Summits, Sardines, and Slow-Twitch Freaks

"The limit of endurance, I found, was long after a tortured body had cried in agony for relief."



-Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk



If you are into testing the limits of your endurance (like I am) and you do the testing with your bike, may I suggest you venture North and tackle the 6 Gaps of Vermont. The ride is everything it is hyped to be- and then some. Kinda like Lebron James. Whereas D2R2 is analogous to getting smacked in the face by a 5 year old 50 times, 6 Gaps is like receiving 6 (if not more) blows to the midsection from Mike Tyson. Pick your poison. Personally, having now done both, 6 Gaps will test your manhood like nothing you can imagine. I will now go on record to say that Lincoln Gap is the toughest climb around (sorry Ascutney, not even close) and I would really like to meet the person who disagrees with me.

I've always had this perverse affinity for hills. In fact, "hills" is listed in my "Likes" in my high school yearbook. Of course, this was when I was running them and honestly I think riding them is harder. WAY harder. Perhaps it's my personal physiology that weighs in on my opinion but climbing hills on a bike hurts real bad. It seems that cycling allows you to max out both your anaerobic AND aerobic systems (much unlike running) to make for an incredibly painful yet "enlightening" experience. Of course, as you ride more and more (at least for me) hills that once were an absolute battle to the core become in a sense easier. It becomes not so much a matter of getting to the top but how fast I can get there. Well, 6 Gaps is a ride that has a retro feel in that it will make you feel like you just started riding your bike again. Speed is a non-issue. Survival is.

Looking back, most of the ride is a blur. I awoke to rain at 6:30 and it wasn't until I was about 5 miles from Rochester that it cleared up, thankfully. Temps were in the low 50's at the start so I went with arm warmers and vest to give myself some flexibility. Quite frankly, conditions were ideal for the 20-30 minute ascents up the Gaps. It was a bit cold on the descents but I would quickly warm up as soon as we hit the flats. I remember starting on Brandon Gap. It was a slow drag up to the summit with a few kickers that may have hit 13-14%. The pace was pretty high as a few of the riders with us were only doing 4 Gaps. I managed to keep the 4 Gappers within a 100 meters or so. Andrew Gardner, a mountain goat with the MetLife cycling team, however, was nowhere to be seen. I kept repeating "There's alot of game left" to myself because the last thing I wanted to do was bury myself on the first 2 or 3 Gaps.

We crested Brandon without incident and we had about 15 miles of flats before Middlebury Gap. Pace at this point was comfortable for a while and we chatted amongst ourselves. We soon did get a nice paceline going and were moving along at ~27 mph. I honestly don't remember much, if any, of Middlebury Gap. That's not to say it wasn't hard but I rode it at tempo and descended the other side with Dave to our first stop. I was feeling ok at this point but that would all soon change... We had about 20 miles to Lincoln and in between we had a little spanker called Granville Gulf on Rte. 100 that tacked yet another 500' onto the legs.

Descending Granville Gulf, there seemed to be an anxious pall that had descended upon the group. Little did I know, the source of the anxiety was Lincoln Gap. I remember talking to Jon Eichman on the way up Granville and he said in a very serious tone, "Lincoln will demand your utmost respect." I'm still on the fence as to whether it's a good or bad thing knowing what pain lies ahead of you. Regardless, I was soon to find out.

Lincoln Gap starts out innocous enough. It has a steep pitch in the beginning fairly short in length and then you have flat dirt for a while. At this point we were all strung out. Doug was within a 150 meters or so, Brett was just ahead with Andrew, and Jon and Dave were a little behind me. The dirt section of this road was in good shape. As soon as the dirt turned to pavement, shit hit the proverbial fan like nothing I've ever seen. Just imagine a wall of pavement slapped on the side of a mountain. I honestly don't know how this road was paved in the first place. I honestly don't know who would be stupid enough to ride a bike up this bitch. Oh yeah, I am. All I can say is that this climb is the REAL DEAL. Anybody that doesn't agree is lying to themselves. It is a legitimate 20+% for over a mile with ZERO relief. Imagine doing a one-legged press and a subsequent hamstring curl of ~170 lbs (Alex + bike) for 15 minutes. In my 34x28, I was churning away at 40 rpms, the equivalent of ~4 mph. And yes, as advertised, shifting my hips toward the rear wheel would mean wheelie time. Getting out of the saddle was a lesson in futility; My HR was just about pinned at ~190 so I just kept my head down and plugged my way up the mountain. Jon was just off my wheel and I remember being extremely jealous of those few extra teeth he had on his rear cassette. (I wonder how much faster (if at all) I could have ascended had I a 32 in the back.) Out of nowhere I hear a "Yeah, baby!" from Dave apparently at the point when Doug caught and passed Brett just up the road. I had originally thought that Dave was just relishing in the extreme pain of our 4 mph Conga line. I did find it incredibly funny at the time. Did I mention I have an odd sense of humor?

We all came together at the summit where the Long Trail actually crosses the road. Andrew was there for a while, followed by Doug, Brett, myself, Jon, and Dave. I thought I had it bad in my 34x28; Come to find out, Andrew was in a 39x26! Wow. It turns out he's an ex-singlespeed mtber. That would explain his ridiculous out-of-the-saddledness. Without hesitation, I asserted that Lincoln was the toughest around. Period. Even Ascutney's worst sections aren't close to Lincoln. After waiting several minutes for the others, we began our sketchy dirt descent. It is extremely steep going the other way and I wasn't about to throw caution to the wind on this one as there was still "alot of game left." I nearly lost it when a dog ran out and scared the shit out of me on a dirt section about 2/3 of the way down. I think I'm just conditioned to all dogs being electric-fenced. Not so in these parts. 70 miles and 3 Gaps to go.

