When I was 14 I spent many hours following my mother around. I followed her friends too on back roads and up steep hills. Sometimes I could keep up and sometimes I would hurt but the reward was one that I did not want to miss. You see I was able to experience my first great cycling adventure that year, participating in the Assault on Mount Mitchell.

I originally rode my bike because my mother challenged me. She told me that there was a hill that she did not think I could ride up. Of course this would serve to motivate most teen-agers. I wanted to prove her wrong. I rode the 10 miles to the hill, climbed the hill, and rode home. I declared that I had won! I did it! Then she said she did not think I could do it twice, so I went back and did it again. At this point I had ridden the round trip a few times and realized that at the age of 13 I had some great transportation around my rural community. People knew me as the kid on the bike.

From the time we moved to Polk County when I was 12 I always heard people talking about this bike ride called the “Assault on Mt. Mitchell”. I had no concept of what it would be like to ride 102 miles or how hard it would be. I just knew that all my mother’s friends were going to be doing it and I did not want to be left behind. So I started following them on their training rides every week. I don’t remember the distance we rode or how many hours we went for. I just rode because I loved it. I enjoyed being part of a group of adults and feeling like I was doing something special.

The day of the “Assault” came quickly. My parents dropped me off in Spartanburg at the start. I am sure I was riding with someone but I don’t remember being with anyone in particular. I was just swept up in the sea of cyclists until I saw my parents again at Green Creek Elementary school at the mile 20 rest stop. My parents followed along the route in a big old station wagon with my mother’s bike in the back just in case something should happen to mine. They were my “team car”.  Every time I would see my parents my father would ask me if I wanted to get in the car. He would say “hey kid do you want to get in now?” The next place I remember seeing my parents was in Marion. They met me at the Hardees  for lunch. I sat in the grass in front of the Hardees and enjoyed the pretty day with my mother and father and others who stopped there for a break. Again my father made the offer. My answer was always the same resolute, no.

Back on the road after a late lunch I started to make my way up the mountain with frequent stops to rest. What I saw going up the mountain only served to motivate me to get to the top. Some of the people I had trained with were on the side of the road, they had quit.  My father passed me again and this time said “ok, kid that is enough, you can get in” but something kept pushing me to the top. I was so close I could not stop now. I felt like if I could do this at age 14 that I would be able to anything in my life. I kept pushing on, ignoring fatigue.  I arrived at the top of the mountain in 12:30 which is slow by most standards but on this day the time did not matter it was the achievement and the knowledge that I could do anything I set my mind to. The sky was the limit and on the top of Mitchell one is very close to the sky.
I have since done Mitchell many times and much faster but none of my experiences will ever come close to the trip to the top of that mountain with my parents when I was 14.