Fall adventure on double oak way

At the edge of the helicopter hill descent – me and Simon – you can see the ridges all the way out to Hugh Daniel, which blocks the view of the Double Oak ridge line.

I posted a message to Facebook yesterday that I wanted to ride out to Double Oak Way today, and three brave souls (Russell Fulmer, Simon Prentice, and Jonathan Soto) showed up for the first cold ride of the season. Temps never got much above 50 degF spending a lot of time in the mid to upper 40s. Combined with a stiff north wind, the temp made for a chilly ride. But the ride itself, was a great adventure.

I set the bottom of Old Montgomery as the starting point for the ride because I wanted to put my Strava KOM shootout effort in for the week. Russell had gotten there early and already put his effort in so he waited partway up and got this video of me on my effort to get the KOM:

My legs were feeling great initially, but I botched the switchback in the video and paid for it later because I had to dig deep to keep my speed out of the corner. I broke my old time by 24 seconds and Boris’s KOM time by 14 seconds. I set a new power record during the short 3 minute effort as illustrated below:

Critical power curve – KOM efforts highlighted – bulges in the curve. The only KOM I was going for on today’s ride was the Old Montgomery one. (click to enlarge)

Afterwards, Russell and I rode back down to the bottom to meet Simon and Jonathan to start our ride. We immediately began with the Cat 3 climb up Old Montgomery all the way to the high point on Shades Mountain on Vestavia Dr. From there we worked our way over to the Healthsouth Helipad Hill, which is where the photo at the top and the video below was taken.

Then it was onto a long 280 section taking us to the Hugh Daniel climb up and over into the valley at the base of Double Oak Way. The climb started out well (video below), but shortly after the steep part and rolling section, Simon had a stick kick up into his rear wheel lodging itself between the spoke and the non-drive chainstay. The stick not only broke a spoke but also cracked the frame. Because of how out of true the wheel was after breaking a spoke, there was no way for Simon to ride his bike. Nearly a mile behind a closed gate meant a mile of walking for Simon. So the rest of us took off back down the mountain to head back to Mt Laurel where we figured we could find a wheel to borrow from the scheduled group ride that was just finishing. I carried Simon’s broken wheel down and then returned with a loaner Campy wheel, which Simon was able to ride down to wait for someone to come pick him up.

During the wheel exchange (behind the gate), a property patrol vehicle came down and kicked us off the property. It was at the really steep part of the climb that the patrol agent was talking to us, so John pushed past not realizing what was going on — meaning that he was the only one of us who ended up making it ALL the way up to the top of the mountain. Luckily, the patrol agent wasn’t interested in going after him and turned to go patrol some of the trails on the property. After we all got back together, we headed over to Old 280 to do the Ebsco parking lot climb. Then we turned around, descended 280 past Lee Branch, worked our way across 280 (backwards at one point), navigated a hilly route through Meadowbrook, left out the back entrance to the Spain Park baseball fields cut-through, flew down Caldwell Mill to the Cahaba River bluff wall, climbed up to Dolly Ridge and then continued climbing on up to Vestavia Dr before descending down to the Brookwood Dental launchpad office cut-under (you ride under the office building, which is on stilts), through the apartments and finally back down Old Montgomery back to the start. I said good-bye to Russell and John before turning around and heading back up and over the mountain get home. What a ride!

John and me riding past the colonnade on our way over to the healthsouth helipad hill (pic by Russell)

John, Simon, and me riding up the healthsouth helipad hill (pic by Russell)

Me talking to Simon about how to descend the super steep grassy hill (pic by John)

At the edge of the helicopter hill descent – me and Simon – you can see the ridges all the way out to Hugh Daniel, which is blocking the view of the Double Oak ridge line (pic by John)

Me descending the Healthsouth Helipad hill (pic by John)

Me Russell and Simon approaching the first steep section of the Double Oak climb (pic by John)

Looking for a spoke wrench to attempt to fix the wheel (pic by John)

Nice fall colors along the upper portion of the Double Oak climb (pic by John)

Sand/dirt across the bottom-out portion of the double oak roller coaster (pic by John)

Me carrying the broken wheel back to Mt Laurel (pic by Russell)