App Gap was next up on the menu. I was told they finish at the summit of this one in one of the stages of the Green Mountain Stage Race. This Gap was to be my favorite. I rode tempo with Jon for the first mile or 2 with Andrew and fellow power tappers Brett and Dave just up the road. Jon and I have remarkably similar physiologies, at least HR wise. As we climbed the lower slopes together our HRs were within a beat on several occasions. I decided to have a bit of go on App. The grade was to my liking and the switchbacks were well-placed to get in a good rhythm and allow for a brief recovery. This climb was nice also because the last 2K's of the GMSR were marked on the side of the road so I knew how much I had left to contend with. I caught Brett with about 600 meters to go and closed on Dave up the last 250 meter ramp which is a sustained 19% to the summit. Yeah, it hurt BAD. I caught up with Dave as we crested by the radio tower. I stopped to take in the scenery, pull up the arm warmers and zip up the vest. The descent down the switchbacks on the other side was the best of the ride in my opinion.

We all reconvened at the store in Waitsfield. The group that was once 12 strong was now whittled down to 5, as 3 more riders decided they'd had enough with 4 Gaps. I knew this was going to make the already hard ride harder. Great. Not to mention, one of the guys that came with us was pretty much blown. This meant that what were once 30-40 second pulls on the flats with nearly 10 minute rests now became 2-3 minute pulls (I was doing a half mile each time) with about 1/3 less rest. You can understand what this is starting to feel like with 4 Gaps in the bag and over 90 miles in the legs. Just prior to the beginning of Roxbury Gap, Andrew gets a flat. A nasty 2 inch long piece of wire was the culprit. After a 10 minute rest while he changed it, we get going. This next couple of miles were to be the worst I would feel all day. I had a hell of a time getting blood back in the legs but thankfully things worked out for the better and I started to get them back on Roxbury. I was fast approaching the world of dubiousness, which according to Doug, means that the ride is doing what it's supposed to do. Wonderful. Doug, Andrew, and I crested Roxbury together after a spanking little dirt section the last 100 or so meters. We again regrouped and made our final stop at the store in Roxbury. Doug and Andrew downed sardines (gag) for sodium while I drank my 4th and final Coke of the trip. Hey, it works for the pros.

It was at this point (~100 miles) that my legs were really in a world of hurt. The most I'd done so far this year was about 5.5 hours so I chalk it up to muscle memory. It's funny how the body remembers. Well, we had 30 miles left in the "game" and I knew they were going to be soul-searching to say the least. I soon started counting tenths of a mile (much like D2R2) and I knew each half mile pull I took would bring me that much closer to the end. The 20 miles before Rochester, the final Gap, were flat with a slight downhill bias. Let me tell ya, any deviation from verticality was welcomed with open arms. This section wasn't without difficulty; Our good friend Mr. Wind had to make an appearance.

We make the turn on Camp Brook Road for our last Gasp, oops, I mean Gap, Rochester. With 120 miles and 10000+ ft. in the legs, this 1500' monster was going to be the last hurdle before the descent back to our cars. Andrew took off again but I kept him in sight. I remember Doug saying that once the guardrails stop, it's over. Well, let me tell ya, they never ended! The last 1K was a consistent 17% and it was here that I caught up to Andrew who again was putting on a ridiculous out of the saddle climbing display. I guess I was feeling pretty strong. I had half a notion of trying to go by him (I don't need KOM's to stroke the ego) but we crested Rochester together. (Not to mention, he buried himself on the previous 5 Gaps.) He did give me props for "thrashing" the climb. It's nice to get that kind of feedback from a Cat 2 climber. I guess I got my ego stroke afterall.

We rolled down the other side and not 2-3 minutes into the descent, Doug comes blowing by us at 45+ mph. It turns out he hit 50+ on 4 out of 6 of the Gap descents. Crazy. I don't think I broke 48. Apparently Doug was eyeballing his ride time and knew if he bombed Rochester he had a shot at a Gaps record. Rochester was my 2nd favorite descent behind App. I'm not sure if the fact that it dumps you right back at your car factors in to my high descent rating. Yeah, probably. Doug, Andrew, and I got back to the lot for what would turn out to be a new Gaps record despite a slight modification to the route.






A true dragon's back if you ask me.






Profile courtesy of Doug

Final statistics:

130 miles

7:19 ride time

11,700'

17.8 avg.


This was the greatest ride of my short cycling life. I would like to extend my thanks to Doug Jansen for his organization of this ride. His passion for cycling is contagious. I can't tell you how many times I've emailed him over the last couple of years with questions and he's taken the time to answer every single one of them.

I would also like to express how grateful I am of my girlfriend's support of my 2-wheeled hobby. Rides like this wouldn't be as fun without your support, Em!

Lastly, I'm thankful for my health. I don't think we relish enough in the times that our bodies perform how we want them to and get frustrated and impatient when they don't. I can remember when I started riding a bike less than 3 years ago. It came on the heels of almost 5 years of just swimming and yoga as my running odometer had flipped for the last time. The pounding had taken it's toll and so I was relegated to non weight-bearing activities. Despite developing life-long friendships in the pool, my soul still had the thirst for adventure. I never thought I'd be able to ride a bike given my bum left knee. But, I was patient and 10 mile jaunts on my mountain bike have become epic hillclimb rides. So as you can imagine, to be able to just do a ride of the magnitude and intensity of Vermont 6 Gaps is truly a blessing.