6-Gap Crawling, Coasting, and Charging

Earlier in September it seemed that things had conspired to prevent my 13th appearance at 6-Gap. A month earlier the Tulane Cycling club had already gotten hotel rooms reserved near Dahlonega and the stage was set for another road trip in the motor pool minivans. For my own part, I wasn't thinking too much about the ride this year after having missed it last year entirely, but I was figuring I'd be helping with the driving and doing the ride nonetheless. Then there was Hurricane Ida. Off-campus students evacuated, the hurricane hit harder than expected, some of the generators in Tulane's co-generation plant failed, on-campus students were evacuated, campus was closed for repairs, and so the planned trip went by the wayside. At that point I was kind of resigned to missing 6-Gap again, kind of in the way you might resign yourself to missing a root canal. Then, just a week or so before the ride, Steve asked if I wanted to go. I could stay with him, Pat, and Chris at a friend's house right there in Dahlonega. I wasn't too keen on driving my car up there since it's way overdue for 100,000 mile maintenance (I have an appointment for the end of October), but then Chris offered to give me a ride with him in his Tesla, so rather suddenly things kind of fell into place. I put my special 6-Gap cassette onto the race wheels and rode them on the Thursday ride to make sure everything was shifting OK because 6-Gap is one ride where you are guaranteed to use every single gear combination on the bike and wish for more. Then on Friday night I decided to clean the bike and discovered a slash in the front tire through which I could see the inner tube, a situation that could be catastrophic on a fast twisty descent. Luckily, I had a brand new tire on hand. When I removed the bad tire I found that the rim strip had shifted, exposing parts of a couple of spoke holes. That alone could also have caused a blowout. So I re-centered the tape and put everything back together and the bike was all ready, or so I thought.

Chris picked me up early on Saturday and we were on the road by 6 am for what would turn out to be a very long but interesting road trip. I think we stopped about five times to charge the battery along the way, so we didn't arrive at Ro's house until around 8 pm thanks to that and the time zone difference. Still, it was a nice drive and I learned a lot about Teslas.

Thanks to being so close to the high school, we got to the venue nice and early on Sunday morning with plenty of time to get a good parking spot and pick up packets and get organized for the 8:00 am start. I staked out a spot near the front of the rapidly growing group at the start line and all of us were ready to go.

 This ride always starts out kind of fast and sketchy since it seems like all of the first few hundred riders somehow think they are going to be able to stay with the front group if they can just pack themselves tighter together, while at the same time the actual fast riders have good reason to create a split between themselves and the packfill like me. So by the time we were five miles out Chris and Steve were up in that front group and almost out of sight as the rest of the group started to settle down. Then, on the first little downhill, I was surprised to feel a clump, clump, clump coming from my front wheel. I looked at it carefully to see if the bead was about to blow off the rim, but it didn't look too bad. As it turned out, one section of bead was kind of stuck farther down inside the rim than it should have been. At any rate, it definitely kept me from getting too aggressive on the downhills, which was probably a good thing anyway.

This year the top half of the ride was to be done in reverse, so the steep Hogpen climb would be the second climb of the day. Although it was steeper from that direction (like 10-20%), it was considerably shorter (like 2.5 miles). I had some concerns about that, however, since my lowest gear was a 39x28, which was barely sufficient for short 10% grades and definitely insufficient for 20% grades. My legs had similar limitations. Going in I had decided to just ride my best steady tempo on the climbs, best described as crawling, and use the downhills for recovery, best described as coasting. Of course, with over a thousand riders it isn't too hard to find little groups or individuals going just the right speeds on the climbs to help pace inexperienced climbers like me, so the first Gap went by without much damage. 

As it turned out, I liked the Hogpen climb better from this direction despite the steeper grade, and despite the fact that I was badly over-geared. I spent most of that climb at a cadence of about 40 rpm, seated, which was at least smooth and steady, but was not unsurprisingly doing a number on my lower back. Still, I survived Hogpen feeling a little better than I'd feared. The rest of the ride was basically crawl up the climb, coast down the downhill, find a little group to draft on the flatter sections, and repeat. I'd been looking forward to my favorite downhill, the last one, that is long and swoopy and smooth, and was quite disappointed to have to go down it almost entirely on the brakes because of a U-haul truck and car ahead of me all the way. By then my upper back and neck were killing me despite the 12-hour Aleve I'd taken in the morning and the other 12-hour Aleve I'd taken four hours later at around 50 miles, but really no worse than usual and definitely not a surprise (hence the Aleve!).

