Last fall, David Morgan, Paula Felix, Greg Blanks, Brenda Barnell and I traveled up to southeastern Oklahoma to ride the Talimena Scenic Byway, from Talihina, OK, to Mena, AR. It is a beautiful ride:
This is the second time that David Morgan has taken a group up there. He has a web site that describes the byway and the trip as follows:
The Talimena Scenic Byway runs from Talihina, Oklahoma. to Mena, Arkansas. It was built to show off the beauty of the Ouachita Mountains rather than be a communication route. As a result, the byway is a road that goes over peaks rather than around them. It includes the highest points found between the Rockies and Appalachians.
Talihina, at the start of the byway, is around four and a half hours from Dallas and makes an ideal location for some off-season hill training. The hills are steep and include 2 individual climbs of over 1500 feet (and we just don't get many of those in Dallas). Day 1 - Talihina to Mena is just under 60 miles and includes over 10,000 feet of climbing. Day 2 - Mena to Talihina will take a kinder and more gentle route back in anticipation of tired legs. Those who have energy still to burn, can ride the Talimena Byway or do part of it by making a short detour from the planned route [WHS note-yeah, right].
Each day we will have one vehicle running sag....
David measured 10,237 feet of ascent over the 60 mile route on a topo map. That’s why he calls this trip his “Fall Hill Camp”.
The hills are very steep, and are constant: nothing but 60 miles of hills: grinding up one side, or screaming down the other side. All you need is a 12-27 cassette in the back to do this route. Just the two gears, the 12 for screaming downhill, and the 27 for grinding uphill. All the other gears in the cassette just get in the way as you shift through them. ;-)
The other thing you need is good brakes. My bike computer, HAL, shows that at one point I was doing 47 mph downhill. I had never before had to ride the brakes to stay on the safe side of 50 mph.
HAL shows that 1,770 of that ascent occurs in the first 10 miles. When I was riding it, I thought that it had to be the worst of it. I was wrong. That works out to a grade of only 3.1%.
It got steeper. I got slower. ;-)
There was one stretch, that Brenda calls the "Switchback", of 2.9 miles, that is an unbroken ascent of 1205 feet, at a 7.9% grade, which I took at an average speed of 7.3 mph. So yes, it is possible to go that slow and not fall over.
There was another particularly difficult stretch. It was only .2 miles, but it was a 9.9% grade, which I took at an average speed of 6.3 mph. And yes, I believe that the average person can walk faster than that.
If you have any doubts that the byway is hilly, this is a profile from David Morgan’s web site:
So believe me, it’s hilly. OK? ;-)
One of the great features of the Talimena byway is that it has highways on both sides that draw away all of the traffic that only wants to take the fastest route between Talihina and Mena, as set forth on the map below:
So there is not much traffic on the byway, and that traffic that is there is generally taking it slow, enjoying the scenery. I found that while going uphill, it was best for me to look around, and enjoy the scenery. By looking left, or right, you would see beautiful views, such as this:
Or this:
I found that I never wanted to look ahead when I was going uphill, for I knew that if I did, I would see something horrible, such as this:
And by something horrible, I don’t mean the horror of being dropped by Paula. That happens all the time to me. (On the last day of Hellweek, Paula blew by me so fast that her slipstream knocked me into a ditch. Like a whirlwind.) I mean the horror of the hills that always lie ahead.
It may be hard to tell from this picture, but Paula is going uphill here, on a fairly steep incline. But if you look up ahead, where that swath is cut through the trees, you can tell that the road gets steeper. And you can tell that once you make it up that ridge, the road jogs to the right, and you have to climb again.
