Manastash Century?

[SEAtrain]

Have any of you done the Manastash Century? It's scheduled for Oct. 6 starting from Ellensburg, WA. The website doesn't have specific details concerning the route. I am curious about the roads / conditions.

If any of you have some info, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks!

[tonybka]

We rode the metric century last year. The route is very scenic, with only one or two climbs. The roads are not the best, with a lot of chip seal on the route. A good ride, overall, and worth doing if you have not ridden it before.

[moleman76]

http://www.drier-ride.org/

is the website.

http://www.jimcarson.com/i/manastash_metric.jpg

has a replica of the map from a few years ago.

[SEAtrain]

Thanks for the input.

I encounter chip seal daily around here (Tri-Cities).

I looked at the map; it appears part of the route may include I-90. Is this true? It seems like I remember county roads paralleling the freeway, but I can't remember for sure.

[moleman76]

I don't think they have to go on the freeway. Zooming in with the Gmaps-pedometer tool, there are places where it looks like there is only a fence between the freeway and the "frontage road", but they are separate roadways.

[SEAtrain]

I rode this yesterday with a friend. Very cool and WINDY! Generally, it was a scenic route. A larger group would have been nice to push through the wind. The tail wind was nice on the return from Cle Ellum.

They added a 100mi option to their standard metric route this year. Unfortunately, they neglected to mark the 100mi turnoff and the map &cue sheet didn't include the 100mi option. I questioned one of the organizers about the 100mi route before starting. He said there would be someone to point us in the correct direction in Cle Ellum. Not a soul to help us out. I questioned several other riders about it and NONE of them saw the turnoff.

In addition, the route was marked poorly in Cle Ellum and on the return to Ellensburg. We made our own route to get back in.

The first rest stop was only 10mi into the route. The next stop was 46mi into the route. In between was a very stiff head wind. I was nearly cooked at 46mi. They need a stop about mid-way (Cle Ellum).

I think I would do this again, but I might come prepared with my own map!