Me carrying the replacement wheel back up the steep lower portion of the Double Oak climb (pic by Russell)

Me and John finishing the short Old Brook Trail climb (pic by Russell)

Six Gap Century and Criterium

The Pro/1/2 podium for the Six Gap criterium. L-R: Scott Kuppersmith, Lucas Wardein, and Brian Toone
Analise wake-boarding with Brad
Josiah and me about to start jet-skiing
Josiah giving us the hang ten sign while wake-boarding with Brad

These photos above are my favorite from a great family weekend of hanging out with friends, racing and riding bikes, and enjoying the beautiful mountains of North Georgia. Analise and Josiah wake-boarded for the first time. I got to ride a jet ski for the first time. And we had a great time hanging out with Brad and Brenna and their kids at their family lake house on Lake Lanier less than 30 minutes from Dahlonega. Here’s how the racing went on Saturday and the epic riding went on Sunday…

Saturday @ 7:30PM, Six Gap Criterium
The course was the same three corner course plus the downtown square which is small enough that I heard at least one person describe it as a roundabout. So the course was either three corners and a 180 or 7 corners depending on how you count the square. Either way you go, the course is really fast with two uphill sections and two downhill sections. I was slow in getting to start line so I started on the back row of a small field of about 25 pro/1/2 riders. The layout of the course meant that there was really only one spot to pass people – just past the start/finish all the way through the top of the hill after turn 1. The rest of the course was so fast and had turns coming at you so quickly that it was difficult to pass anyone.

I had to watch the early breaks on the first couple laps go as I was still working my way to the front. Fortunately, none of those stuck, and I was able to get to the front by the fourth or fifth lap. A few laps later I went with a move that didn’t last long. A few laps after that was another move that I was in – this one lasted a couple laps but never got a good gap. Only a couple laps after that, I bridged up to a move started by Brendan Cornett (TBB Sports), who has been riding super strong this year, and one of the UHC-706 riders (Jonas?). Brendan was clearly the strongest and drilled it hard, but we never got our gap out to more than 5-10 seconds. Even so, we held that gap for quite a few laps (about 1/4 of the race) before getting pulled back in.

Then there was a flurry of attacks that eventually saw Scott Kuppersmith break free. A lap or two later, Lucas Wardein (Florida Velo), attacked and bridged to Scott solo. I think at that point everyone looked to UHC to bring back the move, but the gap had ballooned to nearly 30 seconds so it was too late to bring it back in the last five laps. Johnny Brizzard (Subaru) raced aggressively but couldn’t get a gap to stick. He was at the front drilling it hard at the start of the last lap when I decided to attack as soon as the pace let up. Going into turn 1, we slowed down just a bit and it was now or never so I attacked as hard as I could hoping to hold it through all the corners. I was able to just barely hold it to the finish with Brendan and Oneal Samuels (UHC-706) coming up fast behind me for 4th and 5th. Kristine got a good video of the finish starting with me charging through with about 500 meters to go…

She also got a video of the field rounding the square earlier in the race…

I was really happy to finish my last criterium for the year with one more podium! All my power/heartrate data is below:

Six Gap Criterium Pro/1/2 – heartrate/power data (click to enlarge)
Six Gap criterium pro/1/2 power map (click to enlarge)
Six Gap criterium pro/1/2 last lap power data (click to enlarge)
Six Gap criterium pro/1/2 heartrate zones