So I found it best not to look ahead when climbing uphill. ;-)
Our adventure started when we drove up on the Friday night after Thanksgiving, in Paula’s SUV, with our bikes mounted on a trailer. We stayed Friday night in the Kiamichi Inn in Talihina. This is what we looked like, ready for breakfast, the next morning, with our luxurious accommodations in the background:
If you notice, the others are smiling, while I am grimacing. That’s because each of them had done this before, while I had not, and they were telling me how much it was going to hurt me. They were right. ;-)
One of the attractions on the byway is the historic Queen Wilhelmina lodge, where they have an “all you can eat” desert bar for only $4.00. The lodge is 2/3 the way through the byway if you start from Talihina, and the desert bar is kind of a reward for making it that far. Below is a picture of David posing by the sign that notes that the lodge is “only” 40 miles away.
And here we are at the Queen, two-thirds of the way through our ride (note our close proximity to the desert bar, so that we didn’t have to get out of our chairs to get refills):
HAL shows that I burned up 3,780 calories riding the byway, so I figured that I could eat pretty much what I wanted.... ;-)
Just before the Queen, we had an “incident”, when David was in the drops, screaming down the backside of a hill, and his handlebars broke on one side just below the brakes. I don't know how he maintained control. He rode that way until the Queen, resting his hands on the hoods.
Just after our stop at the Queen, the hood of the broken part slid down, making his front brake inoperable. So he had to sag in the last couple of miles to Mena.
After we checked into the motel in Mena, and had dinner, David checked around for a new set of handlebars, in the only store in town that carried bikes. But that particular Wal-Mart didn't have handlebars in his size. ;-)
The next morning, we did the flat route back to Talihina, to the south of the byway. While it didn’t offer the same spectacular views as the byway, it was pretty in its own right. Note the mountains just to the right:
As David was forced to drive SAG going back, I opted to keep him company in the SAG wagon for a while. The fact that it was a crisp 26 degrees, at the start of the ride, did not influence my decision at all. ;-)
Also, someone had to be in the SAG wagon to read the map while David drove, as Paula, Brenda, and Greg got themselves hopelessly lost during the first part of the ride. They got so far off the main road that I felt that we were going back in time. I was concerned that we might get in trouble by running across somebody’s still that was making moonshine. David hit exactly the right mood by starting to hum the "Dueling Banjos" theme from the movie "Deliverance".
I finally got out and started biking. But imagine my surprise when we came to a sign that said "Talihina 11 Miles", and Greg leapt out of the saddle and started his “city limits sprint”. Now Greg is strong, but nobody can sprint for 11 miles, so after about 4 or 5 miles, he slowed down, and I caught up with him.
Greg: “What’s going on? The sign back there said ‘Talihina 1 mile’”
I about died laughing.
I think that Greg was suffering the effects of his gearing choice from the prior day. Apparently, he did not understand that there were going to be some hills on the byway, and so the largest gear on his cassette in the back was only a 25, rather than a 27. He has since said that he would not do the byway again with only a 25. But he did not say whether he would require a 27, or require a motor scooter, to do it again. ;-)
All in all, a great trip..... ;-)
Further information:
Motels:
Kiamichi Inn
Talihina OK 74571
Ph: 918-567-2243
1 King or Queen - $38.41
Sun Country Inn
Mena, AR
Toll Free Room Reservations: (877) 394-7477
King or 2 Queens - $62.00
Driving to Talihina. We went on a route that took us through Greenville (I30), Commerce(24), Paris(24) to 271.
A link for the Talimena byway:
http://asms.k12.ar.us/armem/99-00/EricksoA/Talimena.htm
David Morgan’s web page devoted to the byway:
http://home.comcast.net/~davidh.morgan/Cycling/talimenaFrame.htm
Photo credits: David Morgan, Paula Felix, Greg
Blanks, Brenda Barnell. (Everybody but me).
Other articles in the series:
Cycling in Italy by Philip Watson and Susan Medlock
Colorado Cycling - Great rides for all skill levels by Joe Rohner
From the Third Roman Empire to the Third Reich: Brittany and Normandy by Joe Rohner
10 things you always wanted to know about Ireland but were afraid to ask by Joe Rohner