May 15-18, 2025. Covington, GA
Welcome to the Silver Edition: our 25th GTR in 2025! And sadly, it’s the last edition of the rally. After 25 years of rally organizing, we are hanging up our SPD event planning shoes, but we have one more rally to go. And to give the ride a little alpha-omega vibe, we’ll be re-visiting a lot of the places we first saw at GTR in 1999.
We have been to Covington before, in 2010, 2013, and most recently in 2019. We’ll have different routes to ride and different places to check out. Covington is famous for the TV shows that have been shot there, and it’s beautiful square and courthouse.
We like it because of the quiet country roads, fun places to eat, and its nice facilities. Yes, there are hills, but south Georgia is hurricane-ravaged this year and it’s impossible to make plans in the flatter terrain. So we climb. Besides, most of you who don’t like hills have e-bikes by now…
GTR 2025 AT A GLANCE (subject to change of course)
Thursday, May 15: If there is beer available, you know we will have our registration at a local brewery. Covington has a new micro-brewery, and we hope to book it for packet pickup.
Friday, May 16: The first ride of the weekend remote starts from nearby Social Circle. You will head towards Madison, the host city for GTR 1999, on the Dixie Highway, which some say is the best tandem-friendly route in the state. Afterwards, you can have lunch at the regionally-famous Blue Willow Inn, which is just about to reopen their southern buffet after closing in 2020 due to the pandemic. If ya know, ya know. (Historical side note: the Blue Willow was the site of the Saturday banquet for GTR 1999 and 2000.) Friday night, the ice cream comes to you. Join us for an ice cream social featuring the Scoops ice cream truck, right outside of our host hotel.
Saturday, May 17: Our second ride starts from the host hotel and makes its way north towards Jersey and Good Hope. Will Eve be serving fresh-made biscuits at a rest stop this year? You never know. Back in Covington, lunch is on your own. There is no group lunch this year. Saturday night features our fabulous farewell dinner banquet at the newly remodeled Georgia International Horse Park, where GTR dined in 2013. This is it…our last Saturday party.
Sunday, May 18: We’ve got time for one more ride before we wrap up GTR for good. Today’s ride features an 11-mile section of Covington’s brand new Cricket Frog Trail, featuring a beautiful new bridge over the Alcovy River.
Entertain yourself: See over 350 photos from GTR 2024.
WHERE THE HECK IS COVINGTON?
Covington is about 40 miles east of Atlanta, just off Interstate 20. For those of you flying in for the rally, it’s only 40 miles from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Use this handy-dandy Google Map to figure out how far Covington is from your house.
GTR 2025 RIDE OPTIONS
As usual for rides in this part of the state, we have a few “aerobic challenges” on our routes. There’s nothing too steep…the hills are just a little longer than usual. Here are the daily routes, which may change a little, but the numbers are pretty close to what you will ride.
| DAY/OPTION | ALTITUDE CHANGE |
|---|---|
| Friday 32 | 1200 feet |
| Friday 45 | 1900 feet |
| Friday 55 | 2200 feet |
| Saturday 30 | 1500 feet |
| Saturday 44 | 2000 feet |
| Saturday 56 | 2400 feet |
| Sunday 25 | 1000 feet |
GTR 2025 RIDER LIMIT IS 90 TEAMS
GTR 2025 PRE-TOUR
Make your GTR experience six days and sign up for the popular GTR Pre-Tour, which will be held May 12-15, 2025 in Athens, GA. Athens is our favorite place to hold tandem events because there is so much to do. The Pre-Tour is limited to 30 teams. You will register for the pre-tour at the same time you register for GTR 2025.
GTR 2025 COSTS
The cost of GTR will be $325. Comparison: GTR 1999 cost $110. The cost of the rally includes routes, maps and cue sheets, riders insurance (premiums keep going up!), GTR SWAG, Friday’s ice cream social, Saturday’s banquet and much more. The cost of the rally does NOT include the cost of your hotel room.
GTR 2025 REGISTRATION
Registration will begin on February 10, 2025. That’s the day after the Super Bowl for you NFL fans.
GTR 2025 HOTEL RESERVATIONS
You are in charge of your hotel reservations. Hotel rooms for GTR will run $159-179 a night, plus taxes. Expensive? Yes, but you are worth it. Hotel information will be provided to you after you register for the ride. Why do we do this? To keep people who decide not to register from taking up hotel space that someone who has registered could be using.
GTR 2025 CANCELLATION POLICY
Once you register for the rally, the cancellation fee is $35 as long as you cancel before the deadline. Our schedule:
| Before April 20, 2025, 11:59PM | Full refund minus $35 cancellation fee |
| After April 20, 2025 | No refund, no exceptions. |
Sunday rest stop, GTR 2019
NEW TO GTR? GET ON OUR MAILING LIST
If you are a new team and wish to receive rally updates, subscribe to our email list. You can opt out at any time. And if you sign up now, you will get a free one-year supply of chamois butter! (Not really, but we promise not to be a pain in the butt and only send out emails when it’s important.)