The Cherohala Challenge started out soggy as nearly 300 riders crossed the Tail of the Dragon at about 10:00 am on Saturday. In spite of the wet conditions, cars and motorcycles shared the road and the crossing was safe.
We have the following report from event coordinators Debbie Arnett & Lois Martin:
Hello to all our motorcycle friends!
After waking up at 2:00am fretting about all the details, we started setting up at 5:30am and closed up the Tellico Plains High School at 8:00pm.
We had a GREAT event. 407 total participants, 289 on the 115-mile option, 54 on the Metric Century that went from the high school UP to Santeetlah overlook on the skyway and back down to the high school, 64 on the 50-mile option that went to the state line on River Rd passed Bald River Falls.
No crashes or major problems the whole day. Some heat stress when the Skyway turned into a shake-n-bake, but no emergencies.
Rest stop #3 at Santeetlah Baptist church was double jinxed. The pump on well at the church broke the night before! We shuttled water to them and never ran out. 2nd problem was the directional marker at the right turn onto Joyce Kilmer Rd was paved over during the week. Our awesome volunteers saw people headed to Robbinsville. They tracked them down, figured out what happened to the marker and then sat at the corner and made sure no one else missed the turn.
We'd like to thank all the motorcyclists out there yesterday for all the supportive comments, smiles, waves, and courtesy. We know there were a few delirious bicyclists out there that SHOULD have been farther to the right at times, but overall we hope that we too were courteous to everyone else.
We briefly talked to Killboy as we drove around and look forward to seeing many of his fine pictures!
The Dragon stickers that you sent us were VERY popular. They may have received more attention than the t-shirt!
Next year we plan to have better signs about there being bicycles on the Dragon during what hours. We had some signs this year but they were on cardboard and fell apart in the rain.
The first finished was Kent Bostick and another rider (who we have failed to remember his name). They covered the 115-mile course in a new fastest finish time of 5 hours 40 minutes (average ~21 mph). The rain on the Dragon slowed them down a bit....
Kent has numerous national and world records. At the age of 50-51 years old he still has top fitness. We were proud to have him at our event. And whom ever was with Kent gets equal kudos for a fine finish.
We are equally as proud of every individual who attempted the three events. It was very hot and riders really put out some incredible efforts. We are also thankful that they rode smart and kept the rubber side down on wet roads and finished safely.
Debbie & Lois
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