View from the middle of S Cove Dr shortly after the blind corner
There is a road near my house that drops 240 feet in 0.3 miles, which works out to an average gradient of 18%. Since it is relatively flat (-5% to -10%) at the top and bottom that means the middle section is well over 20% for close to 0.2 miles. They have been doing construction work on the driveway at the “commit point” of the descent so I decided to take it slow today and stop to take pictures to document the descent.
I discovered that they were doing construction work earlier this week when I came around the blind corner in the middle of the descent to come face-to-face with a cement truck backing into a driveway. Fortunately, I had also noticed pick-up trucks in the driveway visible before the corner so I had already slowed down and aborted the descent. I came around the corner, saw the cement truck and had plenty of room to maneuver around it on the wrong side of the road. If a car had been coming up the road, I would have had to scrub into the driveway under construction.
S Cove Dr elevation profile.
Before going any further, let me emphasize that this is an extremely dangerous descent. I document this to warn people that this descent should not be tried at speed, and the posted speed limit of 30mph should be observed.
Here is a blow-by-blow of the descent starting from Panorama Dr …
That is the South Cove Dr descent in pictures. I did this descent twice today – once to take the pictures, and once at normal speed. But again this descent is super dangerous. Observe the posted speed limit of 30mph and stop at the three-way stop at the bottom!
Panorama view from near Lover’s Leap on top of Bluff Park
And finally, here are some other pictures from my ride today:
- View from Altaloma looking towards my neighborhood
- This should give you an idea of the slope on S Cove Dr
- I took this picture while leaning into the sharp turn at the bottom of the downhill that leads to the middle step (shown) of the Vesclub climb
- This is the state flower of Alabama – the Oak Leaf Hydrangia
- View of Red Mountain, Birmingham, Homewood from the high point on Vestavia Dr
- View of Samford University from Vestavia Dr
- S Cove Dr elevation profile.
- Vesclub elevation profile.