Gearing *Down*

After a fairly relaxed week of riding I'll be heading from where I am, here in the South, about nine hours northeast to where the rest of the country thinks is the South, namely Atlanta, or to be more specific, Dahlonega, which is north of Atlanta.  Late last night I rummaged through a box in my basement, finally extracting a little box marked "Six Gap."  Inside was my 12-27 cassette that hadn't seen the light of day since this time last year.  I installed it on my trusty old Rolf wheels with those new pink tires, stuck a huge water bottle into the cage, and planned on an easy Friday morning ride to make sure the off-brand Miche cassette wasn't going to require any derailleur adjustments.

The Six Gap Century has become in recent years the closing bookend for my road season, the opening bookend being Rouge-Roubaix in March.  The intervening seven months usually represent roughly 6,500 of a typical 11,000 mile year.  This year, however, is looking like it will be closer to 10,000 miles for me.  It's just been one of those years.  Anyway, the 103-mile ride is always memorable, usually painful, and sometimes humbling.  I rode it the first couple of times with a low gear of 39x25 before finally springing for that 12-27 cassette.  Even so, most riders opt for gearing substantially lower by going with a "compact" crank setup, typically with a 34-tooth small ring.  The route itself features, as its name would imply, six "gaps" or passes, but a couple of them are short enough to pale in comparison to the others.  The first long climb is Neels Gap that starts at about 19 miles and peaks out t miles later at 26 miles.  The last 4 miles of that one are pretty damned steep. After that one there are a couple of relatively short climbs up Jacks and Unicoi gaps, followed by the excellent 5-mile descent down from Unicoi.  Finally, at about 44 miles, comes THE BIG ONE, Hogpen gap.  This is essentially an 8.5 mile climb that climbs over 1,000 feet, with the steepest sections nearest the top, of course.  There's a nice descent after that one, a bit of flat, and then the 4.2 mile climb up Wolfpen gap starting at 72 miles. This one actually has some of the steepest grades, and will take whatever you might have left in your legs, if anything, right out of you. Then there are a couple of short climbs, a nice fast descent, and a long, long rolling stretch to the finish. Sounds like fun, eh?  The Wolfpen and Hogpen climbs are timed, thanks to the chip-timing system, and I think there's a prize for the winners of that.  Of course, as the organizer reminds everybody at the start, "It's not a race!"  Yeah, right.

Anyway, we'll be heading out around 6:30 tomorrow morning for the long drive, which should provide ample time to contemplate the possibility of riding the new criterium that they're having the evening before.......