One of the things that makes the Heart of the South 500 mile race one of the most difficult 500 mile races in the country is the enormous amount of climbing over the course of the race. The major topographical features include the three main climbs – Lookout Mountain, Fort Mountain, and Mount Cheaha – as well as four crossings of the Coosa River. I’ve annotated a topocreator.com map of the course below. Click to enlarge and then click again to zoom in on your web browser to see maximum detail.
I especially like that the entire course fits on the raised relief maps I have mounted on the wall next to my home office. This is the pic and overlay I made for last year’s race.
Back to Back Weekends
Back to back race weekends last weekend and this weekend. I won Friday’s Heart of the South 515 mile race just missing the course record only five days after placing 25th in a strong Pro/1/2 field at the inaugural Fort McClellan road race last weekend with lots of strong teams visiting Alabama from around the country as part of the national criterium calendar kickoff event (Sunny King) in Anniston. I raced that race RAAM-style meaning I left my house at 3AM and rode the 80 miles to the start of the race, raced the race, and then afterwards rode home a longer way going up and over Mount Cheaha for a grand total of 255 miles of racing and riding. There is so many great things I could say about that race — primarily getting to see a lot of friends from the racing community that I haven’t seen much this year because of my RAAM (Race Across America) training, but in the interest of time I’m going to skip straight to how the Heart of the South race went down this weekend.
Heart of the South – Start to Camp Comer Tailwinds and thunderstorms
Friday was a beautiful day – I rode my bike to and from Samford to teach my Friday classes as usual (16.6 miles round trip). Later in the day, my awesome crew of Michael Staley and Payne Griffin drove over to my house so we could pack up everything for the race.
Side note – huge shout-out to my rookie crew of Michael and Payne. Those two guys did an amazing job of anticipating my needs for food, drink, and bike supplies. Plus, they did a good job of staying awake for a really long time as well as keeping me awake late in the race when I hit my sleep wall. Thanks guys!!!!
Side, side note – huge shout-out to my sponsors as well. Raymond James has been behind me financially and helping to get the word out to other companies and individuals who might be interested in joining our team. My Martindale wheelset was amazing again this year. I’m excited for the new Carbon Clincher wheels Philip will be getting me for RAAM – easily shave hours (if not at least half a day) off my total time!
No matter how the Race Across America turns out this summer, I will have gotten a chance to explore some absolutely amazing parts of Alabama. Since January, I’ve ridden 24 rides of at least 100 miles (23 Alabama ones shown in the map below). I wanted to create this map because of my ride on Tuesday where I found myself unexpectedly riding in a new county – Coosa County – for the first time. These rides have been in three different states and 29 different counties.
Here’s a quick recap of my three most recent epics.
The Baseball to Baseball Ride
Last Friday, I rode to the start of my son’s baseball game, watched the game, and then rode all the way out to Cheaha and back (218 miles and 17,000 feet of climbing) to make it back just in time for the start of my son’s Saturday morning baseball game, watched the game, and then rode 10 more miles to practice having to start riding again after a long break. Along the way I broke my speedplay pedal and had to be rescued by my lovely wife Kristine. I swapped out the pedal and finished the ride.
It’s no secret that I think Alabama is the most beautiful place on earth. Other places are nice to visit, but when it comes to sheer diversity, variety, and accessibility Alabama is the perfect compromise between the ruggedness of western states (i.e., inaccessible) and busy-ness of the eastern states (i.e., roads everywhere) and a climate with four very distinct seasons that still allows for year-round riding. Everywhere you look in Alabama there is some hidden beauty to be found – and riding a bicycle is the perfect way to find it. Birmingham itself is a microcosm with steep ridges covered with roads where one can easily ride 100 miles within a 10 mile radius of your house only reusing one or two roads on the entire route.
The history of Alabama, though, isn’t quite as pretty. The city I live in (Hoover) was founded as white people left Birmingham in droves during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s fleeing “over the mountain” and founding the suburbs of Homewood, Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, and Hoover. Today I’m happy to report that Hoover itself has become more diversified with my kids’ school consisting of 50% white, 37% black, and 13% hispanic (source – AL dept of education 2014-2015 school year).
The people of Selma, Alabama played a key role in the Civil Rights movement, but it is one of the few cities in Alabama I had never been to — that is until Tuesday when I decided to do a 310 mile (500 KM) loop that included Selma at its southernmost point. Along the way, I routed myself through several personal history spots key to racing RAAM this year – including one spot two summers ago where I laid down on the stoop of a 185 year old church severely dehydrated and out of water and thought that it wouldn’t be a bad place to die even though I knew I wasn’t quite that bad off … yet. Here’s a pic collage from the church and a video of me begging water off of strangers a couple miles later after I got moving again.
Every year I look forward to Rouge Roubaix and coming down to this unique corner of Louisiana and Southwestern Mississippi. The race itself has everything you’d imagine in a spring classic like Paris-Roubaix or Ronde van Vlaanderen (Flanders) – from strung out fields barreling down dirt roads at 30mph to tactics of making a break, chasing a break, or figuring out the run-in to a tricky sprint at the end of the race. No matter how experienced you are, it’s impossible to come away from this race without having learned something new about bike racing and/or yourself. Each category (even beginner) races the full distance of 100+ miles covering about 15 miles of gravel/dirt roads and some paved roads that are significantly harder to find a good line than the dirt roads.
The unique topography of the river bluffs above the Missisippi River delta is just fascinating with two Category 4 climbs rising up from essentially sea level to 400 feet. Plus, everything is so wet that the dirt roads sink down under the trees. See the annotated topocreator.com map above and the elevation profile and instagram photo below:
How the race played out (P/1/2)
After the neutral section, there were a couple short-lived breaks. I was working my way to the front when I saw an opening and a rider about to attack. I hopped right on his wheel and we quickly got a gap. Three more riders bridged up to us, and our break of five quickly got a gap on the rest of the peloton. I thought this break had a good chance to survive all the way to (and possibly through) the first dirt section – but alas, we were chased down a few miles later after making the right-hand turn off of LA-66.
topocreator.com – annotated map of the heart of the south race (click to enlarge)
Raised relief map with overlay of the Heart of the South 500 race.
Day 6 – resting, exhausted, in the road and on the front stoop of 183 year old haysop baptist church
topocreator.com map of Rouge Roubaix 2015 (click to zoom)
Annotated rouge roubaix elevation profile (click to zoom)