| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
99.75 miles
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Altitude Gain:
9,433 ft
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Avg Speed:
16.42 mph
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Route:
Wilderness Ride
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 0 bpm
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Avg HR: 0 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Hills
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Bike: Look 585 Carbon Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Sunny 80 F S wind @ 3 mph |
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Iron Doug and I journeyed down to Radford, VA for the first mountain century of the year. Weather like last week was near perfect with a light south wind and temperatures starting in the seventies and peaking in the eighties. Turnout was rather light though it appeared to be better than last year. Around one hundred and eighty had preregistered for the various rides, but since it is not a mass start it was hard to tell the size of the crowd. We started off around fifteen minutes after the first roll off time and rapidly passed riders on the first section of the ride that is a bike\walking trail. The route leaves the trail after three or four miles and the climbing begins with a fairly short fourteen percent grade. Iron Doug easily dropped me but waited for me at the top of the climb. The elevation continues to rise for the first twenty miles of the ride, and we caught two riders and formed a loose group that stayed together over the top and down the first long descent. The big climb of the day also comes early. It is a few miles long and varies in grade between four and eight percent. I got dropped fairly early in the climb, and Iron Doug pulled away in pursuit of a few other riders strung out ahead on the climb. I was able to claw my way back and passed the other two riders who were with my group and another rider to boot. Doug waited for us at the first rest stop though only myself and one other rider stopped. We chatted with the promoter for a while ate some pickles then got back on the road. The elevation continued up the mountain before looping around and returning to the rest stop. Doug climbed away, and I was not to see him again until the end of the ride. One other rider and I went off together and rode in tandem through the mountain loop. Actually was climbing fairly well today. After the second rest stop we started seeing other riders ahead, and I did some interval training by pulling in the riders. By the fifty mile mark we had pulled back enough to form a group of six that hung together. It started to get a little hairy in the group as though we were riding a paceline it is difficult to do in the rolling terrain. There is only a couple of miles of flat road along the New River in the entire ride. I dropped to the back to do a snot shower and found myself soon riding alone as my group pedaled away up another of the endless climbs. Felt no pressure to try to catch up as I had had a fairly strong fifty miles and the course is extremely scenic. By riding in the pack I needed to watch wheels rather than the scenery. Stopped at a rest stop and refueled before doing the final forty-five miles that has somewhere between fifteen and eighteen more decent climbs. Some of them get pretty steep while others are only around five percent. Caught a couple of the riders that were in the group that dropped me up the road and they were in far worse shape than I was, as I was still climbing fairly well late into the ride. Stopped at the eighty mile rest stop and had some Classic Coke which really hit the spot. Hooked up with another rider after the rest stop, and we rode fairly hard over the last twenty miles that was mostly downhill. Felt and climbed fairly well through most of the century with only a weak section between fifty and seventy miles. It is a beautiful course with low traffic and good road surfaces. It doesn't have the ten thousand feet of climbing advertised by most of the mountain centuries as it comes in with around eight thousand feet of climbing. Most of the elevation comes in the rolling climbs with only one big climb. Highly recommended ride.
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