It was a perfect 60 degrees and sunny at the start as we headed down the Sugarbush Access Road and turned onto Route 100. Wellesley’s own Eric Cohen took off from mile 1 and formed his own breakaway! His break would stick until the top of Brandon Gap, 30 miles in.
Every year I tell myself not to mess with the intermediate sprint about 15 miles into the race and every year, the temptation overtakes the good judgment to save energy for the really big climbs to come (low blood sugar = even lower IQ). This year, I had two excuses. First was, yesterday was my last day of a 3 week cycle of antibiotics for Lyme’s and I was pretty sure that I only had 45 miles in the gas tank for a 75 mile race – so, why not blow it in the first half of the race and have some fun?
Second excuse -- the riders in front of me were pretty squirrely. The UVM guys are talented, but their pack skills need some work! As we wound through Granville, I moved up a bit and found myself behind the zig-zagging UVM bunch. Zig-zagging is OK on the ski slopes, but a big no-no in packs of riders as one zig into another’s zag and the whole group crashes.
I asked the UVM’ers to hold their lines so the rest of us could finish in one piece. They politely moved to the side (? -- teenagers listening is a whole new experience for me) and I moved up into pole position next to Chip. We started to drive up the pace towards the sprint line. I thought the sprint was about 2k up the road, just around the corner, so I gunned it a bit.
I looked back and no one was there – ooops. Well, since we’re in, why not dive in with both feet? Mistake. Turns out the group was smarter than me (shocker, right?) -- we were about 5k out from the sprint line. Argh.
It was a long effort to keep the speed above 30mph and stay away. Eric was just up the road, but he was gunning it too and I just couldn’t catch him before the line. Score 2 for Wellesley in the sprint points, but now it was time to pull up and wait for the pack. I’d was sure I’d be paying for that effort in just a few short miles…
Here’s a shot of the gorgeous day as we rolled down route 100 towards the Brandon Gap.
After the right turn onto the Brandon Gap, the road wound up slightly before a big left onto the more serious part of the climb. The Posse / Monsters in the Basement guys were still all together as we headed into the feed zone. AndrewT had arranged for feed zone support. We headed into the zone looking for his gals. Excitement to see them soon faded to black as we now exited the feed zone without seeing them. About 2k up, their car passed us going in the opposite direction – they’d been stopped because of a crash.
That left Andrew and I climbing together wondering how we were going to ration the last water bottle we both had. Oops.
The group was faring pretty well on the Brandon climb. To be honest, I was surprised to still be climbing with the main group at 4K from the top. Then several accelerations combined with some steepening of the pitch and the popcorn began to pop at 3K. First Jeff, then AndrewK, then me, then Thom popped out of the group, but we kept them in sight. AndrewK and I were about 100 yards behind Thom and we found a rhythm and crested together. Andy and I were both pretty psyched with how we’d climbed. I was really psyched to still have some energy left as I thought I’d be cooked by now. Half done.
We gunned it on the descent to catch Thom, but even pushing 50mph, we weren’t making much progress. At the base, we were faced with the two of us working together into a head wind. We slowed a bit, ate / drank and then put our heads down and started to push on for the 35 mile slog to the base of the App Gap, the big finishing climb.
Luckily, about 10 miles later, we were caught from behind by a group of 10 riders who’d been working together. Hopping onto that train was a God-send. Bonus: Jeff was in that group! But, there wasn’t much socializing. Everyone was feeling pretty shot by the climb and the headwind and we all knew what was coming ahead.
Andy pushed a minor hill on Route 7 a little harder and we looked back and had dropped the group. That was a bit of a sign of things to come as we hit a .5K climb heading towards Bristol and the group quickly went from 12 to 7. We hit the Bristol Notch, a beastly 1K at 20%+ and the group went from 7 to 4.
The top of the Notch turns onto a dirt portion of about 2 miles. Picture groups of fans from “Deliverance” along the road and the motivation is to keep things moving and not get a flat, or you might become a feature on the nightly news.
Then an 8 mile flat stretch to the big-daddy finish – the dreaded 9 mile slog up the App Gap. While we’re climbing, folks are up top waiting and chalking on the 22% grade that leads up to the finish line….
Meanwhile, we’re down on the flanks of the App Gap. Andy and Jeff had stopped to take a nature break and I told them I’d soft pedal. Honestly, soft pedaling was my only choice. It’s all I had left at this point – I was out of water and out of gas.
A Boston Road Club rider named Chris and I started the climb together. The first part of the climb rises for 3.5 miles at about 10% and is called the “Baby Gap.” Near the top of this section, two volunteers had set up a water and Coke feed station. Just in time -- thank goodness as cramps were setting in for both of us.
After that, about a mile of flats leads to four miles of hell – average grades of 12%-16% without a let up. Chris and I found a rhythm and climbed together until he popped with about 4K to go. I thought I heard him catching back up and turned to find Andy Kessler climbing like a mad-man! Way to go Andy! He was picking off riders left and right and I became his next victim.
I turned back and looked down at the next switchback and saw Jeff just below us. I was psyched for Jeff, but also pretty sure he was going to catch me and drop me like a bad habit too. Jeff was strong on this ride.
Rounding 1K to go, I looked up. Straight up and could see flags on the horizon. That’s the finish up there? Who put the finish up there?
About that point, reality sets in. It sets in hard. 20%, then 22%. It’s a bear.
The folks cheering at the finish help a little bit, but it just hurts getting up that last bit. After four hours in the saddle, this is a heck of a challenge for us flat-landers.
Up at the Top, the rest of the gang was waiting. A pretty good day as we all finished:
13th – Duncan (MIBasement)
16th – Chip Herzog (MIBasement)
17th – Eric Cohen (Brueggers group)
18th – Mike Moran (Weston Posse)
29th – Thom Cranley (Brueggers group/Posse)
31st – Andrew Tappe (Weston Posse)
35th – Andrew Kessler (Weston Posse)
38th – Jon McNeill (Weston Posse)
42nd – Jeff Packman (Weston Posse)
Unfortunately, Chip had a bad crash on the way down the mountain to the cars. We're praying no bones were broken, but it looked like he might have broken his shoulder. Best wishes from all of us Chip.
Join us next year??