So I finally rolled in at an official chip time of 6:25:24, having stopped at none of the rest stops and with one of my water bottles still almost half-full, and generally feeling pretty decent under the circumstances. I'd gone through the equivalent of about four Hammergels, not counting the coffee and Scratch bar I'd had before the start. Chris, on his first 6-Gap experience, turned in a 6:12 chip time, but his actual riding time was 5:56, which was pretty great. Steve had a chip time of 6:10 with a 6:07 ride time, and Pat as usual stopped at a lot of the rest stops taking pictures and stuff and came in at 7:36.

This year, for the first time, I stayed overnight on Sunday. Chris and I headed out around 5:30 am for a smooth and uneventful ride back with Chris taking a conference call and me updating the COVID data, arriving back home around 6:30. I think that all-in-all it was one of the least stressful 6-Gap rides I've ever done. Considering my lackadaisical approach, I was surprised at my time that I'd expected would be closer to 6:45. In fact, it was pretty much right in line with my times from other recent years. While we were sitting in the high school cafeteria eating the usual spaghetti and meat sauce and salad and sweet tea I got to talk with Patrick Hennessey who I hadn't seen since forever. He was a Junior when he raced here a long time ago and has recently started riding again, apparently quite strongly since he finished well under 6 hours. I also got to take with Debbie Milne, who has had a pretty good year racing-wise this year with her Supra team and was there shepherding some of her development team members.

Flexibility

Coming back over the Rigloets with Fort Pike off to the left.

This week's weather was beyond predictable. There was rain, and more rain, and torrential rain, and clear skies, but the only way to tell what was coming up was to look out the window. Tuesday's rain never really let up so I missed riding entirely that day. Then on Wednesday it was raining in the morning, but I was able to get out for a couple of hours in the evening without getting too wet. Thursday we lucked out and got in our usual levee ride before the rain started. Then on Friday I went out to the 6:00 am "Friendly Friday" ride, some of which strayed considerably outside of the friendly speed range. Just as we ended and were hanging around in front of the Museum of Art the first raindrops started to fall. I was pretty damp by the time I got home but not what you'd call soaked, so that was good. I even made it in to work and back without getting rained on, although I left work early just to be on the safe side and also because I was practically the only one on the entire floor all day. Lots of people are still working from home, although I would think things should be getting more or less back to normal next week. 

Still waiting.....

On the home front, the road work crew started putting in the forms for the new curbs all down Neron Place on Friday. That's somewhat encouraging, but it also means that nobody who lives on the three blocks can park their cars, or get into their driveways, so cars are parked all over the place. Complicating that is the fact that to date we have still had no garbage or trash pickup. 

Overflowing garbage bins are lined up on the corners next to bags of hurricane debris and large piles of tree limbs and stuff. The last time our garbage was picked up was some time in late August, well before Hurricane Ida. The cans are of course full of maggots and are pretty disgusting at this point.

So last weekend there was this century ride over in Mississippi that I was kind of thinking about doing, but the weather forecast was not promising for either Saturday or Sunday. There was an idea to do a northshore ride, but nobody really wanted to commit, considering the chance of being caught in thunderstorms out in the middle of nowhere. The best option seemed to be to stay close to home and be flexible. That meant doing the Saturday Giro Ride, which thankfully escaped the rain, and then on Sunday deciding to do a "long" Giro out to Fort Pike. That adds a few miles and for me makes for an 80 mile day. For that we ended up with just five - Charles, Rich, Bo, Pat, and me. It turned out to be a really nice morning with mostly clear skies until the clouds started developing as we made our way back, pushed along by a nice little tailwind. Somehow, thanks to being able to be flexible about when and where I rode, I managed a fairly normal weekly mileage 270.   

Participation

This was really just a survival medal.

Last weekend was the Brandon Grand Prix up in Brandon, Mississippi. The Criterium and Road Race also served as the LAMBRA Criterium and Road championships. Robert Lee and co-conspirators had pulled these races together fairly quickly, mainly to ensure that we actually had championships this year. Thanks to the extremely cooperative city they had secured use of a part of the big Brandon Amphitheater and Ballpark complex, for free, for the criterium. The road races would be held nearby, starting from another big soccer complex, also for free. Naturally, a couple of weeks before the event, Hurricane Ida plowed into southern Louisiana and into Mississippi affecting many of the race's potential participants in one way or the other. By the time race weekend was upon us some people were still dealing with damages to their homes or those of family, while others were just getting back from a long evacuation as they awaited power to be restored in their neighborhoods. Thus, it was no surprise that turnout was pretty light. I signed up the Thursday prior after making sure it would be OK to take the car for the weekend. Having not really raced in nearly two years I would be going into these races fully expecting to be dropped. Still, I was looking forward to however much race-level intensity I could get before pulling the plug.

