Dana Walton

We get a lot of questions about choosing the right tires for the Athens to Savannah Ride. For every one of you who reaches out, we imagine there are plenty more who don't, but still have questions. A 4-day event is a big time commitment and significant expense, and we want everyone to have the best possible experience. Since that starts with preparation, our resident expert and cycling coach, Dana Walton has some tips to help you plan your ride.

Back for 2024, we're partnering with Rise Up Coaching & Wellness founder, Dana Walton to offer training rides designed to help beginner and intermediate cyclists prepare for ATHSAV.

Whether you’ve trained 10 or 100 hours for the Athens to Savannah Ride, the wrong tires, tire pressure, or an empty tummy could be your kryptonite.

Our ATHSAV training rides have given us a sneak peek at the surfaces each route offers us. Training rides 1-6 featured days 2-4 of ATHSAV Gravel where the route is mostly sand, both soft and hard packed, with random, brief sections of medium to small gravel.

ATHSAV is unique. Not many rides offer three consecutive centuries. When we sign up for big events like this, most of us are excited and looking forward to riding back-to-back days. But sometimes, when life gets in the way of training, we begin to feel overwhelmed and under-prepared as the ride approaches. If you are like many riders, you have a busy life full of responsibilities. Unlike pro-cyclists, you probably find it difficult to get out and ride consecutive centuries.