South Carolina Climbs + Odds and Ends

Caesar’s Head Mountain

The sick bug continues to plague me. After a week of relatively heavy training, it became much worse, developing into a painfully uncomfortable cough this weekend. Rather than continuing to train and possibly making it worse, I decided to take it easy for a few days.

That gave me some time to do some catching up with the website and various other things.

The Climbs section has been updated yet again. This time I completed with the transition of the South Carolina Climbs to the new and improved format. There are now two new sections:

Columbia Climbs: I was surprised to come up with such an extensive list for Columbia. It isn’t thought of as a climbing city, but with a couple lakes and several rivers in the area, there are plenty of hills around town. Many of these hills have proven useful training for climbing in the mountains.

Greenville Climbs: The majority of these hills are in the North Greenville area up to the state line. These are more traditional, lengthy climbs that are either in, or lead up to the mountains.

There are some notable omissions. The most glaring is that Spartanburg is not mentioned. I’ve ridden plenty in the area, and know of some good hills, but the majority of the climbing near Spartanburg is shared with North Greenville, or just across the state line in the Tryon and Saluda area. At some point if I get to ride more in the city, I may make a Spartanburg section, although I expect there will be a lot of overlap.

Another omission is the far northwest corner of the state, beyond Greenville, around Clemson and Anderson. I have a few Walhalla climbs that I know from Issaqueena’s Last Ride, but the remainder of the area has not been explored. There are a couple of friends and readers in the area who have invited me up to ride. Hopefully at some point I can take them up on the offer.

Waterrock Knob

Next month I’ll be participating in the Blue Ridge Breakaway ride. It was my favorite ride in 2011, and is among my favorite events that I’ve ever attended. The organizers have offered me a handful of $10 discounts off registration through Active.com. Those interested can use the code steepclimbs at checkout to get the discount. There are only about 3-4 codes remaining, and they expire in a few days. Please either comment below or on Facebook if you use a code.

The response to the Blue Ridge Parkway trip has been tremendous. A number of you have expressed interest, and I think we are nearing a full group. If you are interested in taking one of the last couple spots, please let us know soon.

I cannot give details yet, but I’ve been asked by a couple publications to do some writing. One of them is a paid gig and feature article. I wish I could say more, but all will be revealed in time. I love to write about my hobby, so I’m pretty excited about both projects.

The weekend rest has done me good. Still probably a couple days away from resuming my training, but I should be okay for next week’s Roan Moan and the busy August schedule.