OTB

Saturday's crit course was pretty interesting. It started in a parking lot, exited onto a roadway, continued slightly downhill through some big gates, and then had a right turn and very short but very steep little climb back into the parking lot. The climb was really only about 5 pedal strokes long, but generally required a hard out-of-the-saddle effort. The right turn before it was really the only sharp turn on the course. As expected, the masters criterium started pretty fast. I was hanging in there pretty well, but after four or so laps every time I looked at the computer my heart rate was up around 180 which is a good 15-20 bpm higher than it should have been, even at that effort level. After a few more laps of that I decided maybe it would be wise to ease up a bit, so I dropped off the back and continued until I was lapped, which was pretty quick since it was a really short course. I jumped back into the group and had no further trouble at all. That evening I checked into the inappropriately named Quality Inn a few miles away off of I-20, set up a workbook for the next day's road races, sent that off to Robert, and went off to find food.

Sunday's road race was just a few miles from where I was. I arrived early for the 8 am start of the first wave, which I wasn't in, and spent probably twenty minutes trying to figure out where to park. Although my race didn't start until 10:30, I was on the bike probably by 7:15 and rode about a mile down the road to where Ricky was setting up the start/finish. The races would have a neutral roll-out from the soccer field parking area to the start/finish. I rode out along the initial part of the lollipop-shaped course to see just how bad the "big" climb was. It was fairly short but toward the end was around 10%. I figured I'd better just go to the small ring for that, but was already thinking I'd get dropped if anyone decided to put the pressure on there. I ended up hanging around at the start/finish with Ricky and Rolando for quite a while before riding back to the parking area as the time for the second wave approached. While I was there Robert got a call from Ricky that there had been a crash in the finish of one of the Women's races and that they'd need medical support, so Robert rushed off with one of the police officers who called for an EMT or something, leaving me to guard the cash box at the registration table. Eventually that was all resolved and the crash victim was off for a precautionary CAT scan due to the broken helmet (she turned out to be OK) and shortly thereafter we got our road race underway. Things started out at a pretty moderate pace, but of course everyone knew about "the hill" that was about six miles into the route prior to the "loop" section. My legs were sore from the prior day's efforts, but I didn't really realize just how sore until we started up the climb. I was most of the way up when I just thought to myself, "I really don't want to be hurting this much today" and let them go. So that turned out pretty much as I'd expected. Still, I wasn't too crazy about the idea of riding the remaining 50 miles alone. Luckily, I came upon Trace who had dropped his chain and was stopped on the side of the road. I convinced him to come along, so that was great. A few miles later we were caught by three of the Juniors who were just flying. We kind of latched onto them, being careful not to interfere with their race. They were going surprisingly fast (they had to do only one loop while we had three) but of course sitting on the back of their paceline was pretty easy. Eventually one of them was dropped but he soldiered on and ended up finishing third. We continued on for our remaining two laps. We were about halfway through our last lap when Trace said he was pretty toasted. We'd been taking long pulls - mine were about two miles - and were both a little worse for wear by then. I was on the front taking a pull and at the end flicked my elbow and pulled over for Trace to come through, only to discover he was no longer there. Looking back I could see he was way, way back, so I just continued on since by then there were probably only ten or twelve miles left to go anyway. 

Tired old men

Back at the car I changed out of my sweaty salt-encrusted kit and started to pack things up a bit when I heard someone at the registration table calling me. I thought there might be some question about results or something and walked over there to discover that by virtue of simply finishing I'd been 3rd in the 55+ age group so there was a podium picture to be taken. I hope Keith doesn't fine me for not having my team kit on for that! I hung around for quite a while after that as Robert and Ricky started packing up the race stuff since I'd be taking some of it back with me. A number of us actually ended up having a little tailgate LAMBRA meeting about next season. That was around when I realized I had bedbug bites on my arm and probably also on my forehead thanks to the low-quality Quality Inn. That's about the third time I've gotten bedbug bites at a Mississippi hotel, although to be fair I usually stay at the cheaper ones if I go to a race alone. Guess I'll be itching for a few more days.

