Originally Posted by
anniegrmbl
Anybody do this last year? I'm a relatively newbie to road biking, and am nervous about mass starts/mass hills. I did the Ride to Conquer Cancer last year with no problems, though. How challenging is this course?
I did it last year, and will be doing it again this year.
Mass starts aren't the problem.
The main challenges with this ride come from the time of year - it's HOT.
There are a couple of significant climbs - the one up from McKinley to Predator is about 9 km and gets your attention!
That said the ride was a lot of fun and it felt great to finish ( I had ridden the Axel Merckx event the previous weekend so was feeling tired).
the course was 116 km and just shy of 5200 feet of climbing. This part of the valley really doesn't have any flat parts.