THE 2013
ASSAULT ON MT MITCHELL
MAY 27, 2013
By : JEREMY
As a kid
growing up, one of the things I enjoyed doing was riding my bike. In the
woods, on the road, anywhere. I even did some group rides at the time
although I was on a mountain bike for them. And I remember hearing of
some of the bigger rides in western North Carolina at that point… Bridge
to Bridge and the Assault on Mt Mitchell, notably. So when I really
started to get back into riding a while ago, I thought about at some
point going and doing some of those rides. Since I’m not really doing
any road racing this year due to being a bit too busy with work, I
decided to try to tackle some of these long and hard rides that I’ve
wanted to do for a few years to keep me motivated and riding hard.
First up is the Assault on Mt
Mitchell. For a bit of background, Mt Mitchell is the highest point east
of the Mississippi ending up over 6000 ft. And about an hour from where
I grew up. So starts out sounding a little intimidating. The ride itself
actually starts in Spartanburg, SC and you then spend the first 75 miles
riding along rolling hills until you reach Marion, NC. From Marion, you
go up 5000 ft over the remaining 25 miles. Okay, lots of climbing when
you’re already tired. This sounds awesome. I’m in.
I signed up for the ride back
when registration opened in March. From that point, I received a steady
stream of emails detailing the training rides that they offered and
suggested including things that covered a lot of the route. Living about
900 miles away, those weren’t an option. So I basically did a pretty
typical set of spring riding for me; stretched out some rides a little
more to get more rides in the 80+ mile range instead of 50-60s but no
real hill work, etc.
Given that my parents still
live in NC, we decided to make a family trip down to see them. So I
shipped my bike via FedEx to my dad’s office (unnerving!) and we flew
down. We arrived on Saturday, I put my bike together and did a little
loop on Sunday to stretch the legs and shake down the bike after
reassembling it. All good. I packed everything I needed, the bike
survived being shipped, and my legs even felt decent with the lack of
riding I had done the week before.
Of course, up until this
point, the weather forecast for the ride on Monday was looking less than
great. Showers and thunderstorms through the day. Because riding 100
miles in the rain is fun. Ugh. Luckily, after riding in some sloppy
drizzle on Sunday, the forecast for Monday magically got better. I’ll
take it!
The Start
Given it’s about an hour and
a half from my parents house to Spartanburg and roll out is at 6:30, we
stayed at the Marriott around the corner from the start on Sunday night.
So Monday morning, I woke up super early and headed to the start with
plenty of time. Breakfast was my first rice cake of the day (the classic
egg + bacon recipe for this batch) although in hindsight I should have
gone for something more. As I had picked up my packet and number the
night before, I didn’t really have to do anything other than get to the
start which was nice. As I did so, the size of the event really started
to become clear, around 1000 cyclists all told.
Cyclists gathering at the
starting area
I made my way towards the
front of where people were lining up. We had the entire street (four
lanes) and I wasn’t going to get caught up in the back. I had modest
goals for the event — stick with the front as long as I felt comfortable
but mostly in it to finish. Time wasn’t at the front of my mind as I was
thinking of it as a ride, not a race really. As the countdown got to
zero, we took off. And the front went fast… we were going a sprightly
26-27 mph for the first mile or two. This was made possible largely due
to the awesome support the event provided — a police detail at the
front, officers at every intersection to let us through. And this
largely continued for the entire route.
To Marion
As we got going, the pace
settled somewhat and I just sat in to draft as much as I could.
<rant>There was a ton of just random braking, though. The smell of
burning carbon wheels filled the air more often than not. I think a lot
of the braking was due to people crossing the yellow line, seeing
oncoming traffic and then trying to rejoin the peloton. It was nerve
racking and quite frankly unnecessary. And I think it was also the cause
of the one person that I heard go down at one point behind me. If event
organizers have made it so that we have full use of a lane rather than
just two abreast, people should respect that.</rant> As a result of the
pace and the braking, the lead group continued to shed people. Given
that I wasn’t really trying to be in the front, I ended up on the wrong
end of those sheds a few times and had to jump hard to close the gap and
rejoin the lead group.
Unfortunately, around mile
60, I got gapped and couldn’t close it. 22 mph for that stretch and I
was ready to drop. Was bummed not to hold out until Marion at that point
but I also knew I needed to save some energy for the second part of the
ride. So I ended up in a little group of about 8 people and we did a
solid bit of effort working together. But when we got to Marion, my
bottles were empty so I stopped to refill and lost my group. And I then
just missed the second big group moving through and couldn’t quite catch
them meaning that for the remainder of the ride, I was going to be doing
it basically solo.
Marion to the Parkway
As I headed out of Marion
after the stop, I had a difficult time finding a rhythm riding alone for
the first time of the day. I think I definitely would have been better
in a group in this section as it wasn’t that intense but I definitely
wasn’t at my best. I kept going and didn’t stop at the next rest stop.
