Six Easy Gaps

Six Gap 2024 - Damp but Doable

My 14th trip up to Dahlonega for the annual Six Gap Century was not without its complications, but it went fairly well, considering. Hurricane Helene came ashore on the eastern part of the Florida panhandle Wednesday night, so there weren't any significant effects in New Orleans. The problem was that (a) it was moving at something like 20 mph to the north, and (b) the storm tracks were sending it right over the Atlanta area by Thursday. So it wasn't until the middle of Thursday that I was reasonably confident that we would be able to make the trip at all, and it wasn't until Friday that we knew we would have the two Tulane minvans we'd requested. One of the five riders who had been planning on going had already decided to stay home by then, so with two vans and two hotel rooms we would at least have a lot of space to work with. Also, by Friday, Big Rich was stuck at his house up in Ashville, NC where the storm had had ended up. Roads to his house were completely washed out, and he had no water or power service. Fortunately he has a whole-house generator, but unfortunately only half of his propane tank left with no way for anyone to refill it any time soon. That situation had not changed as of Monday, as far as I know.

So anyway, by Friday night, four of us were good to go. I had already installed the Wolftooth Roadlink derailleur extender so I could use the 11-32 cassette that I reserve just for Six Gap. It's a bit of a kludge, since the short-cage derailleur can't really handle the full range, but by pulling the Roadlink back a bit I can make it work without having too much slack in the small-small combinations. It worked fine last year, and it would work find this year as well. The only remaining concern was the possibility of rain on Sunday. By Saturday morning the forecast was looking pretty good, though, which at least relieved some of my concerns about flying down unfamiliar wet roads at 50 mph with wet carbon rims and rim brakes. Considering that I was barely recovered from the 150 mile ride around the lake the prior weekend, and the fact that I was expecting wet roads, I had already decided to make this year's ride a low-stress one.

So on Saturday morning Dylan, Josiah, Jack, and I met up at HQ after picking up the minivans from the Claiborne lot, with a plan to leave at 7 am. Only Josiah had ridden any of the course before. For Dylan and Jack it would be their longest rides ever. Dylan had spent the better part of a week cobbling together one of the Tulane bikes, and although we never quite got it shifting right down around the 11, 12, and 13 cogs, I was pretty sure that wouldn't be a problem since the only thing that is really important for this course is how your two lowest gears work. Jack was riding an old carbon and aluminum SyCip, which was another of the Tulane bikes that someone had donated to the club years ago. When he showed up that morning I was a little concerned about a couple of things. Although he is in great shape generally, he didn't have much riding experience. Worse, the lowest gear on the bike was a 39 x 25. I've done the ride like that, and although it's possible, it is definitely not the best way to go. He also had only a single bottle cage on the bike, and no spare tube or anything.

The drive up to Dahlonega was fairly uneventful. Since they close Saturday packet pick-up at 4 pm, and we lose an hour as we drive into the Eastern time zone, there's really no way to make that without leaving really early. We'd be staying at the elegant Motel 6 about 20 minutes from Dahlonega in Dawsonville, so it just didn't make much sense to even try to make packet pickup or even to do a short ride Saturday evening. We did scrape up a tube, CO2 cannister, and inflator for Jack. It was looking like the roads might be wet, so I was a little worried about flats even though they are pretty rare on those roads.

Sunday morning we were out the door just a little after 6 am, and when we arrived at the high school a bit past 6:30 the parking lot was already beginning to fill up. We quickly headed over to packet pickup where Jack switched his registration from the 3 Gap route to 6 Gap one. Such optimism and confidence! By 7:20 we were still by the car, which was way late for the 7:30 am start. I rushed down into the middle of the horde of riders as the others went to fill their water bottles. I don't think I have ever started so far back in the group, but since I wasn't planning on trying for a fast time this year, it didn't matter much. We were off right on time, and back where I was most riders weren't pushing the pace at all. It was about 60° and the roads were kind of wet, but it wasn't looking like rain. I felt fine for the first couple of climbs, as usual, going mostly around 9 mph without much stress. 

