Heart of the South 500

Lots of Hills, Dogs and a Raccoon

The HOS 500 was a challenge. The 504 mile course is set in the rolling hills of eastern Alabama and western Georgia. It included a total of 35,000 feet of climbing, including Fort Mountain (ala the Tour de Georgia) and Cheaha Mountain, the highest point in Alabama.


The only thing the course had more of than hills, were dogs. Everywhere there were free roaming packs of nasty Alabama dogs. They could obviously smell a Yankee and were hoping to exact some revenge for their confederate ancestors. It was only the aggressive blocking action of the follow van that prevented them from tearing off a limb or two.

As mentioned on the community form, there was also a rebel raccoon who obviously didn’t like cyclist. I am pretty sure his screech of “aaaaaaakkkkk” was the raccoon equivalent of “get out of the road you idiot.” I felt his rough fur on my ankle as I swerved and barely avoided crashing into it.



I did manage to win the race but it was not a great race for me. I had trouble staying awake and my time of 33 hours 7 minutes was much slower than the 29 hours or so I was shooting for.

For the first 300 miles I was right on schedule to reach this goal but by mile 330 I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I generally don't have any trouble riding through the night. I think there are several things that contributed to this, the race start time of 8 pm, which required riding two consecutive nights without sleep, a late night and early morning before the race and an overall high stress level. I don't want to make excuses, I wasn't prepared and that’s why I didn’t meet my goal.

As far as it being a practice run for some of my RAAM crew, this race was a smashing success. The best way to learn is by making mistakes, and they learned a lot. I had some idea of what we were in for at the first turn. They were telling me to go right, while the arrows on the road pointed left. This race was a wake up call to all, rider and crew, letting us know that we still have a lot of work to do before RAAM and we only have two month to get-er-dun (I learned that in Alabama.)

Thanks to Terry, Dave and Brian for crewing for me. I know you guys had the hardest job.

The End.