Tag Archives: vacation

The Last Gap

Hogpen Gap



 

In a few days, I’ll be heading back to the North Georgia mountains for my first attempt at the Six Gap Century. It will be my last big ride of the year, the largest event that I’ll attend this year, and perhaps the toughest of the year. Potentially 3,000 riders will be descending on the small town of Dahlonega, to climb somewhere between 11,000-13,000 feet (depending on GPS software, who you ask). It will be a beast, and the perfect capper to a successful climbing season.

I found a pretty good preview of the ride at another blog.

Fortunately, this area is not entirely new to me. I was able to climb three of the gaps earlier this summer. Just having those few climbs under my belt makes what’s coming less intimidating. That ride included legendary Hogpen Gap, the behemoth climb with the reputation as being one of the toughest. It may have been tough, but definitely climbable. In fact, I’d say that Highway 181 from last week’s Bridge to Bridge was tougher. This year the organizers have teamed up with the US Pro Cycling Challenge, and will give King of the Mountain prizes for those who climb Hogpen the fastest. Needless to say, I will be going home empty handed on Sunday.

A Slight Setback

Apparently I tweaked something in my last two rides. My hip has been sore, with symptoms consistent with a Hip Pointer injury. It is probably not from cycling, but I first felt it after last Thursday’s group ride. It was just minor discomfort at that point, so I dismissed it, and went along with my business. I rode again on Saturday morning, feeling fine, but it came back afterward. A few days later and it is still with me. In fact, it is now a little bit worse.

It is an unusual injury. The pain is isolated to a specific area on my right hip, not far from my groin. I still have normal mobility, but when I try to gyrate my hips or rotate my leg outward, it burns. Rather than take chances, I have already obtained a prescription for an anti-inflammatory, which I will take over the next few days.

This means I’ll be tapering a lot more than normal. I will not ride at all this week. I will get plenty of rest, and hope the anti-inflammatories do their magic. Normal recovery for such an injury is 2-4 weeks. I only have one, but I am confident that I’ll be able to ride. All I need is a little improvement, and I can tough out the rest.

Given this setback, this year’s goal at Six Gap will just be to finish with my pride. I’m not looking at a time. I just want to get through, feel good afterward, and finish the season in style.

Hogpen descent.


Measuring the Blue Ridge

As I was climbing Mount Evans with a few Colorado locals, I made reference to one of the hills I had climbed in the Southeast. One of the guys turned and looked at me, and jokingly said “You guys have hills out there?” He had a good point. In terms of elevation, the Blue Ridge pales in comparison to its western counterparts. I had practically lived around 10,000 feet for most of my Colorado stay, and climbed above 11,000 several times, including once over 12,000 feet, and the big one came in at 14,100. Many of those climbs were above the treeline, and yielded views that far surpassed anything we have on the East coast.

But the climbing is different. I was reminded of that when I came back and attempted the Blue Ridge Brutal. Instead of long and gradual climbs, we have short and steep. My legs hurt far more after this ride than anything I had done in the Rockies. Not to take anything away from the Rockies, as I loved every minute of my stay, but the Southeast has some pretty amazing climbing if you ask me.

Let me back up a little bit. Earlier this year when looking for good climbing blogs, I bumped into The Climbing Cyclist. To my surprise, Matt’s website was very similar to mine, only he covered the other side of the world — Australia. I enjoyed reading about his adventures, and shot him a quick note to let him know. Of course I also let him know about my website.

As it turned out, he was planning on a trip to the states later in the year. He would be looking for good places to climb. Did I have any suggestions? Of course I recommended some of the climbs in our corner, and his interest was peaked.

I checked his website a few months later, and to my surprise, he had just climbed Mount Baldy outside of Los Angeles. He then headed to New Orleans, then to New York, and finally to Washington, DC.

We emailed again. He was asking about places to climb near his last two stops. He had already spent some time riding around New York City, and would soon be climbing Whiteface Mountain at Lake Placid. I suggested he try some of the climbs in Vermont, but that didn’t work out. As for Washington, I had no idea, but thought he could try Skyline Drive or the Parkway near Roanoke, Virginia if he was willing to drive a ways.

Then I get an email saying he had set aside a few days, and wanted to try the Blue Ridge Mountains. Which would I suggest, Asheville or Boone? That was like asking a loving mother to pick her favorite son. Ultimately I suggested Asheville because it is a bigger city, and he would be relying on local transportation to get to and from the climbs.