And after that is when the climbing really felt like it began. That
section of Rt 80 was grueling. Luckily, I ran into others who said it
was the hardest four miles of the ride. So I believed them and just
tried to settle in and keep my legs moving. But looking at the data from
the ride, you can see just how slow it was. I just suffered through it
and accepted that the rest of the day was going to be hard. And I just
kept watching the mileage creep along knowing that the next rest stop
wasn’t that far ahead. Switchbacks, steady climbing… you really can’t
find anything like it in Massachusetts. On the plus side, the scenery
was gorgeous or at least seemed so to my oxygen starved brain.
Finally, I reached the rest
stop at the 87 mile point where you turn onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. I
stopped and drank some Coke, ate a cookie and refilled my bottle.
Although I had done the first 75 miles in under 3.5 hours, the next 12
had taken me a little over an hour. Of course, this section was about
2000 ft of vertical gain, mostly in the second half.
The Blue Ridge Parkway
The next section of the route
was on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’d say that the BRP is one of the
classic roads for biking with lots of group rides as well as training
camps and the like taking part on various chunks of it. And after riding
11.5 miles of it, I see why. The road conditions are great, there isn’t
a ton of traffic and it’s a steady, hard effort. Although I expected a
little bit of a respite based on what I was told on my way up Rt 80, it
really didn’t come. But riding along the parkway including the scenic
overlooks and the tunnels made it worth it. On a few occasions, I wanted
to stop and take photos just given the sheer beauty of the scenery… but
I realized if I did, I would be unable to get started again and so I
just kept pedaling. This became especially true around mile 90 when I
cracked kind of hard. Luckily, that was also when there was the
remaining downhill segment of the day. I was soft pedaling down but was
getting cold given the cloud cover and the elevation and so ended up
picking things back up a little. Honestly, other than that I remember
little of this section. I know I was being passed by people and also
that I was passing people back but it didn’t leave as big of an
impression. It was just more of a steady slog and a mental struggle to
reach Mt Mitchell Parkway
Final Stretch
After 11.5 miles on the BRP,
you turn onto Mt Mitchell Parkway for the final five miles. I was
starting to feel like it was in the bag and started to relax a little
bit at this point, feeling my energy level pick up a little. The section
to the last rest stop was still kind of grueling though. Not as bad as
Rt. 80 and you know that it’s shorter so that helps a lot. I passed a
lot of people cramping on this section, though. I was pretty happy with
having stuffed a bunch of single serving Skratch Labs secret drink mixes
into my pocket and using them rather than Gatorade, especially as I saw
that. A few people who had seemed quite strong earlier on were
definitely suffering here. But I felt like I was getting stronger for
the first half here.
The final rest stop was at
the entrance to the State Park and I quickly stopped for a little more
Coke here as I felt the sugar would help on the final little ascent. But
it was a super quick little stop and then I was on my way. The grade
here let up a decent amount and so I was able to stand and really kick
it a bit. As I passed the parking lot with the yellow Penske trucks
(used for transporting bikes back down the mountain), I knew I was
almost there and so of course that was the one point where I got a
twinge of crampiness. I pushed through it, though and finished strong.
I ended up with an official
chip time of 6:34:33 and a moving time from my Garmin of about 6:20.
Since I had hoped to end up between 6 and 6.5 hours, that was right on
target. And my time put me at 131st of the 719 people who completed the
race and 10th for my age group. Not shabby at all for my first time
doing it.
Post-Ride
After crossing the finish
line, my bike was immediately whisked away from me and I stumbled up to
where our dry bags were. I changed into something that didn’t have a
chamois (hooray) and grabbed some of the tomato soup that was there as
well as a bag of Doritos (mmm, salt). I then made my way to the bus to
start heading back to Marion. The ride back to Marion was pretty quiet
and I caught up on Twitter and chatted with the guy sitting next to me.
He had done the ride a few times before and finished about 10 minutes
behind me.
Finish line from the other
side
When we got to Marion, I
wandered over and made myself a plate of food and kind of forced myself
to eat it even though I was in the “not even hungry any more” state as I
waited for my bike to make it down the mountain. Kara, Madeline and my
mom met me there and then I got my bike and it was on our way back to my
parents’ house for the rest of my trip.
Closing Thoughts
So after doing all of it, I
have a few thoughts about the ride. First of all, it is very well run.
Police escort out of Spartanburg, every turn well attended (with traffic
stopped!), good rest stops (at least, the ones I stopped at). The route
was awesome — great roads, low traffic, lots of good hard climbing but
also some stuff that in a group can just fly by. Getting people + bikes
down from the top of the mountain to Marion also went more smoothly than
I expected.
Scenery on the way down
Really the only
bad I can point to is the behavior of some of the other riders. I saw
somewhat rampant littering (gu wrappers, bottles, everything) and even
with full use of the lane, people were frequently in the left lane when
we were in the large group. Kind of disappointing and reflects poorly on
cyclists in general.
Will I do it again? Probably
at some point. The logistics make it difficult to commit to doing
regularly but I’d definitely like to make another pass at it and see if
I can get my time under six hours. To do so would require at least some
concerted and different training that I’m not 100% sure how I’d get but
I do think it’s doable.
Final ride data is up at
Strava as usual. 242 suffer score, Training Peaks gave it a TSS of 471
(both based on heart rate, not power at this point). All in all, not a
bad day on the bike.
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