Post Christmas quiet-ish roads

Family Christmas plus Ross Bridge plus Hwy 31

Short commute route lots of traffic on Christmas Eve

Family walk to ice cream (closed, sad face)

Samford commute route reverse

Location of cars that passed me: https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/17143

My kids' XC team decided to race during the week instead of Saturday, so that freed me up to ride in the inaugural Semper Fi Toys for Tots century, but I had to leave by 11pm my time (midnight eastern time) to get there in a comfortable amount of time. Well, turns out there was a headwind through the entire Oxford valley as soon as I made it over all those rollers by the army depot all the way up to Heflin. That slowed me down quite a bit, so I had to start riding a bit faster as I made it over into Georgia as I calculated my arrival time was going to be exactly when the ride was going to start!

I made it, but with only 5 minutes to spare and since everybody was already registered and waiting to start, I was able to pick up my wrist bracelet, stuff my t-shirt into my backpack, and even make a quick port-a-potty stop! I'm glad I started at the front because our group took off fast! There would have been no chasing onto this group on my own.

My Salsa Cutthroat has a 36x11 as its biggest gear which comfortably maxes out at about 25mph at a pretty high cadence and anything over that requires a cadence quite a bit over 100rpm. We took off and were on a long mostly flat but still slight gradual downhill for the first few miles and we averaged close to 25mph for that whole stretch.

I very quickly realized that I would need to take a singlespeed tactical approach where you tuck in very, very closely to the geared riders on downhill sections and then if necessary be prepared to spin really, really fast for a few pedal strokes if wind resistance causes a gap to start to open. My max cadence for the ride was 119rpm, which likely is my max cadence for the past several years, lol.

It wasn't just me feeling the speed, though, as our group went from 6 riders to 5 riders to just 4 riders. I was still having a blast though because I haven't really pushed myself to ride hard in a long time now. Eventually, the fastest rider dropped us (Jordan Foster) and he ended up with a blistering 20.7mph average speed sub-5 century, which is amazing given all the hills and also the wind blowing around all day and him riding by himself for the last 50 miles! 

Robb, Graham, and I settled into a much more comfortable pace, but we still pushed it pretty hard and had a great time chatting about riding and hearing about all the riding in the area. I'm already looking forward to next year when hopefully the fog won't be blocking all the views like it did this year for the first 85 miles of the ride. The nice thing about that fog, though, is that it did keep the temperature down in the 60s for nearly the entire ride. It was great!

There was very little traffic on the route, and it was really well marked. This ride should be on everyone's calendar for a beautiful fall weather ride. And if you want to push it fast, you can still really challenge yourself if you push your pace hard on the hills. The route itself has about 700 feet of vertical lift (from lowest point to highest point) which is quite a lot for most places in the south. And it's a great route showcasing a good chunk of the highlands region on the Alabama/Georgia border.

Back to my ride, though, I still had to get home, so I couldn't stay at the finish for long ... just long enough to scarf down a couple fully loaded post race tacos they had catered for us, load up on water, say goodbye to everyone and take off towards home. I knew that for me to complete the ride in under 24 hours to qualify for the gran fondo, I would need to average 15mph. 

Well, with the headwind and hills on the way over, my speed had dipped way down into the lower 14s. So it was awesome to watch it tick up all the way into the mid 15s by the end of the century ... keep in mind that the farther you get into the ride, the more "locked in" that average speed is! So I felt pretty comfortable with being able to make it home still well above that 15.0mph average speed to put me within the 24 hour cutoff.

I was still at 15.4 by the time I left, and briefly even had it back up to 15.5. But once I turned off the busy GA-166, the route got even more hilly and it did start to drop. By the time I left the Hollins Crossroads gas station, it was down to 15.3. I knew I had Alabama's highest point coming up and sure enough was down to 15.0 by the very top of Mount Cheaha.

But with essentially a 20 mile rolling descent, I was able to bump it back up to 15.1 and then 15.2 across the Talladega / Coosa River valley. But when you cross that valley, you reach my territory which is quite hilly. It's no problem at all on a lightweight road bike for someone training for road racing and climbing. But for someone who has spent the past few years doing mostly mountain biking and bikepacking and not as focused on climbing (i.e, I've put on a few pounds) on a gravel bike, 40 hilly miles can really kill your average speed. 40 hilly miles to go and only 0.2 mph to play with, but I made it with probably 15.09 mph average speed as it actually ticked down to 15.0 (the Garmin doesn't round) climbing up the hill to my house in the pouring rain.

Oh, I should mention that it did rain off and on all the way from Talladega to my house and I saw lightning flashed frequently as I crested Hugh Daniel and made my way through Meadowbrook and through Spain Park, but that storm didn't hit until the last mile from my house, and even then it was just unusually windy (thunderstorm outflow?) with the heavy rain only starting as I was climbing the last bit of the hill up to my house.

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Brian Toone

We ride at midnight (eastern time)

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Post Christmas quiet-ish roads

Family Christmas plus Ross Bridge plus Hwy 31

Short commute route lots of traffic on Christmas Eve

Family walk to ice cream (closed, sad face)

Samford commute route reverse

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