Worst Day of the Year Ride

It was cold and windy last Sunday, which actually was quite appropriate weather for the annual Worst Day of the Year Ride. It was scheduled to be a 40 miler, but the amount of fresh snow and poor road conditions lead to the organizers cutting it down to the dirt hammer route. GPS route from Strava below:

We got underway with quite a large group heading out. Within this group was Frankie Andreu, a former Olympian as well as Tour de France and Giro d'Italia finisher. It was neat to get to ride with such a high level cyclist.

Photo by Jesse Gould at the first regrouping.

As the ride went on the number of riders in the front group steadily decreased until we were left with a group of 7 about half way through the ride. After the ride we got to head into Arbor Brewing Company for some free chili and bread. After being out in the cold it was just what we needed.

I took my GoPro with me out on the ride and managed to catch some footage and put together this video.

So It Was Kind of Windy Out There

On Saturday Tim (on his fixie), Danny, and I took our cyclocross bikes out for a nice, although super cold, ride on the roads south of town. We didn't really end up needing the cross bikes as the roads were great and more or less clear of snow. Following this successful ride Tim organized another one for Sunday, but this time on road bikes since we expected the roads to be in great condition again.

Holy cow were we in for a surprise.

GPS route of Sunday's ride

The forecast was calling for some wind, but we weren't expecting it to be quite that windy! We encountered a wicked west-southwest wind that was unrelenting. According to the Weather Channel the average wind speed was 24 mph with gusts up to 33 mph. This made the first half of our ride a brutal slog through crazy winds. Oh, and it wasn't exactly warm with highs in the upper 20's.

We had a pretty good sized group to help fight the wind, but that could only help so much when facing a 30+ mph cross/headwind. We fought back against the wind the best we could and ended up averaging a blistering (/sarcasm) 14.8 mph  over the first 26 miles. It's pretty safe to say that that's probably the hardest any of us have ever worked to go less than 15 mph. To make things worse, the wind had thrown the snow back onto the road and created some pretty sizeable drifts. No one went down, but they commanded some extra care. Clay managed to snap a picture of the snow flying over the road, but it really doesn't do it justice.

Fighting the wind

Eventually we finished our death march and it was time to turn into the tailwind. After much rejoicing and a quick gas station stop we set off back towards Ann Arbor, this time with the wind at our back. And oh how glorious it was. At times we were gliding along at around 25 mph without putting much effort at all in. I noted to Tim that "This must be what it feels like to be Tony Martin all the time."

Eventually we were back to Ann Arbor Saline Rd and all that separated us from home (warmth and food) was the climb up Wagner. On paper it's not a terrible climb by any means, but its position at the end of a hard ride makes it a tough little bugger. And to make things worse, my shifter cables had gotten covered in snow from the road, froze, and became quite dysfunctional. Since they were frozen they couldn't really let out much cable tension, so I got to climb Wagner on tired legs in the big ring. Fun.

Overall it ended up being a fun, yet tough, ride. I've definitely never ridden in winds quite that extreme, especially combined with the snow. It was also great to get out there with a bunch of guys from the team. Just over a month until Lindsey Wilson!

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 3

After Thursday's effort many of us were debating just taking the day off on Friday to get some recovery in our legs. However, the weather had other plans as the brilliantly warm and sunny day lured us back out to the roads to get in one more ride before we headed back to the frigid lands of the north.

Friday:


After sleeping in and debating whether or not we wanted to ride the weather ultimately won us over. With temps in the 60's we just could not pass down the opportunity to get out in just shorts and a short sleeve jersey. Sun's Out, Guns Out was the mantra of Friday's ride. After all, gotta get a jump start on those razor sharp tan lines that we'll be sporting during the summer. Gotta obey rule number 7 you know. We wanted to take it easy, but ended up keeping a pretty nice pace throughout the ride. The legs were definitely sore and quite tired, but the gorgeous weather made it easy to momentarily forget about that and just enjoy the ride.


Friday's ride would prove to be the last of the trip as we had to get out of town early on Saturday morning in order to make it back to the homeland Ann Arbor at a reasonable hour. Despite necessary pit stops at Chic-Fil-A (first visit in 5 years, absolutely delicious), McDonald's (shamrock shakes!), and Taco Bell (Doritos tacos) we were able to get back to Michigan before it got too late.


Overall I had an absolutely great time on the trip. Sure moments of it seemed like they were terrible (I'm looking at you Hogpen ascent), but those moments of difficulty were met with rewards of accomplishment at the top. In hindsight I would have liked to climb Brasstown (highest point in Georgia) and do the 6 gap, but It just didn't happen this year. I guess I'll just have to come back next year better prepared and have another go at the mountains.

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 2

Wednesday:
Wednesday would prove to be the toughest day of the week due to a multitude of reasons. Most notable was the weather, which was cold with temps in the low 30's and wind chills in the low 20's. And that was in town, the tops of the mountains were even colder and covered in snow. Next off my derailleurs got all gummed up with something that also got cold and very viscous so my shifting was pretty much restricted to my 6 or so easiest gears. That was fine for climbing, but I couldn't keep up at all on the descents. And to top it all off my legs were tired and not interested in riding which made everything that much harder. Wednesday was definitely an exercise in  mental toughness.

