Keefer Madness

Return to Tour to Gaps Report

// April 26th, 2009 // Cycling, Personal Crap

Today’s agenda always included some tough cycling. Originally, I was going to travel down to Sanford to race in the Sanford Criterium. Instead though, I headed back up to the NC/VA border in Mount Airy with teammate and friend, Greg to ride the first three climbs of the Tour de Gaps again. The first time, I went up there was just after the new year.

I figured I could use the multi-hour hard climbing ascent training ride over racing a crit at this point in the season.

We started out bright and early this morning, hitting the road just after seven, arriving in Mount Airy somewhere after 9. We got on the road on our two-wheeled vehicles just after and started spinning through the rollers leading up to the first climb of the day. The first 30 or so minutes through the initial rolling hills flew by, feeling more like 10 minutes.

As we started the first major ascent of the day – Squirrel Spur, a 6 mile climb averaging a 5% grade. All the climbs are beautiful, with minimal traffic, winding roads, winding and snaking up the mountains. I felt good on the first climb, warmed up from the rollers before it, and started to climb at a decent pace. I also was quite proud that I never had to drop all the way into my lowest rear gear. Granted, I was only one above it, but I still thought that was a good accomplishment over the 6 mile climb up Squirrel Spur. I reached near the top a couple minutes ahead of Greg, so I snapped a few pics of the view, and then a few pics of Greg climbing towards me.

We then flew down the roads, making a much shorter time dropping elevation, versus our near snail’s pace up. Greg is a faster descender and he took the snaking turns a lot faster than I was comfortable with, so we regrouped at the bottom and headed on to climb number two of the day.

Like the first, the second climb had some rollers and mini climbs that we made pretty short work of leading up to the second gap climb ‐ Willis Gap. This second one, though shorter, was also steeper, at 3.3 miles of climbing, averaging an 8% grade. Like the previous, I took the lead, climbing a bit faster than Greg. On top of the steeper and more difficult climb for this second ascent, it was also starting to warm up, hitting around 80 degrees, and there was little to no breeze, nor shade to shelter Plus, I got a little heart rate increase. Part way up, a house along the route had a pair of dogs that started barking their heads off. One was on a leash, fiercely jerking around. There was an audible snap and the dog flew up the driveway and started chasing me. I accelerated, and his buddy also started chasing. Several yells of, “no” seemed to intimidate them enough for them to run along side, but not get ride up near my bike. I feared they’d give chase to Greg somewhere behind me, but looking back I didn’t see him, nor did I see him the rest of the Willis Gap climb. The sun was becoming more and more of an issue, but I made it up to the top of the Willis Gap, well ahead of Greg on this one.

I crossed over the Blue Ridge Parkway, and turned back watching the incline, waiting for Greg to appear. In the meantime, I struggled to get a quick cell signal to get a text message in to the wife, as well as update my status. Greg eventually came into view, jersey unzipped, trying to stay cool. I wish I had thought to do that on my climb up. After a few minutes, we descended down and the fast speeds felt great, cooling and drying my jersey. It was completely refreshing, zipping down with the wind in my face. Those dogs never manifested on the way down, and we headed to the third and final climb of the day.

The connector to the final climb of the day has a brutal short but uber steep climb that’s been aptly named, “The Wall.” It was a smallest gear available and standing climb that was quite draining.

Soon, we got to the third, and final gap climb of the day – 3 miles at an average grade of 9%, I again, was ahead of Greg, though it was struggle to maintain the speed of the first two climbs, as the sun beating down continued to take its toll, and the second bottle of GatorAde was quickly dwindling down. But there was hope on the horizon. The top of the climb featured a little store where we could rest up and refill our bottles with much needed fluid. But first, we had to get there. Like the previous two gap climbs, shade was at a minimum and the grade was brutal. Just as I thought I was about to stop and rest, the top of the climb’s building came into view, giving the mental boost I needed to finish out, and actually accelerate slightly.

That store that we were going to refill? Out of business. The sign on the door said it had been sold and it was being renovated – bad news for us. A couple on a motorcycle stopped and asked for directions and was nice enough to give us a Diet Pepsi to split. We chugged that down very quickly after thanking them as they headed back out to tour more of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Greg found a spigot at the back of the store that was luckily on and nice and cold!

We each chugged a full bottle, then filled it back up for the return back to town to the car. After descending the Orchard gap, we hustled through the rollers, taking alternating pulls, making short work of the miles back into North Carolina.

Despite the heat, I felt like I did a much better job on the ride today. I also had the disadvantage of not having a compact crank on the Tarmac Expert, but was able to muscle through the ascents in or near my lowest gear. I also took a lot of satisfaction getting to the top first on all three gap climbs. I never cramped up a bit, a testament to both my continued fitness improvement, and pushing fluids regularly through the 50+ mile ride. I’m really glad I chose to do the climbs over the Sanford crit and it was both a great training ride, and a good confidence booster/gauge of my current fitness.