riding with dogs: Raccoon Mountain

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Raccoon Mountain

Tuesday I woke up early checked the weather radar for Chattanooga and calculated the time we had to ride at Raccoon Mountain before the thunderstorms hit. According to weather.com we had until 5pm which left Melinda and I plenty of time to drive down and ride everything. The drive down was nice and sunny and all was going well until we hit Chattanooga and a traffic jam. I should have took it as a bad sign but I like to try and think positive so we pushed on with beautiful sunny skies not knowing what was lurking on the other side of the mountain out of our view. As we drove up the mountain and located the trailhead I couldn't help but think of how great this ride was going to be especially after we just drove close to 4 hours to get there.

We unloaded the bikes and I took a couple of pics of the awesome view of the city below.

After talking to the locals about the trailmap that was dated 2007 we scouted out a good route and got geared up.

After all the trailside work at Dupont to Melinda's ancient mechanical brakes I swore I would upgrade her to some hydros. Well she looked around but could not decide on what color she wanted so here we were again adjusting her mech. brakes again at the trailhead, this time it went a little quicker so I must be getting better at it. After all the necessary repairs were made we saddled up and then it hit.

BOOM, thunder! WTF! Where did that come from?

All we could see were sunny skies but the sound came from the other side of the mountain. We never saw it coming until it was right on top of us. I made a few calls to friends and family trying figure out how long it would last hoping it was a small pop-up that would pass quickly. It was but several popped up after that and after sitting in the car for an hour we gave up and headed toward town. I must have taken the bikes off the car 3 times thinking it was done only for it to start again.

We settled for lunch at Taco Mac's, a little Tex Mex joint with awesome wings and an even better beer selection. We decided we couldn't just drive home without doing anything so we decided to hit the Aquarium.