Southeast - Tour de Leaves

Anyone doing the Tour de Leaves in Tryon, NC on Saturday Oct 18. I am going to be vacationing in Asheville and I am considering that ride. Or, has anyone done it in the past and can give me a hint of how tough it is going to be for someone who regularly rides hills but not mountains.

cobden rider

NeilH and I plan to be there Sat. I haven't done this route before but have done the Fab Fourth Metric which starts in the same place and uses some of the same roads. I expect there are some short steep climbs and maybe a longer moderate climb somewhere on the route but I'll find out like you will if you ride it. The ride generally stays along the escarpment of the mountains so some climbing is inevitable.

I will be riding this event and, its good to hear that you will be there also BikeWNC. Looks like it might be a cool day but, at least no rain currently in the forecast. Hope it stays that way. A cool in the Fall usually means a clear day also. Hope the leaves are vibrant in color.

G Boehne, when you "wonder" about a ride, that means you should be riding it. Asheville is only a hop and a skip to Tryon, so come on over. I will be riding a white Calfee bike.

I plotted out the route on google and found about 4500' of climbing in 67 miles. There is one steep climb that has about 1400' of gain and another of 600'. The other 2500' or so of climbing is spread out over many smaller hills.

I've registered so I will be doing the ride, but just the half metric. I'll be on a blue Giant TCR.
I'm very excited about the week in Asheville, mostly because of the riding I will be doing. I am
accustomed to doing long rides that are hilly, say 2000 feet of climbing in 60 miles, but our hills
in Southern Illinois aren't mountains. Very recently I have switched to a compact crank and love it.

Cobden Rider

unfortunately, i'm not going to make it to this ride. :( i have a mild sprain of my mcl, right knee, and have to be off the bike this week. again. :o but, i'll be up there next weekend for Tour de Nantahala and Franklin.

y'all have fun, ya hear! :)

How many white Calfee bikes can there be?

Back from the Tour de Leaves Metric, actually a bit over 66 miles. Beautiful day for a Fall ride! Started out overcast with wet roads but soon the front pushed through and the north wind began to blow. So I don't think the temperature really changed all that much on the ride and it seemed to remain in the low to mid 50s. It was the wind that made the difference in how it felt though. Personally, it was perfect riding weather for me. Love to ride in the cool weather!

Neal had about 5200' of climbing on his Garmin FWIW in the 66 miles. Our ride time, wheels moving, was 4:10. We did take advantage of 3 sag stops along the way so we had some stoppage time but it really wasn't much. The first steep climb into Saluda was a good one! Dang it was steep in some of the switchbacks. Saw one person fall over on the climb! Good thing it was fairly short at a bit over 2 miles. The amount of climbing surprised both Neal and I. But then we were riding along the escarpment of the mountains and you got to climb to get up there.

Great hot food after the ride and overall this was one of my favorite metrics of the year. The scenery was just really nice the whole time and traffic was very light, except for one short stretch as we got back into Saluda the second time. I plan to ride this one again for sure.

Our NC and SC forumites need to put this one on their itinerary for next year. A nice ride indeed, with lots of trees and colorful leaves covering most of the route making for picturesque Fall landscapes. A little more climbing than I had anticipated but, the roads were good and the grades were mostly tame (mostly, not all. Like BikeWNC said, that Saluda climb was a doozy).

I wore full finger gloves so, I only took a few pictures with most of these coming out blurry. Anyway, below is one that is representative of what we saw the entire route - lots of trees and quiet roads.



I guess there were several hundred riders for this event but, it seems like we passed about a hundred riders that were not part of the event. Obviously, it's a popular area for riding.

I hate I missed you guys!! I wish I had seen this thread before I left. I rode it too. I got there a bit late-for some reason I thought it started at 9:30 but rolled off with the metric crowd. I was surprised there were not a lot more folks there but maybe due to the rainy Friday.

I had bit of a mechanical-I popped a rear spoke 1 mile from the start.........You might have seen me pulled off on the side. I rode back to the start and got it replaced. I restarted at 10:30-1hr 30 mins after everyone had rolled off but thought what the heck.

I caught some folks at the 48 mile mark and also passed 5-6 folks on the last 15 miles. The SAG wagon was having fun picking up strays. I think there was one rest stop still open when I came through!!

My riding time was just under 4 hours and the winds really picked up between Saluda and Tuxedo. I had ridden most all the roads except a few of those after the Watershed into Tuxedo. However I forgot about the steep short section on the Green River Rd switchbacks that topped out at 21%. All the other times that I've ridden that section it was in the summer and dreadfully hot so doing it on a cool day was nice.

I was also surprised by that short steep section just after the RR tracks going into Tuxedo. I had to laugh at the sign that said GO SLOW just before the RR tracks. What were they thinking???

That was a nice little route. I kept trying to catch leaves as I was riding as they were falling like crazy when the winds blew. No luck but several hit me in the face on the downhills. Nice colors but probably a week or so from being super. You have to love the last 8 miles from Saluda to the finish........

I hate a missed you guys.

Dang jppe, I never saw you there before the ride. You still had a good ride time for a solo ride. Sorry about your wheel issue, I know that's a PITA at the start of a ride. I'm surprised there was someone to fix a spoke out there. Good for you doing the ride anyway. NealH, Wolfpack and I are still on for the TdN and TdF metrics this weekend. Hopefully the weather will be as good or better than yesterday.

Dang jppe, I never saw you there before the ride. You still had a good ride time for a solo ride. Sorry about your wheel issue, I know that's a PITA at the start of a ride. I'm surprised there was someone to fix a spoke out there. Good for you doing the ride anyway. NealH, Wolfpack and I are still on for the TdN and TdF metrics this weekend. Hopefully the weather will be as good or better than yesterday.

I had hoped I could come up and join you for those rides but we're spending the weekend with my daughter at App. Hopefully the weather will be nice for us all-and I can get some nice rides in around Boone. We're spending then night in her apartment with all the other college kids......that should be a real experience!!

Elevation profile below. Mine showed between 5100-5200 ft of climbing as well. I think they advertised 4400 ft which is rare that the actual climbing is considerably more than publicized.

The peak around 52 miles had to be the little grunt going into Tuxedo....

My Garmin has been pretty accurate, all things considered, more times than not reporting less than the advertised elevation gain figure. Some rides, like the Tour de Tuck for instance, came in dead on the advertised figure.

When BikeWNC plotted the course on Google Maps (or one of the on-line mapping sites) for this ride, he came up with about 4500 feet. I suspect the T de L people did the same thing to come up with their published figure. The fact is, that ride felt like more than 4500 feet so, I think our Garmins are reporting this one fairly accurately at about 5200 feet.

holy cow. looking at that profile...almost makes me glad i wasn't there! :eek: