Today was the maiden voyage of the Chiltauga 65 route. Josh and Rick showed up to ride it with me. It was a chilly 38 at the start, but it wasn’t humid so when my broken vest zipper got really broken, I went with just a wind shirt, jersey, arm warmers and thermal bibs. That was perfect. Josh and Rick both had winter jackets on, not expecting it to get to 57 by the end.

This is a great new route for starting in Chilton County between the Isabella Red Heifer route and Jimmy Smith’s Redneck Boulevard.

The usual hard pack red clay was all over, but there was a lot of surface mixture. The west side of Chilton and Autauga have a lot more sand mixed in with the clay, think Marbury or Standard Deluxe. Today we watched a lot of roads go from red to white as the sun and the wind dried them out. Most of the roads went from super tacky to having about a ¼” layer of sand on them, exposing pea sized gravel and going from super-fast to a tiny noticeable drag.

What makes this route stand out from all of the other routes is the scenery. Barns, tons of horses, cows, wide open views, there’s a couple of really nice panoramic scenes. There are a lot of climbs on this route, but the elevation is not that bad. Most of them are long gradual climbs, but that means there are a ton of long gradual descents that are very rewarding. There are some great speed zones on this one.

This route is likely to be very different based on the weather. If you rode it during a drought, it would be very sandy. However it drains incredibly well, so 1 day after a lot of rain is a perfect time to ride it. You might see some puddles, but there will be no mud and the hard pack red clay will feel faster than slick tires on asphalt.

I finalized the Chiltauga 75/65/58mi routes, we found some water spigots. Any routes I share are free to all, can’t take credit for these roads, but I do put some work into putting the best stuff together. Enjoy! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ok7al2xme478zn3t4telz/AJ-u1qXqaaphqmWayajnhJU?rlkey=o479rg3n2nqkf1jhctwpz4sw1&dl=0