Athens has a lot of dirt to offer the intrepid bike rider. If you head south or east, there’s all the dirt a person cares to handle. If I ever bought the huge, detailed map I always say I will, put it up on the wall, and highlight the dirt in red…there’d be a lot of red.

When I first started riding the dirt, I was on 20c tires, eventually 23s. Flats were a constant companion. It didn’t deter us in the slightest, but there was always the great encouragement provided by the imminent threat of flats to take it very easy on the downhills. It’s a fact - research says that 95% of all flats with road bikes on dirt come from going too fast downhill (well, my research).

We had a new weapon though - Cervelo’s new C5. It’s billed as an adventure/endurance bike. It’s light, stiff, hydro disc, smoooooooth, and it enables us to do things we otherwise wouldn’t do on dirt - ride without a care in the world. No more caution, just carefree enjoyment on my dream roads. The bike is lovely on paved roads, but it comes alive in a huge way when sun-beaten gray asphalt turns to red and orange hard-pack dirt, and the pebbles crunch beneath our wheels.

Armed with this new magic bullet, Thomas and I had two goals:

1. Ride as much dirt as possible in as short of a period as possible. We worked out a solid stretch of dirt that lasted 25 miles.

2. As with all the best rides around here, the lunch stop was of paramount importance - only slightly less critical than the route itself. A little Google searching, a little Yelping, a little more reading, and we had ourselves a lunch stop worth looking forward to: CJ’s Barbecue in Woodville.

The plan was simple, the route was sound, and the weather smiled on us.

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First Ever, Fifth Annual.

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April 14th, 2017

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Or as the purists call it, Gent-Gent.

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