Ten of Six

The usual last-minute photo before heading down to the start

I think perhaps the worst thing about returning every year to ride Six Gap is that the ride just crushes one's illusions. This was my tenth trip to Dahlonega and I can confirm that it didn't get any easier since last year.

As I have for the past few years, I went up with the Tulane riders of which there were eight. A couple of them weren't able to leave until 8 am on Saturday, and I knew that was going to make it difficult to arrive by the 6 pm deadline to pick up packets that evening. Complicating things a bit was the fact that we would be taking two of the Tulane motor pool vans that are equipped with GPS tracking, so it would be like having Big Brother looking over you shoulder at the speedometer. Fortunately, the weather was great all weekend and everyone arrived on time. The nine-hour drive went pretty well, although since we were pressed for time, lunch was a quick stop at a Subway for to-go sandwiches. Grayson was driving his own car ahead of us a bit, and we were all in communication via Zello. We were lagging behind the other van by maybe ten minutes, and as we approached Atlanta, Google Maps was initially showing an estimated arrival time right at 6 pm. That soon became 6:01, and then 6:02, and so on. Fortunately, Grayson talked the folks up there into waiting a few extra minutes for us, so when we finally arrived at maybe 6:10 we jumped out of the van and grabbed our packets immediately. I was particularly  happy to find that the bike shop tent at the Expo was still up, and, even better, they had a bottle of Montana Huckleberry HammerGel. I'd run out of it at home and was afraid I'd have to survive on Powerbars, so this was a great relief!

After picking up packets we went straight over to Pueblo's for dinner, and then made the 20-minute drive to Cleveland, GA (who knew there was a Cleveland in Georgia?) where we checked into a rather sketchy Knight's Inn along with a bunch of power company linemen. The room itself wasn't too bad, other than the soft spot in the floor and air-conditioner that seemed to be turning itself on and off randomly all night. Can't say I got a lot of sleep. Anyway, we were up early enough to go next-door to Dunkin Donuts for some coffee and donuts before heading back to Dahlonega. Of course it was still dark since we knew we had to get there by at least 6:30 to get a good parking spot in the school lot. That worked out really well. By the time the sun was starting to come up we headed down to the line for the 7:30 am start. We had 7 riders doing 6-Gap, one doing 3-Gap, and one doing the Valley Ride. The start was the usual scramble, and I pretty quickly lost track of the rest of the group, most of which were up closer to the front. I had done something bad to my back, probably when loading up the van, and was getting sharp pain on one side when I twisted just the right way, so I was being really careful not to do that. Even so, I wondered if it was going to turn into a show-stopper at some point during the ride.

Louisiana riders at 6-Gap

Soon enough I found myself in a pretty large group that was a bit behind the equally large lead group as we approached the first climbs. My legs were feeling pretty good and as usual I didn't have much trouble on the first couple of Gaps, although I was being a little conservative since I knew what was still to come. By the top of Jack's Gap, the first real climb, Grayson, Cameron, and Elliott were way, way up the road somewhere and Steve was somewhere ahead as well. I was fairly comfortable in the 39x25 and 39x27 for this climb as well as for the next one, but I knew that the longer, steeper sections of Hogpen were going to be a problem. After coming down Unicoi I caught up with Steve and we went up Hogpen in sight of each other at the blazing average speed of 8.3 mph for 45 minutes. Here, I was wishing I'd sprung for a cassette with a 29 as there were many times when my Garmin was auto-pausing (the speed sensor isn't working so the speed really jumps around when I'm in single digits like that!). Steve stopped at the rest stop, but I didn't, so that was the last I saw of him until afterward. After trudging up Wolfpen at 7.6 mph, I stopped to fill a water bottle and down a little cup of Coke, where I found Grayson and Cameron who had been stopping at the rest stops a lot, apparently. Elliott was already way up the road somewhere. We rode the downhill from Wolfpen, with a little group coming together at the bottom, but when the next section of climbing started I had to let them go. After the relatively short final climb up Woody Gap, I enjoyed the long downhill with the super-sharp 180 at the bottom and finally looked the clock. It was impossible to make it in under 6 hours for sure, but my legs were still functional, so although I was alone in a headwind I kind of pushed it for the final ten miles, rolling across the finish with 6:13 riding time on my Garmin and an official clock time of 6:15, which was essentially the same as last year. It was particularly encouraging to see that three of the Tulane riders, Grayson, Elliott, and Cameron, posted ride times well under 6 hours this year. It was also good that we had two new women riders making the trip. Kaitlyn did a pretty good 3-Gap time despite riding with a broken cleat, and I think Lucia had a nice time doing the Valley ride on her hybrid bike even though the handlebars slipped and she had to get someone at the rest stop to fix them. Meanwhile, Stan Prutz, who had just returned from doing three of those Haute stage races back-to-back in Europe, rode in at 5:38 which was of course the fastest time in the 55-98 age group and 37th overall.

The ride home was, for a change, uneventful. We didn't have to drive through any blinding rainstorms, there were no frantic midnight searches for gas stations that would take Tulane's fuel card, and even though we were stopped for about half an hour because of a major accident that shut down the Interstate, we still got back to New Orleans around 12:30 am or so, and that was driving with cruise control set at or slightly below the speed limit practically the whole way. Today I'm really feeling it, though. My back is sore, my quads are sore, and even my triceps are sore. So, basically situation normal. I went out for an easy 20 miles on the levee this morning just to spin the legs and was happy to see an eagle, which is a sure sign that Fall is coming - eventually.