Six Gap Criterium Lap Data
Pro/1/2 Third Place
Lap	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	MPH
1	1:16	301	796	165	25.7
2	1:15	255	725	169	26.2
3	1:14	266	849	170	26
4	1:13	301	877	169	27.3
5	1:08	381	874	181	29.1
6	1:12	324	711	185	27.6
7	1:17	280	651	177	26
8	1:17	247	570	175	26.2
9	1:22	233	806	165	25
10	1:14	304	955	166	27.8
11	1:10	359	801	181	29.4
12	1:20	219	644	176	26.5
13	1:20	210	779	165	25.9
14	1:20	233	882	162	26.7
15	1:13	325	884	167	29.3
16	1:11	344	921	183	31.1
17	1:09	352	691	185	29.5
18	1:15	300	655	186	28.4
19	1:21	234	594	178	25.5
20	1:15	239	777	169	27.9
21	1:16	217	813	166	27.7
22	1:18	259	920	163	26.3
23	1:13	271	756	176	28.6
24	1:13	352	890	180	28.5
25	1:11	296	696	184	28.6
26	1:13	317	661	183	27.7
27	1:15	279	631	182	27.4
28	1:14	294	643	180	27.4
29	1:17	291	837	179	25.9
30	1:16	228	630	177	27.3
31	1:19	192	738	172	25.7
32	1:20	214	746	164	26
33	1:15	221	745	166	26.5
34	1:27	195	767	163	22.8
35	1:21	241	973	161	24.9
36	1:16	240	807	169	26.2
37	1:17	235	872	164	25.5
38	1:23	206	873	166	24.4
39	1:21	234	890	166	24.4
40	1:15	249	852	165	26.8
41	1:20	282	887	166	24.9
42	1:21	262	810	180	25
43	1:15	285	912	177	26.8
44	1:13	287	917	175	27.4
45	1:12	235	715	176	27
46	1:07	463	990	185	29.2

Sunday @ 7:30AM, Six Gap Gran Fondo
Less than 12 hours later, I was lined up with close to 3,000 other people awaiting the start of the annual Six Gap century. There is a reason why this event draws so many people – the course covers some of the best cycling roads in the entire country. Huge climbs, awesome descents, and lots of fun awaits those who do this event. The century also has a KOM competition that was sponsored this year by the USA Pro Cycling Challenge (the pro tour race in Colorado). This year’s competition was based on your chip timing up Hogpen Gap – a 7 mile stair-stepper climb with sustained sections as steep as 15%.

The first few miles leaving the high school were a great time chat with people and enjoy the draft of such a huge group. When you get that many cyclists together, you know that there are going to be a lot of yo-yoing back and forth as the pace accelerates on the downhill and then suddenly slows on the next steep roller — so you do your best to pay attention and help each other out by calling out when the pace is slowing and everything is fine. The group takes up pretty much the whole road, but on a Sunday morning in a rural section of the mountains of north georgia, I can only recall seeing a couple cars the entire 10 mile section leading into the first large hill on the course.

I was pretty far back when we reached the first of the six major climbs of the day – Neel’s Gap. I worked my way close to the front by the top of the first section of the climb. Then shortly after the bottom of the next climb, I finally made it all the way to the front. My teammate, Boris Simmonds, accelerated a bit and got away from the group early on the climb. Jimmy Schurman (Globalbike) set a fast pace that eventually reeled in Borris and dropped everyone except Christian Parrett (Globalbike), Mark Fisher (strong rider from Birmingham), and me. Across the top, we slowed down enough that quite a few riders joined us on the descent with a group of maybe 20 riders starting the climb up Jack’s Gap together.

The pace up Jack’s was tame enough that most of us were still together going into the third climb of the day (Unicoi Gap). Mark pushed it super hard at the bottom. I was on his wheel so I initially went with him, but I was pushing 375 watts up the climb and wanted to save some energy for the next climb up Hogpen Gap. Mark went on alone and I joined the rest of the group cruising up Unicoi at a more leisurely pace. We stopped at the top and refueled with lots of PB&J sandwiches.

Our group pushed the pace hard heading into the Hogpen climb so we were down to less than 10 riders by the turn onto GA-348. Jimmy Schurman was drilling it hard at the front and pretty soon it was just me, Mark, and Christian again. We crested the first part of the climb together, but Mark came off our group on the next steep section of the climb. Eventually we caught a couple riders who had not stopped at the Unicoi rest stop. Last year, Jimmy had dropped me at the steep section of the climb where there is a pull-out and several portapotties setup. This year I was happy to be able to hang with him and Christian all the way to the last steep roller before the top (about 1K to go). I just couldn’t sustain an above-threshold pace anymore so I eased up a bit to finish the climb at right about my threshold power of 300 watts.

After a couple minutes of waiting for more people from our group to catch up at the top, we headed down the super fast Hogpen descent. I thought Wolfpen was included again in the KOM competition so I pushed the pace hard at the bottom, Jimmy took over in the middle, and then Christian finished it off. Wolfpen is not nearly as steep as Hogpen so there was about 10 of us who survived the climb together. It’s tricky passing all the 3 gap riders and my voice was kinda horse from shouting “hello, on your left” up the climb and down the descent on the other side.

