I wish that I was a creative person. I’m far too logical to be able to paint or sculpt or create my own music. Shoot, I’m even envious of the route setters at the climbing gym. I couldn’t create a decent indoor climbing route to tear my way out of a paper bag. My desire to be creative doesn’t push me to try or practice, but instead to surround myself with creative people. Ever since I was a child, my closest friends have always been musicians or artists. My best friend from college is an extremely gifted painter. My favorite group of folks to run with I call the “musicians” and they are all wildly successful at their craft. Now I know exactly what you are thinking, “Oh you just have to work at it. You can be creative, too.” Look, it’s simply not true, and I am ok with that.
Entwining Cumberland Transit into my life has come with many benefits. The foremost is the introduction to endurance sports. Without meeting some of the CT Hall of Famers, I would have never discovered that I had a knack for suffering, particularly in long-distance running. Over the years this has crossed over into cycling and rock climbing as well. With time, I discovered that within this realm, I too could be creative. Inspired by the “micro-adventure,” I’ve put together several of my own linkups including but not limited to the Warner Parks 100, The NoNo, and The Dirty Davidson. The idea is that you don’t have to travel on a plane somewhere remote to push yourself and have an adventure. You can leave your front door and do something human-powered that is just a whisper away from being impossible. Oh, and it has to have a catchy name.
Enter Andrew Drury. There weren’t many positive things that came from Covid, but one big one was pulling Andrew off the road to manage Cumberland Transit. It seems that he had been planning a micro-adventure of his own for a while without me knowing about it. One of our incredible bike shop employees Charles moved away to the cold north sooner than expected. Close to the last minute, I got the invite to take his spot, I think mostly because I had a bike and they needed someone to carry the rope. This was the first time I was introduced to the microadventure named, “Sunset by Sunset.”
Andrew is primarily a cyclist but has recently been dipping his toe into the jibs of rock climbing. So, the plan for Sunset by Sunset would be to start riding our bikes from his house in Murfreesboro continuing to Foster Falls near Sewanee to camp the first night. With an alpine start the next day we would climb at least 2 routes at 4 climbing crags riding our bikes to and from each, ending at Sunset Rock on top of Lookout Mountain by Nautical Sunset. Then we would get up the next day and ride back to Andrew’s house.
Four of us started in Andrew’s driveway, and Caz planned to join us by car that night at Foster Falls. We loaded all our camping and climbing gear onto our bikes and started pedaling east. The day was extremely pleasant and the pace was casual, only stopping at gas stations to graze among their convenient high-calorie food choices. The 80ish miles went down easy, and I think we all surprised ourselves with how quickly we got to Mont Eagle.
We set up camp and started a small fire, waiting for Caz to arrive. As we waited we somehow convinced ourselves that Caz was bringing beer and pizza. As hard as we tried to communicate telepathically, he only got the beer part and missed the pizza part. As laughing and conversation slowed, we got in our sleeping bags early in anticipation of a challenging day.
Everyone knew the schedule would be tight, so as soon as our alarms went off we jumped up and started packing our climbing gear. We decided to climb in parties of two, only taking the essentials and splitting up the shouldering of the rack and rope. Because of the exponents of hiking and biking and climbing, the choice was made to stick to easy climbing grades. Everyone completed their 2 routes at Foster Falls, and we set out for stop number 2, Denny Cove.
A treat for me, as this would be my first time climbing at Denny Cove. This was the first true transition that mattered and was the place I thought would take up the most time. Packing and unpacking the climbing gear on the bike would pose a crux because you can’t just throw your gear in the back seat and continue like you would in a car. Everything had a place and straps had to be tight to keep the load from shifting on climbs and descents.
Two more climbing routes per person down, and it was back to the bikes to hit the third crag, Castle Rock. By now it was nearing noon, we had blown through the first two crags quickly and I think it occurred to all of us that maybe we had made this micro-adventure a little too easy. As with any endurance event, these thoughts dissipated just as quickly as the morning shade. October in the southeast can be deceptive with cool nights, but very warm days. Especially when the face you are climbing is in full sun. I completely bonked at Castle Rock and only ended up climbing one route, opting to save some energy for the rest of the day.
Once back at the bike I took care to drink most of my water and eat a gel and package of cashews. All of us were rejuvenated by the cool breeze from the huge descent into Jasper. There weren’t many options available for food, so we compromised and pedaled into a Sonic Drive-In. Even though we had 3 crags down, our feelings were complicated, because it felt like we were close while simultaneously feeling like we were very far away. I chose simplicity in a large coke and large tater tots, although my adventure-mates took a much bigger gamble with their stomachs and ordered chili-dogs and cheeseburgers. We had roughly 40 miles to go that included a moderate climb that led to another fast and smooth descent which would finally spit us out at the bottom of our final approach to the top of Lookout Mountain.
It took us most of the afternoon to complete the 35 or so miles to a convenience store/ pizza place at the bottom of Lookout. At this point the Crescendo of our adventure was clearly laid out before us. To the East we could see our final long climb for the day, and to the West we could see the sun quickly retreating to the horizon, our manufactured deadline. We sat at small cafe tables outside the store taking in as much caffeine and calories as we thought our stomachs could hold for the long arduous climb to our destination. All of us were in good spirits as we crossed the busy highway to the side street that would lead us up the winding route to our last bit of rock for the day.
As we stood up out of our saddles to start the climb, it seemed it was Caz’s turn to bonk. The heat of the day combined with probably too much caffeine turned his pace into a slow one. Making progress, we were probably halfway through the climb when it became clear that we needed to split up. Andrew, Ben and Gus kicked up their pace to be able to set up the climb before the sun went all the way down. I stayed with Caz and we finally motored up the last of the steep climbing. Blood still pumping, we locked up our bikes, grabbed water bottles and what calories we had left. It was a perfect evening and the overlook near the climbing was quite crowded with folks watching the sunset. As Caz and I neared the edge, we noticed Andrew was already halfway through the last pitch of climbing for the day.
Since Andrew was the creator of the adventure, and it was his birthday, we all sacrificed our climbing for the day so that he could top out on this pitch in the nick of time before the last of the sunlight was gone. In endurance sports when you fail to meet a time goal you look back throughout the day or days and think of all the little places you could have shaved off time. With this adventure I looked back at the day thinking that we did everything flawlessly to get ourselves to this exact beautiful moment in time.
With the stoke level high after our surgical execution of the plan, we realized we still had to get ourselves down the mountain to dinner and our campsite. With our lights on and jackets zipped up we pedaled out of the dark trailhead to a 25 minute descent towards Logan’s RoadHouse (quite literally the only open option). Since it’s a chain they have to list the amount of calories on the menu for each entree. We all ordered beers and perused the menu for the items with the highest calories. The short pedal to the Racoon Mountain Campground was slow and quiet. We set up camp quickly and slept like the dead.
The next day ended up being my longest ride ever at 115 miles. I don’t know about the other guys but for me those miles went down easy while thinking about and pondering the adventure we’d completed. We rolled into Andrew’s driveway right after dark, and as with any Thienel adventure successful or not, we ended it with celebratory champagne.
Sunset by Sunset was a creative masterpiece. As with any piece of art it can be enjoyed by outsiders or even duplicated. I’m grateful that I was invited, and it has certainly inspired me to create more microadventures of my own.
