Skyway Epic 2025

For many years I’ve viewed cycling as a time machine, but that view has always been external … the awe and excitement of finding cool, old, abandoned long forgotten things like roads and bridges sometimes in the middle of nowhere and sometimes in the middle of chaos and modern mostly unsustainable infrastructure. One thing that brings me to both happy and sad tears on this fine Sunday morning the day after Skyway is realizing that cycling is also a time machine into my own past. Nothing exemplifies that more than the Skyway Epic.

Happy tears for the memories, the experiences, and the adventures that are all wrapped into the skyway – the people, the lake, the forest, the skyway, and the event itself. But also sad tears this morning seeing on Facebook news of two cyclists in Georgia killed by motorists over the weekend, likely while we were racing. On the way to/from the skyway this year and every year for the past eight years after getting hit, I bike near the spot on County Road 55 where by a miracle I survived being hit by a motorist at full speed.

I’m sure people wonder why I ride to/from these races. I ride for the people who can no longer ride. I’ve made a decision that when I am able, come what may, I will take my time and ride my bike and keep one less vehicle off the road.

This year’s race: presented by BUMP and timed by Chainbusters

Shout out to BUMP for picking up this race and making sure it survives both this year and next year (I’m already signed up for the 2026 edition!). Another huge shout out to Chainbusters for putting on a great event. And a huge thank you to all the volunteers with BUMP, COGS, and Stephen Peters and Seana Hogan with the Ol’ Green Gable.

I left around 430am trying to wait out one storm but deciding it was time to leave or I would not make it in time. So I got soaked as I was leaving town. It dried out pretty quick as I made my way down a surprisingly busy US-280 so early on a Saturday morning.

Nice tailwind helped me make good time without having to ride too hard. I made it to the registration area by 7:40, about 20 minutes before the start. I left my bag full of stuff I needed for the commute but not for the race with Dawn, and put the number plate on my bike.

I biked up and over the hill to get to the start area by the dam in time for the pre-race announcements. My tradition has always been to attack hard and try to carry myself through the single track with the front group. This worked well except everything was so wet from the rain in the morning that I nearly wiped out on the very first root after entering the singletrack. This put me into way too cautious of a mode to keep up with the front riders so I pulled over to let about 10 people pass.

I decided to take it much easier than normal through the singletrack and focus on staying upright and conserving energy. This worked out well as I started catching, passing, and dropping people on Wiregrass and the climb up Bull’s Gap because I still had plenty of energy. One of the people I passed was former winner Jack White who had flatted and was carefully riding it up the hill to the aid station to get help. I felt bad and didn’t realize it would be a foreshadowing of what lay ahead for me.

I had gone through all of one bottle and most of another, so I stopped for a bottle refill at that first aid station before finishing the climb up to the top of the Skyway. I caught and passed several more people on the climb, including one person about 100 meters before the top. I hit it hard while passing to open up a gap since I knew I would be taking the first descent slowly, which I did. Nothing major happened on all the drops on the descent and I thought I took a decent enough line. But I made it past the big mud puddles in the basin and had started up the climb to the second high point on the skyway when I noticed my rear wheel felt squishy.

I looked down and sure enough there was sealant spewing out and the tire was nearly flat. It wasn’t completely flat, though, so I hoped I could spin the tire around and get it to seal. But it wasn’t to be, and I didn’t have any tire plugs with me. I resigned to putting a tube in, which I was very doubtful would be able to hold for the entire race with its thorns in a few places and so many pinch-flatting rocks on the Skyway.

Putting in a tube started out very badly with me not being able to use my little allen wrench multi-tool to get the skewer out of the wheel. I ended up having to really grin and bear it thinking I was going to break the wrench to eventually get it to turn. Then once I had the wheel off, I couldn’t break the seal from the tubeless tire. I ended up having to carefully hold the wheel just off the ground in one spot and then stand directly on the tire to get enough force to pop the tire bead into the center of the rim breaking the seal. There was still a ton of sealant in the tire, so I figured maybe I could get the tube in and basically reseal the tire, but I ended up forgetting to put the nut back onto the valve stem so sealant continued to leak out for a while before that eventually sealed. I pumped forever hoping to get it up to a high enough pressure to avoid pinch flatting the tube. I even heard the tire bead pop into place so that’s when I decided it was good enough.

While I was getting the tire changed, many people passed me and checked if I needed anything. One of the last people to pass me before I finally got the wheel back onto the bike was the legend Hardwick Gregg who I believe is tied with me for doing the most skyway’s. I think we have both done all but one. The one I missed was the 2014 skyway the weekend after I got hit by a car and spent the entire week prior in the hospital. I believe he did the race that year but missed a different year? In any case, I was just about wrapped up when he passed. He asked if I was good. I said “yep, just finishing up now, hope to see you soon”. But I would not see him until the final singletrack about 30 miles later! I was riding pretty hard but extra cautious on all the descents. I kept expecting the tube to pinch or puncture at any moment.

But amazingly, the tube held the rest of the race! Since this was an out/back course I could see eventual winner Eric Nelson heading back while I still had a good solid 5 miles left to get to the turnaround (10 miles ahead!). When I finally made it to the aid station, I was able to get a floor pump and discover that I had managed to pump the rear tire up to 25 psi with my little hand pump. I was kinda proud of that, and it might explain why I was able to ride all the rocks on the skyway without flatting again. Wanting to be extra cautious, I pumped up the rear tire further to 30 psi, got my bottles refilled and grabbed some food for the ride back. I had two full bottles and didn’t end up stopping at either of the aid stations on the way back. I ran out of water during the singletrack, though, and was fighting off cramps.