So although participation last weekend was significantly lower than it might have been, there was some good competition anyway and I think everyone was thankful that we'd managed to pull off a race weekend considering the combination of pandemic and hurricane issues. I think also that it's hard for riders to commit to a race when it's been so long since they've actually raced. We're hoping we can get things back on track for next season and will probably try to get a tentative calendar together in early October. In the meantime there are a few cyclocross events and other rides, like Six Gap and Tour da Parish on the calendar. I guess I need to make a decision about Six Gap pretty quickly now.

Weekend Progress

The Sunday Giro heading out along Marconi. We picked up a few more along LSD.

I'd been back from the Sunday Giro Ride for half an hour or so when Candy came back from a trip to the grocery store and said there were trucks along Neron Place. Sure enough there was a guy in a bucket fixing the wire across from my neighbor's house that I'd been reporting to Entergy periodically for about fifteen years. It had been trapped below a branch of the Oak tree and gradually pulled down about ten feet from where it was supposed to be. A little while later they moved out, and then the power came back on for the other houses on the block. Generators stopped, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Collateral bike path damage from cars

On Saturday I had decided to do a ride on the levee out to the Spillway. I wasn't sure how the roads were along the Giro route, or whether anyone would even show up for that (as it turned out a few did show up and did the Saturday Giro). Somewhere out by the grain elevators past St. Rose there was a woman up ahead walking a dog. As usual, I called out "on your left," and was surprised to hear "Hi Randy!" as I went by. It was Sherri. I turned around and asked, "What are you doing way out here?" Turns out Judd's office is nearby and it's been in full operation since he works with river barges and stuff, so she's been staying there. I continued on to the Spillway where the little gazebo had been blown away and decided to go down to the spillway road to see how it was coming. I ended up in some soft wet red dirt that they had used to prepare a cut-out section for re-paving and made a bit of a mess of the bike. Back up on top of the levee the metal roof of the ranger station or whatever that is had been ripped off, but I found a little group that had been behind me composed of Jason, Keith, Chris, Hannibal, and a few others, so rode back with them. The levee bike path was in pretty good shape for the most part, although there were a couple of places where you had to duck under guy wires and another where the cars and trucks had collapsed part of the asphalt. Anyway, it was a nice moderately paced ride, although riding out the the Spillway and back always seems to feel harder than it should to me. 

Around mid-day FedEx delivered the LAMBRA medals I'd ordered for next weekend's road and criterium championships. They arrived in a nice clean box, but when I opened it I discovered the remnants of the original box that was a rain-soaked mass of damp cardboard and bubble wrap. The medals looked OK, although the ribbons were still quite damp. The box looked like it had been through a hurricane. Robert jumped in his car and drove down from Jackson to pick them up along with a few other things for the races. Saturday night we had some neighbors over for dinner and laundry. I left messages at a couple of electrical companies about getting someone to come re-attach my service drop to the house. I am not particularly confident I'll get a quick, or any, response to those under the circumstances but it was worth a try.

Sunday morning outage map

This morning I figured I give the Giro Ride a shot. I knew the Starbucks would be closed, so didn't leave home as early as usual. Riding down Carrollton I noted more places with power, including some gas stations, although it looked like only the Costco was actually pumping gas. Turning onto Harrison Avenue I saw that some of the streetlights were on, but it looked like only some of the businesses had power. The Starbucks was dark and closed, of course. We ended up with about a dozen riders for the Giro, and of those only two or three seemed interested in pushing the pace. That made for a moderately paced ride, albeit with a few fast sections (Matt was out on his TT bike). I was feeling tired from the start, so I was only taking pulls when there was a nice rotating paceline. 

So it looks like my immediate neighborhood should mostly have electricity now, which is great. Trash pickup doesn't seem to have started yet, and every now and then I catch a whiff of that familiar Katrina smell from garbage that has been sitting out in the sun for days. Hopefully trash and garbage issues will be gradually resolved over the next week or two as more workers become available. 

