I love the ride!!! You need to do it!!! Good reminder, I need to look at my schedule to see if I can work it in again this year.

Great roads.... beautiful area for riding.......lightly traveled as I recall. Very well supported. A lot of tree lined shady climbs. The climbs are probably longer than what you might be used to but none of the climbs seemed very steep except for Hogpen. As I recall Hogpen averages 10% and because it's a little later in the ride it just feels a lot steeper.

If you do it be careful on the backside of Hogpen. I know of some folks that came close to 60 mph and there was some traffic on that section. I think one car even motioned for me to go ahead and go around them.

My sensation for the day was that I was either going up or going down. It just didn't feel like there were any flat roads at all. However when I looked at the metrics after the ride I think it was a pretty even 1/3 climbing, 1/3 descending and 1/3 flattish. It takes me about the same amount of time to do Six Gap as it does the Assault on Mt Mitchell but Mitchell seems harder because so much of the climbing is packed in the last 20+ miles. Six Gap the climbing is spread out pretty well so it feels like you get a little break between the climbs.

It is probably a weather dependent ride for me. It's a great ride in good weather conditions but frankly if it were raining I just don't know if I'd ride it. I wouldn't mind the climbs but the descents might be to be too much work.

Seems like they served a nice spaghetti meal afterwards.

There are also choices of shorter versions like only 3 of the climbs as I recall.

Just don't make a mistake and turn left onto Brasstown!!! 20-22% grades!!

The number of riders is HUGE, so there will always probably be someone slower and someone faster.

There is not much around Dahlonega-but a nice mountain community....One of my memories from doing the ride was it was during one of the gas shortages a few years ago. My brother and I waited at gas station after the ride for a tanker to show up just to get enough gas to get us closer to home. We lucked into another gas station at the NC/SC state line and we were able to enough gas to get us all the way back.