The final climb up Woody’s gap is much shorter than all the rest, and the descent was mostly good this year. Last year, we got held up by more 3-gappers and more cars on the road. This year, we eventually caught a truck pulling a 4-wheeler on a trailer and had to wait for him for a mile or two. Then he decided to stop to let us by (which almost caused us to plow into the back of him) but I was thankful that we could bomb the remaining mile or two of the descent. The rollers were good, and Christian pointed out the start of the dirt climb up Woody’s gap so I’m going to try to hit that up for southern cross in february.

Another year, another fun time at Six Gap! Here is all my power data … the first map below has the six climbs annotated with power, time, distance and vertical elevation gain.

Six Gap gran fondo power map with gap times, distances, and power averages annotated (click to enlarge)
Six Gap gran fondo heartrate/power data (click to enlarge)
Six Gap heartrate zone summary

Finally, here is a map of our boating fun yesterday and a couple more videos of the kids wake-boarding with Brad.

Boating on Lake Lanier – fun!!!

Video bonanza

I’ve just inherited an iphone 3gs with video recording capability. And I’ve been documenting some of the climbs around Birmingham, but up until this afternoon I hadn’t figured out how to do any of the fast descents with the camera because I needed to use both hands to brake. I realized if I mashed the iphone up against the handlebar, I could hold it in place with two fingers and still have a finger free to grab the front brake. Here is the resulting video of the S Cove Dr descent at 51.9mph … this is a bit on the slow side for the descent (typical max about 55-56mph, fast 58-60mph, fastest just over 60mph).

Here is a screenshot of the elevation profile with South Cove annotated. I took the video on the second time down the descent.

Elevation profile with S Cove Dr descents annotated

Earlier in this ride home from work, I took a video of the final part of the Vestavia Dr overlooking the Shades Creek valley with a view over to Red Mountain and downtown Birmingham. That video is included below:

This morning on my way into work, I took a video of the Dolly Ridge climb and Old Brook trail descent/climb. Below the video is an annotated elevation profile screenshot. The video starts shortly after the Skyland Dr roller coaster and runs until after the Old Brook trail descent and climb. Narration includes discussion of the April 2011 tornado which passed through Old Brook trail.

Dolly Ridge climb annotated

Day 5 – Crossroads Classic – Salisbury Circuit Race

Race Summary
15th place (9th in field sprint). This placing was enough for me to take 11th overall for the 5 day omnium. My hopes for a top 5 were dashed after a poor road race yesterday. And today, I just missed making it into the top 10 by 3 points. Still, this was a really strong field up here in North Carolina, and I was happy to have some strong races even if the results weren’t quite there.

The video below shows the field sprint for 6th place. (Caution – loud awesome cheering at the beginning) I was pretty far back still at the point that Kristine took this video, but the sprint was uphill, and I passed a bunch of people in the last 100 meters to finish 9th in the field sprint, 15th in the race.

The Details
The laps for today’s race were just under 1 mile long. The key feature was the finishing climb. I started out pretty well and fought hard to stay towards the front. I ended up bridging up to a good looking break with about 14 laps to go. The break was a bit too big, though, and our gap shrank from 20 seconds to 8 seconds in just one lap. I think we ended up staying away for maybe 4 or 5 laps total. Chris Harkey (Hincapie Green) and one of his teammates slipped away as a counter attack with a Mountain Khakis rider. The three riders quickly built a lead as nobody chased for an entire lap (I think this was with 5 laps to go in the race). There were two more riders that slipped away with 2 laps to go. I waited for the field sprint and ended up 9th in the field sprint, 15th for the race.

