For nary all of us can be Cat2 cutiez: the gentleperson's weekly sportif / randonnée / brevet log

u fat, fat, fat mantis

u_u

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Fat_mantis_pic.jpg

<3ing that menu! would order 1 of each!

dude u dont order it just arrives platter after platter! all u gotta buy is vino

last time a nice gentleman was buying for everyone. i took water, but...

if I ever LTRMB w/u dudes pls have it end with many platters and vino, thx

chef's old restaurant was r1s1b1s1 in petaluma- he did rides out of there, too

!!! site of my impending RR coming up.

http://www.deercreekchallenge.com/event_info.html

this century is going up "my" home climb, maybe i should do it. interested to see how they get their vert. 100 miles is long and you can link loops up there in many (fun) ways.

otoh i ride this bitch once or twice a week anyway, crazy to pay for the privilege

oh i found the map that route sucks

what is your standard gearing? those kind of climbing centuries are attracting me to buy a climbing cassette to save my knees.

39/23 is fine on (almost) any ride round here for your ability, since long grades over 8% are not very common, but my training wheelset has 25 for pootling/bonking. for an event that does "city view" 2x over 100 mi? i'd bring the 25. second time over city view could get you crosseyed. quite a bit of relentless 8% with chunk of maybe 10%.

theres some stuff out of boulder that has longish bits of 13-14%, i _raced_ magnolia rd. on a 27 and needed every tooth.

when i was riding in central ny last year i was laughing- the biggest climbs are only like 500 ft, but they just ran the roads straight up all the hills steep as hell.

laughing thru the tears, imo

i climbed the 16% selby ave hill in st paul last spring (super short) and had fukkin tunnel-vision at the end (didn't help that i was humping laptop/school books)

oh dear lord... that hurts just imagining race conditions over such a grind. does the field just shatter apart?

yeah, totally, but recongeals in little clumps, since it flattens and rolls (on dirt!) for a while before final gut wrenching 800ft 10% climb.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/co/boulder/577381846

i see it says 11% top grade, but that first stretch at mile 4.5 is def well more than that.

http://cycleture.photoshelter.com/gallery/2011-Almanzo/G0000gJ8g8tTETok

so the almanzo 100 happened

did it happen in 1949? because color photography is all over the place now. (jk, i know we all have raphaesthetics to maintain).

I bit the bullet, gonna do my first brevet this weekend. 200km up and down the Northern California coast.

doin the DIRTY GRAN FONDO (lol). basically sounds like a road race on fire trails in a national forest.

"Gran Fondo 88.9K with 2036 Elevation Gain" - believe that's 55mi w/ 6680ft of 'vert' in ur imperial stylez. i am fuuuuuucked!

this is in three weeks btw

think i'll be hitting hills after work tonight

Which bike are you going to ride for this?

one for the CX bike, methinks.

DIRTY GRAN FONDLE sponsored by GARU G

lol

signed up for:

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/UltChallengeMAPJPG.jpg
http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/TourofUtahUltChallenge.jpg

it doesn't reinforce my confidence that they can't be arsed to like, put an actual map/profile of event on their site, you get to go to some dude's strava.

dirty gran fondle was hard, hard, hard. first 18km: soupy mud for 2km, then grind uphill for another 3km with road interrupted by 'water bars' (deep channel across road with big sharp stones used to fill in) every 300m, then rolling ascent leading to mega-steep gravel downhill (i walked it), then red clay climb for 1km @ 14% average (i walked that too).

after that it was quite nice! smooth rollers through bushfire area in the fog was eerie highlight. transitioned to red clay fire roads through thicker forested area, couple of long steady climbs, squirmy rolling forest section before last checkpoint, then return to the finish via the muddy section we'd started on.

some jokers bought along a fondue kit w/ cheese and a bottle of wine and had a picnic at one of the checkpoints!