Friendless Friday Ride

A deserted Lakeshore Drive on Friday morning

This morning I got up at the usual time that hasn't been the usual time since last week and rolled out in the dark toward City Park to see if by chance anyone would show up for the 6 a.m. Friendly Friday Ride. Since there is currently a curfew in the city that doesn't end until 6:00 I was technically breaking the law, or rule, or edict, or whatever. It was kind of eerie. Large sections of the city are still without power, which means no streetlights on roads still somewhat littered with branches and stuff blown down by the hurricane. On the other hand, the car travel lanes on the larger streets are surprisingly clear, and of course there were almost no cars anywhere when I left home around 5:30 a.m. I rode carefully, staying out of the shoulder, especially under the oak trees. On the deserted streets I could comfortably take the right lane of Carrollton, which was nice. There were patches where streetlights were on, and patches where everything was dark, but it was pretty smooth sailing regardless.

Not surprisingly, there was nobody - and I mean nobody - at the meeting place in front of the City Park Museum of Art. I was glad to see that the hurricane had blown away part of the monstrosity in front of the museum that they call art but that looks like multicolored bacon. I hate that thing. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and ride the regular route. All of the roads were surprisingly clear of debris, including Lakeshore Drive which looked as clean as ever.

Friday afternoon's outage map

When I got home I found that Entergy had released a schedule for restoring power. It looks like our area, among others, is supposed to be restored tomorrow, and pretty much everything by the 8th - five days from now. That's better than most were expecting, so we're hopeful. Tulane has some damage on campus but nothing severe and researchers are starting to return to their labs already.

Yesterday I helped change the oil in a whole-house Generac generator, and helped Damon get one of our backup window units into his upstairs window so they could hopefully get some sleep. He has that a/c hooked up to his generator, another smaller one connected to an extension cord from our house, and some other stuff connected to another extension cord from our house. Lots of people are still out of town and not quite sure when to return. Perhaps Entergy's schedule will help. Here's some of it for posterity:

Sept. 3 (Friday):

• B.W. Cooper
• Black Pearl
• Carrollton/Riverbend
• CBD along Poydras
• Gert Town
• Iberville
• Hollygrove
• Leonidas
• Maple Area
• Marlyville-Fountainbleau
• Upper Audubon
• Uptown Triangle

Sept. 4 (Saturday):

• Along Canal St.
• Bayou St. John
• City Park
• East Riverside
• Lafayette Square
• Lakeshore/Lake Vista
• Lakeview
• Lakewood
• Lower Garden District
• Mid-City
• Navarre
• Pontchartrain Point
• Small portion of New Orleans East along Paris Rd.
• St Thomas
• Treme-Lafitte
• Tulane-Gravier
• Warehouse District
• West End

Sept. 5 (Sunday):

• Audubon
• West Riverside
• Broadmoor
• Central City
• Dillard
• Fairgrounds
• Freret
• Holy Cross
• Irish Channel
• Little Woods
• Milan
• St Bernard
• Touro
• Uptown
• West Riverside

Unexpected Power

We have power! I hope it lasts.....

I rode out to the levee this morning shortly after sunrise, carefully avoiding all of the debris in the road, and logged a few miles - my first since Saturday. Along River Road in Jefferson there were long sections where all of the power poles were lying across the road. As they went down, they also pulled down the lines that crossed the levee. Those power lines and support cables were lying across the bike path in a number of locations, but it easy to ride over them. Farther down, near the end of Jefferson Parish, there was a low-hanging guy wire with caution tape hanging from it. It was practically where I had planned to turn back, so I didn't bother trying to go under it. Along the way I passed the huge tower that holds up one end of the big power transmission cables that cross the Mississippi to the big power plant on the westbank. The corresponding tower on the other side is the one that collapsed. 

Later in the day our neighbor brought over a full 5-gallon gas can. Last night we had run an extension cord from his larger generator to our little emergency window unit, which allowed us to sleep in blissful comfort. I got a few things done, but people are still scattered all over the place and difficult to contact, so it was kind of frustrating. By evening I was more than ready for a glass of wine, or two. Around 8:30 pm I went out on the relatively cool front porch (inside it was around 85°F) where I could hear the musician group down the street. I'd almost fallen asleep when I heard them suddenly stop playing as they let out a loud group cheer. I opened my eyes to find that the lights in the house were on! I was shocked. I'd been fully expecting another week without electricity. The neighbors along Neron Place were still in the dark, but since we're on the corner our power comes from the line that goes down Pine Street and S. Claiborne. What luck! I waited about ten minutes, expecting something to blow up and put us in the dark again, but it didn't happen, so we fired up the house air-conditioner, closed up the windows, and unplugged all of the extension cords running all through the house. Finally I went out to the back yard and turned the generator off.

Somehow Entergy had figured out a way to get a significant amount of power back into the city. Got to give them credit for that.