I had skipped the Bull’s Gap aid station on the downhill because I still had more than a bottle left. I planned to keep a steady pace, but then caught a few people from the 60 mile race who ended up catching back up to me. I decided to really put the hammer down and ended up skipping the final aid station at the entrance of the singletrack, too. By this point I was also catching and passing a lot of 40 mile riders. Then I saw Hardwick up ahead! I had finally caught back up, and almost immediately after he let me around I cramped hard out of nowhere. Thankfully it was at a downhill part of a trail so I was able to stop pedaling and let the cramp relax by the time I needed to pedal again. This was near the beginning of the singletrack, so I had about 10 miles to try to keep the cramp at bay while riding fast enough to stay away from the 60 milers I assumed would be catching back up to me.

The best thing for me with cramps is trying to relax and enter a zen, low effort state. I knew the best way to do that while maintaining as fast as possible speed was to try to do minimum braking. Every time I was tempted to pedal a few hard pedal strokes I would instead soft pedal and take the inevitable upcoming turn with as much speed as I possibly could. Still, with 30psi in the back and all the loose leaves, it was a challenge and I still goofed up a lot of turns. I ended up with only one more full leg lock up cramp. Thankfully that happened right as a rider was about to catch and pass me, and I had been struggling with shifting which had gradually been getting worse and worse. I was planning on investigating it when I got the cramp. So I stopped and propped my bike up, immediately saw the problem as my rear wheel was practically falling out of the bike with the thru axle completely loose and sticking out a good centimeter from the dropout!

My tiny little multi-tool for loosening the skewer had not been enough torque to keep the axel in place given how rough the course is on the skyway. I’m just lucky that the skewer stayed in place on the fast descent of Rocky Mountain Church Road!

A few quick and HARD turns of the allen wrench and I was back on my way with shifting that finally made sense again. I think I passed a few more people through the rest of the singletrack but nobody else caught me. I knew I was probably in the top 15, but surprised to find I had worked my way up into 10th overall and 2nd in my age category (40-49).

The pilgrimage back home

Knowing traffic would be busy in the afternoon, I had routed myself home on a route almost 10 miles longer than the one I used on the way down taking me up and over Vandiver. But I was too tired and a bit worried about the rabbits back at the house home alone since 4:30am with my wife out of town. So I decided to just head straight back up 280, the shortest route possible.

Traffic was bad, but the shoulder between Childersburg and Harpersville is awesome and nearly completely debris-free. You lose the should entirely, though, in Harpersville. So I tried to time the packs of cars and got it almost right (but not quite) for the mile and a half stretch through town with no shoulder. At the end of this stretch just before the US-231/AL-25 traffic light, there was a rider on a horse waiting to cross Highway 280 leaving the Jack’s parking lot. It made me smile.

Traffic really was bad, though, so I decided to take Old-280 in all the spots up to Chelsea and even past Chelsea with the climb up the Narrows. It was kinda quiet, but arguably just as dangerous given the narrow twisty roads. Still, society thinks that way is safer, so it’s the way I went. Also, it does get stressful getting passed by so many cars on Hwy 280 even if you know the odds of getting hit are smaller.

Thankfully, I lucked out on the Old 280 climb with nine good drivers who passed me on the long gradual climb before turning back onto 280 to finish the climb up and over Oak Mountain at Highland Lakes. I finished the climb in the thick gravel that lines only the westbound side of the highway from Chelsea all the way to the top of the mountain. The eastbound side has NONE of the gravel even though the road was also repaved at the same time as the westbound side. It’s super weird, and I do wonder if it was some sort of mistake / miscommunication with whoever was doing the repaving.

Originally I had planned to cut through Meadowbrook instead of taking 280 back to Cahaba River road, but traffic was actually heavy enough that it wasn’t too dangerous to just ride along with them on 280, and it would save me several steep hills through Meadowbrook. It’s mostly downhill to the river, and I was able to time the lights to get into the left turn lane to get over to Cahaba River Road. After that, it was just a short, pleasant, bike-friendly stroll down Acton Road (j/k, it’s not bike friendly … at all).

About that time machine

As it turns out, I never wrote about the 2024 race on my blog except for a short Facebook/Instagram post. So here is a copy/paste of that post:

What an adventure! The skyway has so much history. In the middle of the race is Horn Mountain. At just over 1900 feet (2000 if you climb the tower), this is the highest point in Talladega County. The skyway motorway used to be a well maintained road you could take up to the tower. There are sheltered picnic tables up there. To me, riding a bicycle is a time machine. The roads, trails, single track, and even the crazy stuff I find while bushwhacking through the woods tells me that I am part of a story of people who have all experienced something akin to what I’m experiencing at that moment in the here and now. The skyway epic mountain bike race has now well cemented itself into the history, too. Yesterday’s skyway, like them all, was epic. With recent rains, the mud holes up on the skyway were reminiscent of the early skyways. @ordinaryepics has done a fantastic job of carrying on the amazing tradition launched by Brent Marshall 13 years ago. I biked to/from the start which is now part of my own personal tradition and was happy to finish 6th overall, 2nd masters in the 100 miler. I borrowed @_.toone._ epic pro and loved the suspension on it. I also wore his helmet and his old camelbak during the race. The commute back home way tough. I made it home at least in part because of the Coosa Mart gas station stop where I could just relax at a table and give my body a chance to rest. Until next year, I will see you all out there on the skyway!

And older posts

2023 Skyway Epic

Skyway Epic 2022 – 10 years of Skyway

Skyway Epic 2019 and 2018

2017 Skyway Epic 200 Mile Race (Report)

Epic Skyway Epic

A few pics from the day