basecamp. To this point it had rained or drizzled continuously all morning and the temperature were just low enough to have me shivering unless I was climbing. Forcing myself to continue eating and drinking we pushed on to our awaiting sack lunch at Mulberry Gap. Let me plug the operation at Mulberry Gap, I had never been there, it is a cool place that I hope to visit again one day (in the sunshine!). Kate and Andrew were welcoming and attempted encouragement while probably secretly wondering if I was insane or just stupid to be attempting this ride in these conditions.

Next up Potato Patch, with a quick selfie at the Overlook, and then on to the top. Once at the top of Potato Patch I noticed my Garmin screen had frozen up, I continued for several minutes before I realized that it wasn’t going to come back alive. I did a hard restart (held power button for 10 seconds), it came back alive, and I was on my way again, missing about 3 miles and several minutes of track but I had navigation back, thank goodness!

Not much to report all the way down to the Ranger Station other than I was getting beat to death so I stopped and let a little air out of my tires, big improvement, I had foolishly started at about 27 PSI, probably should have been more like 21 PSI for me in these conditions. At the Ranger Station I refilled all my water, forced down some more food and pushed off down Old Hwy 2 into more fog and drizzle. From here to Big Frog, I spent the time getting my mind right for what lay ahead, from the previous year’s recon ride I was gut punched with Big Frog, I remembered it as the crux of the day. Additionally, Shannon Burke had reported that Big Frog had been closed for construction and repair. When we got to the sharp right hand turn onto Big Frog we were met with a brand new road, holy smokes I thought “Big Frog” is virtually paved. Climb, climb, climb and topped out on the first half of the new road. Then the short decent down to the beginning of the second half of Big Frog, BAM – sucker, there you are! New road gone; old Big Frog was waiting for me. The 6 + inches of recent rain over the mucked-up road made several parts not rideable for me, let the slog begin. The trick is just keep moving forward and eventually you get to the other side.

Once Big Frog was completed, I felt like I had the hardest part of the day behind me, but I knew the work was not over. The last 15 miles have a couple of climbs and then a nice decent. It got dark and I was back under headlight and head lamp, was passed by a couple of Jeep Clubs who thought that we were lunatics and then at about 9:15 I spotted the lights from the Power Station. Hallelujah, I thought, that was tough!

It's Monday and I’m still smiling from the sense of accomplishment of completing the ITT Series. To many riders you can knock these out without too much preparation, but it was a big deal for me!

Lastly, I would like to thank Shannon and Kim for running the ITT site, they are awesome folks and I hope to pay forward what they’ve provided me. Also, thanks to all the Ride Reports, I reviewed each of them in preparation especially all the most recent from Albert, Chris, Jason, Matt, John and particularly Carey Lowery who apparently is a mega super star that did the DMR one day, changed clothes and did it again in reverse, holy smokes!!!!