Fifty Plus (50+) - Allez, y'all. The Tour de Georgia is upon us!

April 21-27.
I'll miss seeing the first two stages and the final in person, but I plan to see some part of stages three through six. I am especially looking forward to the stage four Team Time Trial on the Road Atlanta race track and the climb of Brasstown Bald at the end of stage six. Unless my plans change again, I won't be riding my bike up Brasstown Bald this year. My wife and son are going to go with me to walk or shuttle up to a good viewing/partying spot. If she backs out, I'll take my bike.

Anyone else planning to go?

Since I'm playing hookie from work today to do my own riding, I presume that it would be bad to try and steal more days next week to come down there. Consider me present in spirit at least. I too would like to see the time trial at Road Atlanta. It will be interesting to see the teams come down the hill past the pits and through the corner. At that point the speeds should be fairly high.

Send us some good reports and have fun.

BTW, from what I have read, they will be running the TTT counterclockwise, the opposite direction from the way it is normally run by cars and motorcycles.

BTW, from what I have read, they will be running the TTT counterclockwise, the opposite direction from the way it is normally run by cars and motorcycles.

Well, in that case we will get to see how fast the pro's go uphill.............:)...............

I signed up for the charity ride prior to the TT stage Apr 24 at Road Atlanta. Hopefully they'll let us run clockwise; I've driven hundreds of laps on it sim racing but doing this for real this should be fun!

Several years ago, it must have been the early 80s, Kawasaki had a test ride event at Road Atlanta. You had to get a ticket from a Kawasaki dealer and you had to sign a book full of waivers and they let you test ride their bikes on the race track. They put a pro rider in the lead and one bringing up the rear of a line of most of that year's models. You couldn't pass anyone, but if you got up front, they would go as fast as you wanted. I rode the full line of Gpz sport bikes from 650 up to 1100 and the Concourse sport tourer. I couldn't believe how fast they let us go on that track, scraping pegs through the S curves and hitting upwards of 120 on the back straight. After all these years I still get a big grin when I think about it. :D

I don't think the TdG riders will quite get up to those speeds.

Here is the Jittery Joe's team test riding the TTT course. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_g3e_JRPn4)

I was hoping to come down for a day or three, but family issues have squelched my biking dreams for a bit. Please be sure to post pics & tell us everything you see! I'll be trying to watch it on WCSN.com!

For more coverage:

http://www.tourdegeorgia.com/tour-de-georgia-coverage.html

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/apr08/georgia08/

http://www.steephill.tv/2008/tour-de-georgia/

http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/TourdeGeorgia

http://www.velonews.com/article/74829

http://www.bicycle.net/category/tour-de-georgia

http://www.podiumcafe.com/story/2008/4/18/182756/700

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_Georgia

Hi Blues Dawg

I intend to see the brasstown stage as well as the Road Atlanta Stage. I live 15 minutes from Road Atlanta, I will also be in Suwanee and Gainesville. The only problem I see is that I have injured (sprained?) my achilles tendon yesterday. It is the most frustrating thing I have ever done. I am hoping to try spinning it out this afternoon on a trainer. If I can get the ache out, I will be playing hooky and riding my bike. I really need the time for me right now. I was working on a commercial project up around the Commerce Drag Raceway but they are having the nationals there next week and I will not be working around that mess. Might be a good time to play and spend time on myself.

Hey, it sounds like we have the same plan. My sister lives in Flowery Branch, so I'll stay at her house as a central base. I'll be at the finish in Gainesville Wednesday, at Road Atlanta Thursday and at the start in Suwanee Friday. Then I drive home to see my son play in a jazz band concert. Early Saturday, the family will drive up to Brasstown Bald for the queen stage. We may stop in Athens on the way home to see the Twilight Criterium. Whew! :eek:

Me(I'm 52) and garysol(he can't come on this forum because he's only 40+) will be there for some of the races and we are going to be doing brasstown sat. morning. Look for the guy on the Trek 5000 (silver,blue,black) in full disco kit (hoping it brings me luck in getting too the top).

I can't get Versus' website to load.:mad: Will the TDG be televised?

SportSouth will have daily 1/2 hour recaps each night and repeats each morning plus a preview tonight.

Versus will have a 1-1/2 hour recap on Cyclism Sunday on May 4th at 2pm EDT.

I always tell people to look for live video coverage of racing at
http://www.cyclingfans.com/
since they list it all there.

Pretty cool. I watched the whole 1st stage live on video at WCSN (http://www.wcsn.com/schedule/index.jsp?s=34009&e=2008_tour_de_georgia_sched&affiliateID=bCyclinFanTdG041808&partnerId=bCyclinFanTdG041808) while watching Lance run in the Boston Marathon on TV. All while truing some wheels.