VT Six Gap

A couple weekends ago I headed out to VT to join Jordan for a little GMSR recon. The plan was to ride the 64.7 mile road course (abbreviated from the p/1/2 version) on Friday, take Saturday easy, and then possibly do the LAMB (Lincoln, App, Midd, Brandon) ride on Sunday. Plans change...

Friday was a great ride. I'm not sure I've done a ride that was long with that much climbing, but yet felt like an easy spin. We got rained on a few times and got quite cold, but the weather cleared up for the ascent and descent of App Gap. Unfortunately, the wet pavement precluded any awesome descent down into Waitsfield. Overall, pretty casual though. I think we did 70 miles in 4:10. To think that I did that race in ~2:50 last September is crazy. As a side note, Appalachian Gap is really manageable when you're not racing it. I think I like it better when my HR is below 200bpm...

As planned, Saturday was a ridiculously easy spin for 45 minutes. After all, we had this 4-gap ride tomorrow, right?

As we discussed plans for Sunday, it dawned on us that we had no idea how long this ride was going to be. After consulting with gmaps-pedometer, I roughly calculated the distance to be ~115 miles. Wow, we had no idea it was going to be that long. But then we thought...what's another 20 miles to do the fabled 6 gap VT ride? That's a good idea, right? So there it was- we randomly decided to tackle the 6 gap ride, not 12 hours before our departure.

For those not aware, here's some info on the 6 gap, including a link to Colin's report from last year. I don't think I'll do quite that much detail, mostly because it was a couple weeks ago and I don't remember every single detail. This will be more of a Cliff's notes version.

- The EASY way to do this ride is to start in Rochester and do Brandon, Midd, Lincoln, App, Roxbury, Rochester. This is normally the way people do it. Then, you hit Lincoln and App Gap (the hardest/steepest and the second hardest climbs) at ~60 miles and ~75 miles. Since we started from Warren, we had the option of doing those climbs first...or last. We chose last. We would eventually hit Lincoln gap with a full 1oo miles in our legs. Beautiful.

-I've become a real fan of riding dirt roads since I became a more competent bike handler, thanks to cross and mtb. The ascent of Roxbury was really fun and so was the descent. The descent of Lincoln was awful, though. We stopped halfway down to cool the rims and brakes.

-I don't remember too much of Rochester, although I recall a really steep finish and a fun descent. I bet that's a great way to finish the ride for those that do it based from there.

-Brandon gap is a joke. I don't know if that should even qualify as a gap.

-We became temporarily lost after the descent of Brandon gap, as we missed a turn in the road. That added about a mile to our ride. Even more hardcore.

-The worst section of the ride for me was from the base of Brandon to Midd, along Lake Dunmore. As I recall, we only had 60-70 miles and my upper back and neck were making this really difficult for me. A 10 minute stop for water/coke/food right before the turn off VT Rt. 7 provided the necessary break for me to feel like I could finish this thing. I would have hated to quit because of a neck issue, because my legs were fine.

-Possibly because of the pb&j I ate in Warren, I had awful stomach cramps while climbing Lincoln Gap and for much of the remaining 30 miles. I also tried to not use my 39x27, but was ultimately forced into it. I think I made it within 800m of the summit before I had to give up on the 24 and downshift. That climb was no joke. I laughed at the report that said you had to concentrate on not getting a wheelie, but there were several points that my front wheel came close to unweighting as I pulled up on the bars so much. As a side note- I drove up Lincoln on the way home, taking a video with my digital camera...but it doesn't do it justice at all. As usual, the camera severaly flattens the appearance of the terrain.

-App Gap is appreciably harder with stomach cramps and 125 miles in your legs. Who knows what it will feel like with ~100 miles of racing come late August this year... The last pitch to the summit/GMSR finish was pretty painful, but I 'sprinted' it out to get it over with. It was all worth it for the descent, though. I couldn't bomb down it during GMSR last year without the risk of losing GC points.