Bicyclists Take To Jasper’s Byways
By kim joris
Boasting a field of 165 riders of all skill levels and ages, Jasper County was host to the Red Clay Ramble gravel bike race on Saturday, June 21.
The Red Clay Ramble was founded many years ago by the late Benny Watson, a friend of mine from growing up in Milledgeville back in the 1970’s. The ramble was Benny’s brainchild to celebrate three of his favorite things: beer, cycling and good friends. What Benny started as a fun run race with routes in Baldwin County with multiple beer stops a long the way has grown into a favorite gravel ride race for cyclists.
The race is now under the umbrella of the Smalltown Gravel Race Series, a series promoted by Chainbuster Racing, a small family run business owned and operated by Dawn and Jason Chandler out of Bostwick, Ga.
The race started at 9 a.m. from Towee Street in downtown Monticello and like a swarm of bees the cyclists took over the town square, taking over the streets as they made their way out of town for the race.
The Long course had 102 registered racers and the Short course had 63 racers. Event categories included Open Ages, Masters (ages 40-49), Grand Masters (ages 50-59), Ultra Masters (ages 60+) and Hero (ages 70+). Event category break downs include coed, male and female, single speed and Para-cyclist.
The Smalltown Gravel Series is a favorite race series of the Chandlers because of its commitment to small towns and community. The series is in honor of the small towns that host the races. The races bring racers from all over to experience not only the race and the beautiful countryside surrounding them but also to experience and enjoy the local communities where the races take place.
This year’s Red Clay Ramble was the first to be held entirely in Jasper County. The decision to move the race to Jasper County for the foreseeable future was in part based on out-growing the previous space used in Hillsboro. Also, use of the parking lot at the Monticello Baptist Church provided a nice starting point and ample space for the racers. And, Jasper County is home to many dirt and gravel roads, a necessity for the gravel races.
Two of this weekend’s racers were local Jasper County residents Robert and Betty Jean Jordan. Also friends with Benny and avid cyclists, they have been Red Clay Ramble participants for many years. They welcomed the chance to help facilitate the race being in Jasper County when Chainbuster approached them.
According to Dawn, Robert pretty much single-handedly designed and created both of this year’s Red Clay Ramble race routes. This included getting permission from some generous private property landowners for the course to cross their private property in a few areas, making it possible to avoid highways in those places and making the route safer for the participants.
The maps of the routes are available on GPS and cycling and navigational app formats like Strava, Ridewithgps and GPX to help keep the racers on course. Before technology, the race routes were color coded and marked with flags. Incidents involving damage to and the movement of flags in prior races has now necessitated that all racers have access to race routes through one of the above mentioned methods.
This year’s race started downtown on Towee Street with both racers circling around the square and then heading out of town east on Eatonton Street until the course split and the racers went down the Old 212 spur and on to Jordan Road. From there the routes made their way over either 32 or 63 miles of Jasper County’s scenic gravel roads, farmland and pecan groves until the finish line back downtown.
As luck would have it, I stepped outside my house on Eatonton Street just in time to hear the sounds of the Jasper County Sheriff’s siren signifying the start of the race and to see the mass of racers make their way out of town.
And, as luck would have it a second time, I was sitting on my front porch swing as some of the racers made their way back by my house on their way to the finish line. Amidst my happily welcomed applause and shouts of encouragement to the racers as they made their way past me (one rider even shouted out, “I love you!”), I may or may not have raised a toast to them, and to Benny, with my favorite IPA.
From all accounts from Chainbuster and the weekend’s race participants, Jasper County’s first Red Clay Ramble was a huge success.