As for where to climb, my first suggestion was the Blue Ridge Parkway up to Mitchell. Why go small, right? It would be quite a climb, but it is also the highest point east of the Mississippi River, and is probably one of the best climbs of the Southeast. He toughed it out, made it up to Mitchell, and came back down elated. The next day he decided to head out the opposite direction on the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading up to the top of Mount Pisgah, then back down Town Mountain Road.

While the grades were not terribly steep, Matt found them to have their own unique challenges. One thing he noticed is that there is not a lot of consistency. You will be climbing at the same grade for awhile, then you will reach a flat or even a downhill before climbing again. What Matt didn’t find, was that southeast climbing can be STEEP! In fact, a lot of the climbs up to the Blue Ridge Parkway are tougher than the Parkway itself. He may have found that out if he could have ridden from Brevard, but alas, transportation was an issue.

I highly recommend you read Matt’s take on Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s a great read, and a great adventure. Even though he went through a lot of trouble to get here, I’m glad that he was able to enjoy it. The only real negative was that nobody recognized him as Australian, and one could mistook Australia for Austria. C’mon Americans!

Now back to Colorado. The tough part about climbing in Colorado is not really the elevation profiles. They are long, but most that I tried are relatively smooth and easy. Independence Pass was a long, gradual climb, averaging 3% over 16 miles. Mount Evans was a little steeper, averaging 4.5% over 27 miles. I understand there are some steeper climbs around the foothills. Magnolia Road near Boulder is known for being steep. Overall, they still seem to be an easier lot easier lot to climb.

What gets you in the Rockies is the elevation. I was maybe half the climber I had been in the Blue Ridge. Without being used to breathing such little oxygen, I simply could not push myself to muscle exertion. As a result, these rides were mostly slow and methodical. Believe it or not, I actually lost fitness when I got back home, as evident by my performance in last week’s Blue Ridge Brutal where I was 91st out of 135.

I’m not saying that Rocky Mountain climbing is easy in comparison. Quite the contrary! Mount Evans was possibly the most difficult thing I’ve ever done on a bike! Our climbs are also hard, and not to be discounted. They are simply different.


Colorado Wrap-Up

Summit Lake from the top of Mount Evans.

A few times while I was riding above the treeline, I recalled the movie Contact. Towards the end, when Jodie Foster’s character discovers the beauty of space, she sighs and says “They should have sent a poet.” I’ve thought of this as one of the cheesiest lines in film, but it made sense to me while riding in solitude surrounded by overwhelming mountain scenery. The fact that I achieved these sights under my own power made the experience that much more special. It reinforced and reinvigorated my love for climbing.

In my week of cycling, I achieved 280 miles, 25k feet in climbing, conquered eight mountain passes, and the highest paved road in North America. It far exceeded my goals and aspirations.

That may seem like a lot, but I had plenty of other activities. I attended a Colorado Rockies game, a concert at Red Rocks, a Denver Goth club (!!), toured a number of breweries, and ate my weight at local restaurants. I spent the trip with my lovely wife and some good friends.

The website now has new content areas: There is a new Photos section for the Colorado trip, a new Colorado Climbs section, and there are a lot of new additions to the Conquered Photos section.

Here are the blog posts from the week:

Day 1: Lookout Mountain
Day 2: Mount Evans
Day 3: Hoosier Pass
Day 4: Copper Mountain, Vail Pass
Day 5: Loveland Pass
Day 6: Independence Pass
Day 7: Copper Triangle

And here are some pictures of the adventures I had off the bike.


Breckenridge, Hoosier Pass, Frisco

The climbing continued after my conquest of Mount Evans. We changed base camp to Breckenridge, where we will spend the majority of the rest of our stay. It has been an eventful few days, with a baseball game at Coor’s Field, a little birthday party, riding a gondola, taking a hike, and visiting a lot of mountain towns.

And, of course, riding my bike!

Breckenridge is an unusual location to focus on road cycling simply because it is a Mecca for Mountain biking. There are mountain bikes everywhere, from casual tourists strolling through main street, to hard core adventurists climbing above the treeline. The latter sounds like fun, but not on this trip.

The great thing about Breckenridge, or more specifically Summit County (including Frisco, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Dillon, Silverthorne and other towns) are the bike paths. They literally go everywhere. The riders closer to Breckenridge are mostly on mountain bikes, while there are more roadies around Frisco and Copper Mountain, with tourists everywhere.

