Tour of Atlanta – Burnt Mountain road race report

2011 Burnt Mountain road race pro/1/2 podium

Finishing sprint video:

Hats off to the Hincapie Devo guys who took 1-2 in the Tour of Atlanta Burnt Mountain road race today. I squeezed onto the podium for third. The race started down a steep hill, and a group of eight of us carried a lot of momentum down it into a breakaway within a few hundred meters of the start. I didn’t even realize we had a gap until Brendan Sullivan (Irondata) said “let’s make them work for it” a few miles later as the main field was chasing back on. Meanwhile, Michael Stone (Hincapie Development) and a Globalbike rider had gone off the front of our group. Mike was flying, and he dropped his breakmate at some point during the first lap after they had gained over 3 minutes on our group.

Brendan and I took turns pushing the pace on the Burnt Mountain climb and descent. After the descent, a couple more riders joined in the chase. Eventually we got a rotation of four of us at the front of the group chasing, but with a constantly rolling course (STEEP 10-15% rollers), it was hard to keep a good rhythm. Towards the beginning of the second lap, we caught the Globalbike rider who had been in the break, but Mike still had 3 minutes on our group. Globalbike joined in our chase efforts, and our pace picked up leading into the second trip up the Burnt Mountain climb. I set the pace for the first part of the climb, followed by Brendan in the middle section, and then as we approached the scenic overlook Michael Lanham (Globalbike) attacked our group. I was able to hold his wheel, but just barely. By the first false summit of the climb, there was just four of us together. After the first short downhill and leading into the second small summit climb, there were five of us. Then by the start of the descent, there was about seven or eight of us together.

By the start of the descent, I had drained my second water bottle, but I still had a few ounces of water left in the neutral bottle I had gotten at the end of the first lap. So on one of the straighter sections of the descent, I sat up to unscrew one of the bottles and dump in the rest of the neutral bottle. In doing so, I came off the group as they descended and had to chase a little bit during the descent. I felt this was good for the legs though to keep them moving and keep the lactic acid from building up with only a few miles from the bottom of the descent to the finish of the race. I caught on by the bottom, and I expected a salvo of attacks from the Hincapie and Globalbike teams who each had two riders in our group. Instead, Mike went off solo, and the Hincapie riders decided to bring him back slowly. There was an immediate counter attack, but the group was right on it and everything was together going into the last steep hill before the finish.

Again, Mike set a fast pace on the climb. Then about halfway up, one of the Hincapie riders attacked but didn’t make it very far with Mike bringing him back and leading the rest of the way up the climb. Towards the top with less than 500 meters to go to the finish (including a downhill), Mike attacked again to start the sprint. He got a bit of a gap, but Edison Turner (Hincapie Devo) was able to grab his wheel with me just behind. Then with 200 meters to go, Edison and I both came around Mike and then I immediately tried to come around Edison – but he gave it that extra little kick and I couldn’t come around so I finished 3rd with Brendan grabbing 4th and Mike 5th.

2011 Tour of Atlanta Burnt Mountain road race

And finally, here is the Strava data on the race … I was hoping to knock off Spencer Gaddy’s fast time on the Burnt Mountain climb from last year’s race, but alas it didn’t happen. Here is the link to the strava page with all the ride statistics – http://app.strava.com/rides/649392

Strava data from the Burnt Mountain race

Tour of Atlanta preride

Tour of Atlanta, Burnt Mountain road race tomorrow. We drove in from Birmingham today, and I headed out for a loop of the course while the kids went swimming with Kristine at the hotel pool. Even though the race starts early, it’s going to be a hot, humid race if it’s anything like my pre-ride today. The entire course has steep rollers leading to the one big climb up Burnt Mountain. We’re doing three laps of the course, so I’m thinking total elevation gain could be close to 10,000′. Check out the pictures that I took during the ride … hover over each one for a caption.

