Another shot at the Gaps

The last time I rode 6 Gaps of Vermont was 2008.  I’m basically starting over right now, so I figure I will may give it another shot this year.

Even though I got my ass handed to me three days ago on a 40mi/3k loop.  Freezing my ass off.  Asking myself what the hell I was going out there the last couple of miles.  Telling myself it wasn’t worth it as I zombied around a department store that night pushing a shopping cart.  I know it will be worth it.  I have been here before.  This is where other people think they can’t do it, and they quit.  It gets better.

So it’s time to do a little homework, such to make this next 6 Gaps experience a little more enjoyable than the first.  Ideally I have learned something in these past five years that I can apply to the situation.

1. If you get a hotel the night before, get your own room.
2. You will make it over everything with a compact and 28t cassette.  You don’t need your Mount Washington gearing.  Unless you want to finish in 13 hours again.
3. You need to eat real food and eat often, and you can’t carry it all.  So when you see a store, stop.
4. You can make it on 23mm tires, but let’s try to find some 25s that fit the Rivet and maybe smooth this thing out a little bit.
5. You will need caffeine to make it through this ride.  Don’t “save that one caffeinated gel for the end”.
6. Please bring an iPod.  We’re not going to do this entire ride with the chorus to Long Road to Ruin by the Foo Fighters stuck in our head again.
7. Bring a blinky.  Don’t take a headlight.  It ain’t gonna be like that this time.
8. Nevermind that.  Take the Dinotte 200 just in case.  It doesn’t weigh much.
9. Bring an extra tire, two tubes, and a patch kit.  And a real pump.  Not the tiny pocket one that looks like jacking off a grasshopper.
10. It will warm up.  Go easy on the clothing.