My road biking escapades started by going in the other direction. I followed the path out of town, and then jumped onto Highway 9 toward Hoosier Pass. This was in a late afternoon, not the ideal time for cycling, and I wasn’t surprised that I had to endure some traffic. That turned out to not be much of a problem. There was a wide shoulder for a couple miles out of Breckenridge. It shortened to maybe a couple feet around the town of Blue River, but the cars were clearly used to cyclists and were very respectful of my space. Yes, it was nice.

I had heard that Hoosier Pass was close to Breckenridge, so when the road started rolling upward, I thought the climb had already begun. I gained a few hundred feet over a few miles, and was thinking this was far easier than I expected. Then I saw a sign that said Hoosier Pass was 4 miles away. Oops. That’s when the climb began.

Like what I’ve seen so far in Colorado, this was not a very steep grade and was very scenic. There was a lot of eye candy, like the Goose Pasture Tarn (a private mountain lake) to the east in Blue River, which could be seen all the way from the Hoosier summit, four miles away. Towering over the route to the west was Quandary Peak, another 14er, which has comparable elevation to Mount Evans.

The climbing continued after my conquest of Mount Evans. We changed base camp to Breckenridge, where we will spend the majority of the rest of our stay. It has been an eventful few days, with a baseball game at Coor’s Field, a little birthday party, riding a gondola, taking a hike, and visiting a lot of mountain towns.

And, of course, riding my bike!

Breckenridge is an unusual location to focus on road cycling simply because it is a Mecca for Mountain biking. There are mountain bikes everywhere, from casual tourists strolling through main street, to hard core adventurists climbing above the treeline. The latter sounds like fun, but not on this trip.

The great thing about Breckenridge, or more specifically Summit County (including Frisco, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Dillon, Silverthorne and other towns) are the bike paths. They literally go everywhere. The riders closer to Breckenridge are mostly on mountain bikes, while there are more roadies everywhere else.

My road biking escapades started by going in the other direction. I followed the path out of town, and then jumped onto Highway 9 toward Hoosier Pass. This was in a late afternoon, not the ideal time for cycling, and I wasn’t surprised that I had to endure some traffic. That turned out to not be much of a problem. There was a wide shoulder for a couple miles out of Breckenridge. It shortened to maybe a couple feet, but the cars were clearly used to cyclists and were very respectful of my space. Yes, it was nice.

I had heard that Hoosier Pass was close to Breckenridge, so when the road started rolling upward, I thought the climb had already begun. I gained a few hundred feet this way over a couple miles, and was thinking this was far easier than I expected. Then I saw a sign that said Hoosier Pass was 4 miles away. Oops. That’s when the climb began.

Like what I’ve seen so far in Colorado, this was not a very steep grade and was very scenic. There was a lot of eye candy, like the Goose Pasture Tarn (a private mountain lake) to the east in Blue River, which could be seen all the way from the Hoosier summit, four miles away. Towering over the route to the west was Quandary Peak, another 14er, which has comparable elevation to Mount Evans. There were plenty of other peaks looming over the road, too numerous to learn or mention.

There were a few tight switchbacks with sideways S shapes to warn drivers (see the picture below). Those had some steep inclines, but were not overly difficult. I just had to stand up at certain sections to power towards a more manageable grade. It was a pleasant 4-mile climb. but I was relieved to reach the top at 11,539 feet.

The descent was just as pretty, but oh, so cold! I had forgotten to bring warmer clothing, thinking it would not be necessary at higher elevations. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I was tempted to do some climbing afterward, but after freezing my butt off, decided to spend the rest of that ride on flatter ground.

The bike paths, officially called the’Recreational Pathway System’ (or recpaths) are simply amazing. After returning from Hoosier, I rode back through Main Street Breckenridge, careful to avoid opening doors, and linked up with the Breckenridge-Frisco path.

It was a 10-mile route in each direction following Highway 9, with a slight descent into Frisco, and an easy climb back to Breckenridge. I was faced with a headwind into Frisco, so that turned out to be the more challenging direction. As mentioned, there were mountain bikers everywhere. I even saw a skateboarder and a unicycler.

The path mostly followed the highway until nearing Frisco. From there it dipped into the woods and took a scenic route. There were some mini-climbs including one section that had a sign warning of a 10% grade, but I found it to be around 5-6%. Contended that I had seen enough for one day, I headed back to Breckenridge. The paths are easy riding, so long as you are careful to maneuver around the other cyclists.

So far this has been a terrific vacation, with plenty more ahead.

Strava GPS link

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