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Trans North Georgia Mountain Bike Adventure
Maps TNGA East TNGA Central TNGA West The maps take a while to load, they are very large. You can also make your own maps, with different background layers and details at trails.firstworks.com On the site, the route is broken up into the West, Central and East segments and also into 10 shorter segments. To view a segment of the route, click on it, then click the "show on map" link. GPX GPX files of the route are also available. If you have a Windows computer, TopoFusion can be used to upload these files into a GPS unit. See the Uploading GPS tracks to your GPS using TopoFusion for more information. Entire route: TNGA.gpx Split into separate tracks, each with fewer than 500 trackpoints:
Cue Sheets South Carolina to FS32C FS32C to Hwy 197 Hwy 197 to Robertstown Robertstown to Hatchet Creek Road Hatchet Creek Road to Shallowford Shallowford to Dyer Gap Dyer Gap to Ramhurst Ramhurst to Dug Gap Dug Gap to East Amurchee Road East Amurchee Road to Alabama Route History Prior to 2005, about once a year, somebody would post to the SORBA forum asking if there was a known, mountain-bikeable route, across the entire state, through the mountains of North Georgia. Ideas were kicked around, but nobody knew of a contiguous route. I had a rough idea though, and that year, I posted crude maps, went out exploring, updated them and posted them again, over and over. Though I didn't have a specific goal of finding such a route, I'd been making progress on one. In either '06 or '07, my progress must have caught the attention of SORBA's Robin Allen. She contacted me and charged me with the discovery and publication of this elusive route. For over a year, I did a ton of research and exploration and by December, 2007, with the help of an army of contributors, I'd come up with a route and posted much-improved maps of it. Bruce Dickman began tirelessly promoting the route and encouraging me to host an event. Between January and March of 2008, I led a series of 40'ish mile group rides from east to west along the route, skipping two long road sections and using the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial to cover that section. Dozens of people rode with us, but only myself, Russell Sandige and Travis Knight completed every stage. Norma Rainwater and Johnny Garner missed only one stage. In January, 2009 we attempted it again, this time from west to east, but I came down with a terrible GI parasite and didn't recover until after the race season had started. We only completed one stage on that attempt. In July 2009, Shey Linder, Robb Kranz and Jimbo Smart attempted a self-supported thru-ride and completed about 3/4ths of the route in 3 days before packing it in. In September 2009, I made my own feeble attempt which failed after 2 days and fewer than 100 miles. Finally, in May of 2010, Johnny Garner, Norma Rainwater and I completed the route. September 4th, 2010 at 8:20 AM, nineteen riders lined up at the South Carolina Border and began the innagural Trans North Georgia Mountain Bike Adventure. Twelve finished, all with impressive times. In 2011 we did it again but Tropical Storm Lee came smashing through on day two. The lead rider finished and the rider in second had to abandon within 20 miles of the finish. It was that bad. It was a difficult decision but I called the event. 2012 went a lot smoother and resulted in a tie between the leaders who, as crazy as it may sound, exactly tied the previous course record. David Muse |
