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08-17-08, 08:30 PM
This was an interesting ride. On paper, it's tough but not super-hard, with an advertised 7,400 feet of climbing in 100 miles. It's a beautiful spot, with the water in the lake a hard to describe shade of blue. I'd post pictures, but I forgot my camera! Hopefully JoBob will post her pics soon.
I camped with 8 friends - this part of Oregon is mosquito heaven. The last time I was so covered with mosquito bites was when I went fishing at sunset in NJ:rolleyes: However, after a great dinner (thanks for cooking Nancy!) and a good nights sleep we were ready to roll around 6:30. It's a good thing the national park service puts limits on the number of riders - they really didn't have a systematic way of checking in riders. However, I saw JoBob and met her friend Melissa as we got ready to roll (and sat through a less-than-usefull safety briefing (single file! put your foot down at the stop signs!)). The National Park Service required them to do this, I guess.
The first 30 miles were a flat, pretty ride through farmlands. I hadn't looked at the route map, but this loop (including a 7 mile out and back) were added to get us up to 100 miles.:notamused: It was pretty enough, but I can do that around here. I did like the "Congested" sign by a farm that had nothing else for miles around though.
After about 33 miles the climb starts - gradually. I had lost my friends by this point - I started with with a few fellow campers, but they wanted to go slowly. There was another group that's faster than me, but they started later and would catch me at the rim. This initial climb picks up around 2,500 feet in more than 10 miles - not particularly steep. The steepest section overall all day had to be under 10% (I have an altimeter, but my computer doesn't do gradients). After climbing seemingly forever, I got up to the rim. At this point I took a deep breath and figured that was the hardest part of the ride. Now just a ride around the rim, with a bunch of rollers (probably like the 7 sisters going up to Mt. Tam at worst).
Nope - we were up there during a really hot part of the day - the "rollers" were tough (I should have figured that out from the 4,000 feet or so of climbing that I still needed to do after getting up to the rim). I had some fun with them at first, pushing hard on the downhills and carrying my momentum up the next hill. However, after doing that a few times I was starting to struggle. It was hot (over 90), humid (thunderstorms blew in that night) and the entire rim ride seemed exposed to the sun. The last long hard climb had me completely bailing out to the small ring of my triple and the easiest cog in back. This was about a 3 mile climb.
At the last sag stop at the rim, I stopped for a while - stretched, ate some food, made sure I drank plenty - and some of my friends caught up. I waited for them to get their food and catch their breath, and then I got to ride with them for a while. There's 2 climbs left at that point, one is a couple of miles long, but neither was steep enough to cause too much pain. After that, you're heading back down that long initial climb. It's steep enough to get over 40mph in places, and the road is really good, so it was fun. Then you get the last, 10 mile or so flat section back. By this time I'd recovered enough to average around 19 mph for that last flat part, despite there being no one around to work with (with only 225 riders for the century, there were large parts of the day where I was wondering if I took a wrong turn - there was just no one around).
If you're keeping track, that puts all the climbing except maybe 500 feet in a tough middle section of about 45 miles. No wonder that seemed hard!
The bbq at the end was really good, and overall support was good. I'd do this century again, but I might follow the JoBob route next time (she skipped much of that flat 30 mile loop, and as a result got to do the rim during a much cooler time of the day). Overall, it made for a fun weekend and a good ride.
Ride stats (note that my computer stopped working for 15 miles at the rim, so this is estimated based on my friends' stats and a couple of quick glances at my watch when I realized my computer wasn't working)
Riding time: 7 hours 19 minutes (I'm really happy with that on a tough ride)
Total time: 8:55 (I stopped for close to a half hour at that one stop)
Climbing: 7,225 feet
Mileage: 102 miles
JB
Edit: The climbing profile is on the ride website. (http://www.craterlakecentury.com/Century%20Profile%202007.pdf)
I camped with 8 friends - this part of Oregon is mosquito heaven. The last time I was so covered with mosquito bites was when I went fishing at sunset in NJ:rolleyes: However, after a great dinner (thanks for cooking Nancy!) and a good nights sleep we were ready to roll around 6:30. It's a good thing the national park service puts limits on the number of riders - they really didn't have a systematic way of checking in riders. However, I saw JoBob and met her friend Melissa as we got ready to roll (and sat through a less-than-usefull safety briefing (single file! put your foot down at the stop signs!)). The National Park Service required them to do this, I guess.
The first 30 miles were a flat, pretty ride through farmlands. I hadn't looked at the route map, but this loop (including a 7 mile out and back) were added to get us up to 100 miles.:notamused: It was pretty enough, but I can do that around here. I did like the "Congested" sign by a farm that had nothing else for miles around though.
After about 33 miles the climb starts - gradually. I had lost my friends by this point - I started with with a few fellow campers, but they wanted to go slowly. There was another group that's faster than me, but they started later and would catch me at the rim. This initial climb picks up around 2,500 feet in more than 10 miles - not particularly steep. The steepest section overall all day had to be under 10% (I have an altimeter, but my computer doesn't do gradients). After climbing seemingly forever, I got up to the rim. At this point I took a deep breath and figured that was the hardest part of the ride. Now just a ride around the rim, with a bunch of rollers (probably like the 7 sisters going up to Mt. Tam at worst).
Nope - we were up there during a really hot part of the day - the "rollers" were tough (I should have figured that out from the 4,000 feet or so of climbing that I still needed to do after getting up to the rim). I had some fun with them at first, pushing hard on the downhills and carrying my momentum up the next hill. However, after doing that a few times I was starting to struggle. It was hot (over 90), humid (thunderstorms blew in that night) and the entire rim ride seemed exposed to the sun. The last long hard climb had me completely bailing out to the small ring of my triple and the easiest cog in back. This was about a 3 mile climb.
At the last sag stop at the rim, I stopped for a while - stretched, ate some food, made sure I drank plenty - and some of my friends caught up. I waited for them to get their food and catch their breath, and then I got to ride with them for a while. There's 2 climbs left at that point, one is a couple of miles long, but neither was steep enough to cause too much pain. After that, you're heading back down that long initial climb. It's steep enough to get over 40mph in places, and the road is really good, so it was fun. Then you get the last, 10 mile or so flat section back. By this time I'd recovered enough to average around 19 mph for that last flat part, despite there being no one around to work with (with only 225 riders for the century, there were large parts of the day where I was wondering if I took a wrong turn - there was just no one around).
If you're keeping track, that puts all the climbing except maybe 500 feet in a tough middle section of about 45 miles. No wonder that seemed hard!
The bbq at the end was really good, and overall support was good. I'd do this century again, but I might follow the JoBob route next time (she skipped much of that flat 30 mile loop, and as a result got to do the rim during a much cooler time of the day). Overall, it made for a fun weekend and a good ride.
Ride stats (note that my computer stopped working for 15 miles at the rim, so this is estimated based on my friends' stats and a couple of quick glances at my watch when I realized my computer wasn't working)
Riding time: 7 hours 19 minutes (I'm really happy with that on a tough ride)
Total time: 8:55 (I stopped for close to a half hour at that one stop)
Climbing: 7,225 feet
Mileage: 102 miles
JB
Edit: The climbing profile is on the ride website. (http://www.craterlakecentury.com/Century%20Profile%202007.pdf)