Once Again to Dahlonega

Last weekend was our annual road trip up to Dahlonega for the Six Gap Century.  This year I went up with four of the Tulane riders, and with two minivans everyone had lots of space for a change. After meeting up at 6:30 am at the Tulane Cycling Center, we hit the road a bit after 7 am.

I was driving up with Charlotte.  Ben S., Andrew and Quentin were in the other van.  Almost immediately I lost track of the other van, only to find out later that they had decided to stop and get coffee and gas without telling us. We thought we'd stop for lunch at Firehouse Subs around Auburn, and although we did, we got stuck in football game traffic so we told the other van, which was a good fifteen minutes behind us, not to try. Anyway, we finally regrouped up in Dahlonega where we registered and watched the last half of the Cat. 1/2 Women's race. There was a 3-person break until one of them crashed right next to us coming out of the circle, leaving a 2-up sprint between Debbie Milne, who is 46 this year, and Megan Heath, who is a 16 year old rider with Frazier. This time age and treachery failed to win out over youth and skill, but it was close! So after watching the first part of the Pro/1/2 race (Michael Mcbrien of Team LaS'port took 2nd) we filled up on Mexican food at Pueblos and headed back south to our hotel about half an hour away.

After a particularly bad night's sleep we were up pretty early with the goal of getting to the parking lot an hour ahead of time. Unfortunately we ended up leaving a little late and by the time we got there the main lot was full, but we found a nice spot along the little road leading to the football stadium (for future reference, there's a bathroom there!). Preparations were a bit rushed, and as I discovered about an hour later I failed to put the bottle of HammerGel I'd prepared into my pocket.  Luckily I had already put two gel packs in there as backup, so at least I had something.

We rolled down close to the front of the rapidly growing crowd where we found Steve and Pat, and waited for the start.  There had been a light mist falling all night and the roads were all fairly wet and the sky cloudy, but at least it wasn't actually raining. I had my arm-warmers on to take the chill off of the first hour or so.  The start this year was pretty conservative all the way to the first Gap, which isn't actually one of the "Six." As usual, that one was fairly steady and I was pleased to find that all seven of us were still basically together. Andrew rolled off the front on the first of the main climbs (I think), and Pat rolled off the back, but the rest of us stayed more or less together all the way to the top of Hogpen.

This was the first time I've ridden this with a heart rate monitor, and I actually found it to be helpful.  Go figure. On the first long climb I found that my comfort zone was right around 88% of max. I was OK up to about 91% for short periods, but 88%, which is around 165 bpm, felt very sustainable, so I decided to make that my limit. This proved to be effective at keeping me out of the red, and as a result there were only a couple of times when my speed dropped down close to Garmin auto-pause territory. Granted, the arbitrary limit probably cost me a few minutes, but in general I felt considerably more comfortable and controlled on the climbs than usual. I ended up with an average heart rate for the whole ride of 150 and a max of 174, so kept it under control and really never pushed it to the limit.

So I had been considering stopping at one of the rest stops to re-stock on calories, but as I came over the top of Unicoi or Hogpen there was someone holding out half of a banana, so I grabbed it and stuck it into my pocket before the road plunged downward.  The downhills were mostly wet this year, and between that, a couple of slower riders ahead of me, and a car on the Wolfpen descent, my downhill speeds were definitely slower than usual, maxing out at only 48 mph.

Climbing - slid all the way back on the saddle

The Hogpen climb was notable especially for the fact that we rode up into the mountain mist (aka clouds) about halfway up, which was pretty cool.  Amazingly, everyone was pretty much still together at Hogpen, where Ben and Quentin stopped for refreshments, but I kept on going. I think Steve was already a minute or two ahead of me by then. He always does those long climbs a couple of minutes faster than I. Ben broke a spoke near the top of Wolfpen Gap and ended up having to get a ride in the sag wagon from there. After Wolfpen I was pretty much on my own and definitely feeling the miles and climbing. I stopped briefly at one of the rest stops where I filled a bottle with Coke (it was delicious) and picked up a little Payday bar in case I bonked. My quads were tired, but most of all, though, my neck was killing me from the downhills. My back was relatively good despite all of the seated climbing I was doing, and I have to credit my Bont shoes for keeping my right foot more comfortable than it's ever been on this ride.

Post-ride pasta and salad at the school cafeteria

As usual, I latched onto a couple of guys who came past me on the last ten mile stretch.  We traded pulls for a few miles, and then with maybe four miles to go a larger group came by, so we stayed with them to the finish. I ended up with an official time of 6:11:39, which was significantly slower than usual (ride time was about 6:10), which was 79th overall and 11th in the 55+ age group. Andrew ended up finishing at 5:56:01, placing him 53rd overall and 9th in his age group. Quentin came in at 6:28:47, at 106th place.  Steve's time is still missing from the results, but he should have been a few minutes ahead of me. Charlotte rode the shorter 5-Gap ride, finishing in 4:51:45, which was 23rd overall, 7th in her age group.

The ride back was the usual drag, with light rain all the way from Montgomery home. The drive was helped by caffeine and the fact that the rental van had satellite radio, but hindered by a drawn-out search in Mobile for a gas station that would take the university's fleet gas card, and then by some significant rain all along I-10 from Mobile. It was a pretty good trip, however, and by Tuesday most of the soreness had worn off and I was back to the regular training routine.