Around mile 87

The second Gap, which is really the third significant climb, is Hogpen, which has some of the steepest sections on the course. For most of that I was in the 5-6 mph range, often in the 32 and trying to keep my cadence up. Unfortunately my cadence sensor had moved in transit and wasn't working. Unlike some years, I was being super cautious on the downhills. It was foggy at the tops of the climbs and the roads were damp. You could see where trees had fallen across the roads here and there, and although they had all been neatly cleared, there were wet leaves all down the center of the roads. Since I wasn't focused on time this year, I wasn't willing to take any chances with that and therefore spent a LOT of time on the brakes, which I think actually made things feel a little more sketchy than if I'd just let it roll. Anyway, the net result was that my max speed was only 43 mph, which is at least ten mph slower than I've done in the past. On the plus side, I finished with all my skin and no broken bones.

What's left of  the derailleur
and hanger

Somewhere early in the ride, Jack's rear derailleur caught a spoke and destroyed the wheel, derailleur, hanger, and dropout, so his ride ended very early. The rest stop that used to be on top of Hogpen was moved down the the bottom somewhere, and since it was at nearly 50 miles, and I uncharacteristically needed to pee, I decided to stop there for a few minutes. Although I hadn't put much of a dent into my two small water bottles, I topped one of them off, and picked up a couple of gel packs while I was there. A little group of mostly NOLA Fixed riders was there, so I hung onto the back of that little paceline for a while until we started up the Unicoi climb. That one isn't as steep as Hogpen, but I was still taking it easy, staying mostly in the 6.5 to 9 mph range. Again, I took the downhill carefully, staying in the 30-40 mph range. 

There was fog at
the tops of the 
climbs.

By Wolfpen, around 75 miles in, the cloudy sky was starting to sprinkle occasionally, and for a little while that qualified as legit drizzle. It never got to the point where you'd call it rain, but for much of the last 25 miles my feet were getting cold. I had been slowing going through the flask of Hammergel I had in my pocket, and would finish it off in the last few miles, but I doubt I drank the equivalent of a full water bottle during the entire ride thanks to the cool temperature and cooler pace. Coming down the last downhill where you make that 180 degree downhill turn at the traffic circle a rider came up to me and commented, "Well, that was fun!" He was going at a nice pace, so I pretty much sat on his wheel for the last ten miles through the rolling hills to the finish.

Coming into the finish at the high school

So I finished this year feeling none the worse for wear with one full water bottle and two gel packs still in my pockets. Although my back and neck were hurting as usual, the quads were still in reasonably good condition, considering. My Garmin showed a riding time of 6:37, and my chip time ultimately showed 6:41. Interestingly, I had times of 6:37 twice before, in 2018 and 2019, but I'd call this year a record slow year. I've been under 6 hours five times in the past, so I think of anything over 6:15 as a slow one.

Back at the car, where Jack had been languishing with the broken bike for at least 4 or 5 hours, I loaded the bike into the van and wandered off to the cafeteria for something to eat and drink, and later to change into civilian clothes. Dylan and Josiah were still MIA an hour later, and I was starting to wonder if they had run into a problem, so I walked down to the finish area to wait for them. They finally rolled in with chip times around eight and a half hours, having enjoyed the rest stops quite a bit. By the time they got something to eat and changed clothes it was around 4:00 pm, which was the latest I'd ever started the drive back, not counting the broken collarbone year. 

There was a light rain falling as we left Dahlonega, but it was never any more than that, so the drive back to NOLA was fine except for the traffic going through Atlanta where apparently nobody knows how to drive. At one point we were just to the left of a semi when I guess somebody cut him off and he slammed on the brakes and started skidding into our lane just ahead of us. Luckily he got it under control and the car, or cars, involved in the accident pulled over right after we went by. That could have been much worse. The other SNAFU was our search for a gas station that would accept the Tulane fleet credit card. My minivan was already showing the "Low Fuel" warning when we pulled into the second gas station where the card didn't work, so I pulled out my own card and put a couple of gallons in just to be on the safe side. Luckily we found a Love's just a few miles down the road after that. We arrived back in New Orleans around 1:30 am, and after filling up the cars with gas and dropping Jake off, and unloading stuff into my basement, it was probably around 2 am before I went to bed, which was harder than you might think because of the half gallon of coffee and the Red Bull I'd had during the drive. It was less than four hours later that I was out the door to the Mellow Monday ride, which was, mostly, mellow. This morning the Tuesday lakefront ride got a little fast for a while on Lakeshore Drive, but after that it was just Matt and I doing a very easy out and back to the casino. My legs felt fine, although my back and neck are definitely not back to their usual moderate level of pain. 

Chip times for riders listed as Louisiana: