I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into from the get-go. Nonetheless, it was virtually impossible to resist a trip up to Big Rich's hideout in the Blue Ridge mountains with Charles and Jeff. So throwing caution to the wind, I loaded my bike and bag into Jeff's BMW early on a Sunday morning for the long drive to Asheville NC for four days of verticality. If there's anything that over a decade of riding the annual Six Gap Century has taught me, it's that I am not what you would ever call a "climber." Fortunately, whatever cycling ego I once had is now greatly diminished, which is probably nature's way of keeping me from having a self-induced heart attack on a 10% grade. The drive up to NC was pretty uneventful unless you count the usual traffic jams going through Atlanta, and so we arrived at Rich's place well before dark. Charles and Jeff were stationed in "the treehouse," a separate guest house next to the main residence perched on a steeply sloping lot overlooking the forest, complete with deer and bears.
On tap for Monday's ride was an out-and-back up to the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center. This 43 mile ride featured over 4,400 feet of arduous climbing with grades ranging from 4 to 10%. Barry came by to join us for the ride, and we all trudged up the long gravel driveway that is too steep and loose to ride on a road bike.
After going immediately into the red before we even started the main climb I quickly decided to do focus on my heartrate, keeping it in the general vicinity of 140-144 bpm. My lungs were clearly not happy with something, so any sustained efforts above that made me sound asthmatic. Interestingly, Strava awarded me with my "biggest climb" for the continuous 17 or 18 miles at the blazing average speed of 9.2 mph and an average heart rate of 140 bpm. My legs felt fine, my breathing not so much. Of course at my age one wonders if it's impending heart failure, or pneumonia, or just the way it is now. It was definitely a challenge, and I was definitely the last one to arrive at the visitor center.
After a brief regrouping at the top, we headed back down the way we'd come.
The three flatlanders were being especially cautious with the speed since we were on unfamiliar roads and the road was, as it probably always is, a bit damp. That kept my top speed down to 43 mph, while confirming that the 140 mm front rotor was, at least for me, sufficient. Strava accurately tagged the ride as "Massive Relative Effort." On the plus side, I barely drank any water since the temperature was somewhere in the 60s the entire time. Although the Garmin's ClimbPro feature of course kicked in immediately, it would have been better to have had the route loaded on the computer, so Rich sent us the gpx files for each of the other three rides we'd be doing.
Later that day we took a walk down to the edge of the property at a stream where there are the remnants of a very old mill.
Tuesday's ride was a bit shorter at 36 miles, but with over 4,000 feet of climbing. Rich's friend and neighbor, Jim, joined us for this one. This one was mostly a loop, so there were two long climbs followed by two long descents, neither a long as those on Monday. When the grades got above 6% or so, I'd just say goodbye to the others and climb at my own pace, mostly in the 36 x 30. The two climbs were about six miles each, and the downhills were fun even though we were taking them rather cautiously.
Wednesday was our longest ride at around 46 miles. With only 3,700 feet of climbing broken into two climbs, this was what passes for a flat easy ride up there. It was by no means easy, but it was perhaps easier. As far as I could tell, there aren't more than ten feet of flat ground anywhere around Asheville.
Our plan was to make the drive back to New Orleans on Thursday, but fortunately we had enough time to get in one last ride in the morning. This one was only 26 miles, up the Rose Hill climb. I think this route probably had the steepest grades of the four we rode. Despite being relatively short, the average grade up the Rose Hill climb was over 8% with some short spots in the 10-16% range. For reference, my average speed on that climb was 8.2 mph. Earlier this year Lisa had averaged 12.5, and the fastest Strava segment speed is apparently 18 mph.
So is was a great challenging weekend with friends, and a welcome break from the 80-90° New Orleans temperatures. Although the weather forecast had initially been calling for a lot of rain, we never got any during our rides, and although the roads were usually damp enough to keep me from letting the bike go on the downhills, the only problems they caused were strictly psychological. As slowly as I was climbing, I don't really think I could have gone much faster without doing more damage than I'd like. As it was, my lungs felt kind of raw much of the time I was there.
The drive back was fine despite a short detour caused by an accident up ahead of us, and we arrived back home at a reasonable hour.
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