Category: Training
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The Sleeping Giants
USGS topo map – the Sleeping Giants Annotated view of the Sleeping Giants from the Vandiver overlook at the edge of a rainstorm. Click to enlarge. It was January 2006, and Samford was having an orientation retreat up on Mount Cheaha for faculty that had started in 2005 and 2006. I had been scouring USGS…
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The path forward
This is a long post; here is the TL;DR So you may or may not know that I suspended my Facebook account, deleted my Twitter account, and also deleted my Strava account this week. This blog is intended to address some of the reasons why. I also deleted my Instagram account, but when I saw…
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2015 a year to remember
topocreator.com map showing 30,000 miles of riding in 2015. 23 states and 203 counties covered in 2015. Click to enlarge. Every January I look forward to writing this blog post with a summary of all the statistics, data, and maps from the previous year’s racing. This year’s summary took a bit longer because I wanted…
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2015 Rapha Festive 500
Post-ride 12/24 back at the house to kick off the Festive 500 with a fast century before Christmas Eve service. Mid-ride ice beard today 12/28 finishing out the Festive 500 with a 79 miler on the mtb and fat bike. Today, I finished up the Rapha Festive 500 challenge to ride 500k (310 miles) between…
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Birmingham to Nashville, 2.0
1,128 mile Nashville to Natchez to Birmingham to Nashville triangle While this ride was quite the adventure in and of itself, it was especially meaningful to me because it completed the circle (or in this case 1,128 mile “triangle”) that started two and a half years ago with the inaugural Nashville to Natchez ride put…
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Hurricane Ridge and the Olympic Peninsula
Tacoma Narrow bridge 260 miles later, much more windy this time across. Olympic Discovery Trail on my way to Port Angeles and the Hurricane Ridge climb. We are up in Tacoma, Washington visiting family for Thanksgiving, so yesterday I rode from Tacoma up through the Kitsap Peninsula onto the Olympic Peninsula, attempted to climb Hurricane…
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Everesting Clingman’s Dome
4th time at the top of Clingman's Dome. One more to go! #everesting A photo posted by Brian Toone (@kartoone76) on Nov 15, 2015 at 4:53am PST Panoramic photo from the Clingman’s Dome tower panning from northwest to the southeast with Mt Leconte prominent in the center and the Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge area to…
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Lake Martin, Auburn, Tuskegee century this weekend!
Don’t pack up your bike yet! The Alabama Backroads Century season maybe over, but there is still at least one more good century ride this year coming up in Alabama. I’m excited to be the guest speaker at a fundraiser for New Water Ministries, which is hosting a century ride (with 30, 60, and 100…
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Garmin Edge 520
“Turtles all the way down” – Garmin Edge 520, Edge 800, Edge 1000. I only gave it one ride, but the new Garmin Edge 520 is running the latest Garmin firmware design, which includes an absolutely ridiculous elevation filter. That’s disappointing, because this small GPS unit has such great potential. I wanted it to be…
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Cherokee Rock Village
Every fall for the past 10 years, we have traveled to Clemson, South Carolina for fall break. Football game on Saturday (sometimes), long ride for me on either Sunday or Monday (or both), and drive back home on Tuesday usually after visiting local apple orchards in the mountains. My bike rides over fall break have…