New (not really) monster

Recall the Birmingham Monsters post that I created a few months back. Well, there is a new monster in town! Not really, as I have done the climb several times, but today I grabbed the stats on it so that I could include it with all the other monsters. My rough definition of a monster is any climb which exceeds 20% for some portion of the climb. Also, a related statistic is the Scanuppia Distance (which is the cumulative distance traveled on the climb where the gradient is greater than or equal to 17%, which is the average gradient for what is arguably the world’s toughest climb – the Scanuppia).

iBike data for the Stoneleigh Dr – Oakdale monster

---------Oakdale via Stoneleigh Dr ---------
Dist:        1.78 mi (0:11:04)
Energy:     176.3 kJ
Cals Burn:  168.5 kcal
Climbing:     548 ft
Braking:    -13.6 kJ (-7.7%)
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  265.5   508  W
Aero        0   34.3   575  W
Rolling     8   17.6    55  W
Gravity -1149  182.5   467  W
Speed     4.4    9.6  30.2  mi/h
Wind      0.0    8.6  33.0  mi/h
Elev      356    605   864  ft
Slope   -15.6   5.72  27.2  %
Caden      30   70.7   101  rpm
HR        125  143.0   158  bpm
NP 287 W; IF 0.957; TSS 16.9
5/27/2011 11:48 AM
84 degF; 1013 mbar

Here is a table with all the monsters sorted by Scanuppia distance. Note that today’s monster (Stoneleigh Dr) has the highest max gradient of all the monsters.

Climb	Distance	Climbing	Scanuppia	Max %
Double Oak Way	3.77 mi	883 ft	0.42mi	23.9 %
South Cove Dr	0.26 mi	229 ft	0.26mi	24.3 %
Hugh Daniel Brae Trail	1.97 mi	614 ft	0.26mi	19.4 %
Southcrest	0.56 mi	299 ft	0.22mi	24.5 %
Vesclub – Vestavia Dr	3.35 mi	793 ft	0.21mi	21.9 %
Woodcrest	1.91 mi	478 ft	0.18mi	21.4 %
Oakdale via Stoneleigh Dr	1.78 mi	548 ft	0.15mi	27.2 %
Montclair (Trinity)	0.38 mi	212 ft	0.13mi	21.8 %
Hugh Daniel Greystone Crest	1.36 mi	371 ft	0.11mi	24.4 %

And here is the topocreator map of the ride I did today with the elevation profile. Note that I did three variations of the Oakdale climb with the Stoneleigh version being the first one. Also, I really enjoyed the Shook Hill climb again today from Rocky Ridge and then climbed it towards the end of the ride for the first time from the Cahaba River in what I called on Strava a “mega stair-stepper” climb.

Topocreator map of today’s ride, which includes the Stoneleigh Dr – Oakdale monster

And here is the annotated elevation profile:
Elevation profile for today’s ride – annotated

Four weeks later…

So it’s been four weeks since the tornadoes went through Alabama, and I have seen a lot of the damage on my normal commute routes through Cahaba Heights and Vestavia Hills. But yesterday, I rode on Sicard Hollow for the first time since the tornadoes hit. Apparently, the Cahaba Heights tornado traveled along part of Sicard Hollow after it crossed the I-459. Part of the road was still one-lane as they were clearing out the last trees. When I took Kristine and the kids out there before heading out to dinner, we got some pictures and videos of the damage. Portions of the road have lost a lot of trees, but they will grow back!

The ride that I did earlier in the day was awesome. Tons of climbing and even one new climb – from Rocky Ridge across 280 up Shook Hill with 610′ elevation gain and only one downhill. Here is a screenshot of the Strava info … plus here is the link to the Strava stats on the ride – http://app.strava.com/rides/621013

Strava screenshot of the ride

Recovery update

Making great progress on recovering here. Today (Friday), I put in my first really hard efforts following a flying Warren St John up several cat 3 climbs on a climbing version of the Ross Bridge loop. My shoulder has limited mobility and I can stand for longer stretches, but I still can’t torque on the handlebars enough to race … so unfortunately I won’t be able to try to defend my state criterium championship tomorrow at the races in Huntsville. I’ve got some great teammates though who are heading up there to try to keep the title in the Tria Cycling family! Here all the stats from the ride today via screenshots and links to the Strava website:

Annotated ride map – View on Strava – http://app.strava.com/rides/593226

And here is annotated topocreator version of the map:
Annotated topocreator map of the ride

Here are the Strava stats on each of the Cat 3 climbs:
Cat 3 – Caldwell to Vestavia Dr – View on Strava – caldwell-mill-vestavia-dr-634284
Cat 3 – Patton Chapel to Park Ave high pt – View on Strava – patton-chapel-to-park-ave-high-pt-655443
Cat 3 – Big Momma West Oxmoor Rd – View on Strava – big-momma-to-high-point-on-shades-633351