March 7-13

This year I took a jaunt with the UMN cycling team down to Knoxville, TN to go and ride road and gravel in the Smokey Mountains. We had about 5 days of riding tentatively planned during our week off in March but trips like this happen how they want to happen and the itinerary is always just a touch too ambitious.

The drive to get down to Knoxville from Minneapolis is 13-14 hours at best and in order to stay in daylight for as long as possible we left at 5:30AM from campus. Our caravan consisted of a Hyundai Sedan and a F-250 pulling a 25ft trailer full of bikes. I happened to be in the truck and quickly realized that I was going to have to drive with a trailer for the first time on this trip. In classic Minnesota fashion it snowed till we got halfway through Wisconsin. The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful but driving with a trailer through cities and the windy plains was a white knuckle experience for sure.

Once we actually got to our hotel and started riding the trip was absolutely amazing. The roads down there never get snow so they’re perfect year round and the climbs are just made for me. ~20 minute efforts with steep gradients and lots and lots of switchbacks. There’s something in the feeling of just rocking back and forth, dancing on the pedals up these climbs that I dream about back home in flat ole’ Minnesota.

The mountain biker in me loves the way down just as much. On our biggest day, we rode all the way from our hotel to a road called Tail of the Dragon. The car enthusiasts will recognize this one but for those who are unfamiliar, it is an 11 mile stretch of road that goes across the TN/NC border with perfectly smooth pavement and over 300 curves. Because of this, fast cars and motorcycles rip on it pretty regularly during the summer and it’s a bucket list item to drive it for many. But we rode it before the tourism boom kicked off and it was an absolute blast to ride. The climb to get back home after already being 4 hours in was not.

We also went and did a waterfall hike and subsequent ride in Smoky Mountains National Park. I brought my camera on the hike and took photos of the rest of the team.

All in all, a great trip and certainly one I will cherish for a long while. Let’s hit it hard in spring.