The route was the same as Monday's 3 gap ride except in the opposite direction. Unfortunately this meant we didn't get the fun Unicoi descent and we had to climb up the steep side of Hogpen. At the top of Unicoi I was really tempted to just turn around and call it a day, but the guys convinced me to keep pressing on. Next up was Jack's which was even easier going the opposite direction (probably the easiest gap of the trip.) After descending Jack's it was time for the big one: Hogpen. The climb was only about 2.4 miles, but holy cow was it steep as about 1,200 feet of climbing were packed into those 2.4 miles . A tough headwind on one of the final sections didn't help either as I struggled my way to the top. Those 2.4 miles took me 33 minutes to climb while I averaged a blazing speed of 4.2 mph.

I thought my struggles were finally over as I reached the top, but unfortunately I was mistaken. Less than a mile into the nearly 7 mile descent I heard a weird popping noise. I figured it was nothing, but a few seconds later John yelled to me that I had broken a spoke. Sure enough I looked down and my rim was wobbling all over the place. Thankfully my 32 spoke rear wheel was strong enough to still be rideable, but I took it easy the rest of the way home just in case. Eventually I made it back to the cabin and began the task of putting 3,000 calories back into my body so I could be ready to go for Thursday. John saved the day and let me borrow his spare rear wheel for the rest of the week so I didn't have to miss a beat.

Thursday:

Wednesday may have been the most mentally difficult day of the trip, but Thursday was definitely the most physically difficult. The plan was to meet up with the guys from Michigan State's team since they were staying somewhat close to us. However, they got impatient as we rode around 20 miles out of the way to meet up with them and they left without us. Oh well, we weren't going to let that spoil our ride and we pressed on towards Neels Gap.

Neels actually ended up being my favorite climb of the trip. It was long at almost 7 miles, but it wasn't overly steep with about 1,500ft of climbing, the roads were nice, it was scenic, and overall just an enjoyable experience. And better yet there was a store at the top to load up on goodies (aka candy) to help us get through the rest of the trip.

We decided to push the pace while descending Neels which unfortunately made us miss our turn towards Wolfpen Gap by about 2 miles. After backtracking we made the turn onto the creatively named Wolfpen Gap Road and started our way up the hill. Wolfpen was pretty cool too as it was really windy and mostly situated in a forest so there was tons of stuff to look at. Wolfpen lasted for about 3 miles and included around 1,100 feet of climbing. The descent off Wolfpen was cool too as it was also windy and all of the turns were banked nicely. We had to be careful as there was gravel here and there on the road, but overall it was fun.

Next up was Woody Gap which was over with pretty quickly with only one really steep section presenting a challenge. The descent off Woody was also a blast as it seemed like we were riding downhill forever (5.5 miles). At the bottom we stopped at another cool little store and bought more supplies (more candy!!!). Unfortunately we had another 20 or so miles of backtracking to do in order to get back to Helen since our failed MSU rendezvous took us so far out of the way.

We made it back to Helen where the group split up. A few of our really strong (read: crazy) guys decided to go tackle 3 more gaps to complete the infamous 6 gap while 3 more of us decided to call it a day and ride back to the cabin. When it was all said and done the 3 guys who went back ended up riding a total of 85 miles with 8,000 feet of climbing. Good for over 4,500 calories! The other guys ended doing about 120 miles with around 12,000 feet of climbing. Crazy!

Despite being tough, Thursday's ride was definitely rewarding. We were dead tired afterwards and spent the rest of the day not doing much of anything besides eating.

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 1

After the races at DePauw we loaded the cars back up and started the trek down to Georgia for our Spring Break training camp in Helen, GA. After stops for some awesome BBQ and coffee in Tennessee we arrived at our cabin in Georgia pretty late so we were content to just go to bed to prepare for the copious amounts of riding bikes up mountains that the week would bring. My report from the trip is going to have to come in 3 parts since apparently I can only include 2 Strava logs per post.

Monday:
Morning came all too soon and it was time to get down to business (after a quick run to the store for groceries). We hit the road around 1:30 pm to go find out what this whole mountain thing was all about with our first 3 gap ride of the week. A gap is essentially another word for mountain peak. After a quick trip through "downtown" Helen to get to the base of the climb we got things started with our first gap of the day: Hogpen Gap. This would prove to be the hardest of the day by far. Hogpen is about 7 miles long with a vertical elevation change of nearly 2,000 feet. Needless to say it was rather difficult to tote my big body up that hill. Once we got to the top it was time for fun though as we had quite a descent coming. Going down Hogpen I hit the fastest speed I ever have on a bike as my computer told me I was going 54 mph. Strava was a little less optimistic at 52.7 mph, but either way it was properly fast.

After Hogpen we refilled water bottles before heading towards the Jack's Gap, our second gap of the ride. Jack's was a lot more manageable with it standing at 4.1 miles long with 850 feet of elevation change. After regrouping at the top of Jack's it was time for another descent before hitting our last big climb of the day in the Unicoi Gap. Unicoi was pretty easy in comparison to Hogpen as well as it was about 2.3 miles with 750 feet of elevation change. The descent off Unicoi was an absolute blast though. Probably my favorite of the trip. Following that we regrouped in Helen and headed back to the cabin for the night where we proceeded to feast in order to replenish the roughly 3,000 calories we burned in the day's 58 miles of riding.

Tuesday:
The weather took a turn for the worse on Tuesday as rain was in the forecast. We didn't feel like pushing our luck in the mountains (and we were tired) so we opted to go for a much flatter ride instead. The weather was still dry when we headed out at noon, but that quickly changed as it started raining. It still made for a good ride though as we were able to get a nice 30 miles in without having to climb over any mountains.