Here is the Strava segment data … I’ve included the 28 laps plus the finishing climb for the last lap … also, here is the link for the interactive strava data: http://app.strava.com/rides/1152324

NAME   DIST   ELEV  SPEED    POWER     HR      TIME
Lap 1  0.9 mi 56 ft 27.4 mph 333 watts 145 bpm 0:02:00
Lap 2  0.9 mi 56 ft 26.7 mph 264 watts 159 bpm 0:02:03
Lap 3  0.9 mi 56 ft 26.5 mph 255 watts 158 bpm 0:02:04
Lap 4  0.9 mi 56 ft 25.4 mph 230 watts 158 bpm 0:02:09
Lap 5  0.9 mi 56 ft 27.4 mph 258 watts 159 bpm 0:02:00
Lap 6  0.9 mi 56 ft 25.6 mph 217 watts 156 bpm 0:02:08
Lap 7  0.9 mi 56 ft 24.1 mph 210 watts 155 bpm 0:02:16
Lap 8  0.9 mi 56 ft 27.4 mph 261 watts 164 bpm 0:02:00
Lap 9  0.9 mi 56 ft 26.5 mph 243 watts 166 bpm 0:02:04
Lap 10 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.3 mph 253 watts 162 bpm 0:02:05
Lap 11 0.9 mi 56 ft 27.1 mph 311 watts 172 bpm 0:02:01
Lap 12 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.7 mph 254 watts 171 bpm 0:02:03
Lap 13 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.5 mph 215 watts 161 bpm 0:02:04
Lap 14 0.9 mi 56 ft 25.6 mph 240 watts 162 bpm 0:02:08
Lap 15 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.9 mph 272 watts 173 bpm 0:02:02
Lap 16 0.9 mi 56 ft 25.4 mph 223 watts 167 bpm 0:02:09
Lap 17 0.9 mi 56 ft 27.1 mph 292 watts 175 bpm 0:02:01
Lap 18 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.5 mph 211 watts 174 bpm 0:02:04
Lap 19 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.7 mph 254 watts 170 bpm 0:02:03
Lap 20 0.9 mi 56 ft 24.9 mph 228 watts 175 bpm 0:02:12
Lap 21 0.9 mi 56 ft 25.8 mph 210 watts 168 bpm 0:02:07
Lap 22 0.9 mi 56 ft 25.4 mph 207 watts 168 bpm 0:02:09
Lap 23 0.9 mi 56 ft 26.7 mph 212 watts 167 bpm 0:02:03
Lap 24 0.9 mi 56 ft 24.0 mph 187 watts 165 bpm 0:02:17
Lap 25 0.9 mi 56 ft 27.4 mph 232 watts 169 bpm 0:02:00
Lap 26 0.9 mi 56 ft 24.5 mph 190 watts 164 bpm 0:02:14
Lap 27 0.9 mi 56 ft 25.1 mph 218 watts 169 bpm 0:02:11
Lap 28 0.9 mi 56 ft 30.7 mph 374 watts 183 bpm 0:01:47
Finish 0.3 mi 33 ft 31.1 mph 703 watts 187 bpm 0:00:30

Salisbury power map annotated (purple = low power, blue/green = med power, yellow/red = high power)

Salisbury power graph

Day 4 – Crossroad Classic – High Rock Road Race

Kristine got a good video of the sprint finish with a small break staying just off the front -

High Rock Road Race – power/heartrate graph
The power graph above summarizes the race pretty well – constant attacks, chasing, hoping missed break comes back, etc… 80 guys on narrow roads makes it tough to move around, but I managed to get into a couple moves, miss a bunch of other moves, get chased down a few times, and pull the pack around once or twice. In other words, it was an all-round terrible race. I sat up for the finishing sprint when there was still 40+ riders in front of me at 200m to go and a break of 6 or 7 riders off the front of that. Hopefully, I didn’t lose too many places in the overall and maybe with a good result tomorrow I can pull off a top 10 for the omnium.

Here is the lap data from Strava:

NAME  DIST    ELEV   SPEED    POWER     HR      TIME
Lap 1 12.9 mi 121 ft 27.3 mph 205 watts 144 bpm 0:28:11
Lap 2 12.9 mi 121 ft 26.6 mph 244 watts 158 bpm 0:28:51
Lap 3 12.9 mi 121 ft 26.2 mph 224 watts 151 bpm 0:29:20
Lap 4 12.8 mi 121 ft 26.1 mph 219 watts 152 bpm 0:29:28
Lap 5 12.8 mi 121 ft 25.1 mph 190 watts 145 bpm 0:30:40

Here is the interactive link: http://app.strava.com/rides/1132466