Northeast - COVAC 2007 Century - Connecticut River Valley MA

Is anyone here in the Central Ma area planning on doing this ride next week? The description of the ride is: "The rides are relatively flat and follow rolling terrain on the West bank of the Connecticut River to Brattleboro, VT, crosses into New Hampshire and returns following the East bank of the Connecticut River through picturesque farmland and passes a waterfall before heading back to Hatfield."

There are four routes of 100, 75, 50, or 25 miles

I never thought I could do a century, but I'm looking forward to trying this one. Anyone else planning on doing this ride?

Registration can be done on the following link:
http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1456263

This is a great first century. I clocked my fastest century time ever on this ride a few years back (thus, the very flat route).

Have a great time and remember to post a ride report!

I saw that ride and it looks like a real nice ride, but I have other riding plans that weekend, I was hoping to do the route sometime in the future?

Hope that you have fun and I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

Thanks for the encouragement - I'm riding it as part of a group from my LBS, all of whom promise me it will be great fun. I don't have any fears about riding it in 5 hours, my biggest concern is mechanical failures like I had on our group ride yesterday, first time I ever flatted out twice on the same ride. I realized i need serious practice quickly changing my rear tire.....

Well I got my first century under my belt and it was awesome, especially having a group of awesome riders from my bike shop (Gear Works) to help get me through it. Most everyone took at least several turns up front pulling the group, and what was really amazing was the group held together almost to the end when we ended up in about 4 groups. We finished the ride in just over 5 hours (not including the 3 SAG stops), which I thought was good considering the heat and wind.

This being my first century I dont have anything to compare it to, but I was truely impressed with the organization of this ride, the SAGs were well stocked with food, drink and restrooms. The people working the ride were all very nice, and they had the Amherst Brewing Co. serviing up carb replacement drinks at the end of the ride.

The first half of the ride was a fairly flat and easy, but after the 2nd SAG as we went into Vt and NH it got considerably harder with the rolling hills (nothing extreme though) - the heat and the wind didn't make things any easier. The last 20 miles were the best, fairly fast with everyone taking turns pulling up until about 10 miles out when the group started splitting up a little.

Didn't get to see too much of the scenery other than pavement and cycling jerseys in front of me, but I've spent a lot of time out there and it is very nice country.

Like I said, riding with a group of riders from my bike shop made it a lot more enjoyable and easy, and a tremendous amount of fun. I can't wait until next years ride!