Southern California - Santa Clarita Century -- Feb 28th

It's here!! The Santa Clarita Century (http://santaclaritacentury.com/)

Both Routes
Leaving from the Metro Link Santa Clarita Station, both the 50 mile and 100 mile routes share the first 25 miles up to Acton. The route provides spectacular views of the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys. Some of the distant mountains may still have snow-capped peaks—an excellent photo opportunity. Riders will enjoy the hills and countryside as they proceed to the first water stop at the Knob at mile 15. From here riders continue the rolling climbs into Acton and the 1st SAG stop at Bicycle John’s.

Half-Century
52 miles and 2,400 feet of climbing

Riders leave Bicycle John’s and briefly climb to the top of Sierra Highway before descending back to Santa Clarita along a nice, 10-mile long, gradual downhill. Riders continue across Soledad Canyon to a dedicated Bike Path and back to the start for an invigorating 52 mile morning.

http://santaclaritacentury.com/images/profile_halfCentury.gif

Century
100 miles and 5,900 feet of climbing

After leaving Bicycle John’s in Acton, century riders will join a portion of the difficult 7th stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California as they ascend Aliso Canyon into Angeles National Forest. A left turn, quick descent and another climb to the summit of Mount Emma Road. From here the course briefly sojourns into Palmdale and back to Acton via Sierra Highway. With more than half their ride done, riders will get much needed fuel again at Bicycle John’s in Acton and then follow Sierra Highway back into Santa Clarita.

A left turn onto Sand Canyon with a quick wall will take riders to Placerita Canyon, Sierra Highway and over both parts of Newhall Pass, finishing on a nice, flat, 10-miles to the end.

http://santaclaritacentury.com/images/profile_century.gif

Do they still have space? I understand there was a 350 rider limit.

Do they still have space? I understand there was a 350 rider limit.Yes.

Being the first year, the organizers did not want to "bite off more than they could chew." They wanted to put on a quality event for a limited number of people first. Then grow larger.

If the weather works, might bring my 14 year old daughter and do the family ride.

I signed up for the half century. How's the signup going so far?

Plenty of room for more, at this point. Sponsorship is coming along much better than I thought it would (what do I know :rolleyes:), allowing a better gift to the charity, and all-in-all, it will end up being a very nice event--especially for first time.

Here's hoping for excellent weather. :thumb:

Hey mkadam68, a friend just told me about this last night, I'll be signing up for the 52 mile ride.

OK, I just signed up at socalreg.com
I'm the 30th to sign up so far. (at least via the website)

I'm going to talk about it on my blog next week. It's read widely here in town. The family ride ought to attract more people too. Best of luck

Thanks, guys. 'Preciate the support :)

FWIW I signed up to drag my tired old bones around the century course. It looks great. I haven't ridden on some of those roads yet. I'll join the chorus hoping for decent weather.

FWIW I signed up to drag my tired old bones around the century course. It looks great. I haven't ridden on some of those roads yet. I'll join the chorus hoping for decent weather.

:thumb:

I'm going to talk about it on my blog next week. It's read widely here in town. The family ride ought to attract more people too. Best of luck

Where's your blog at? I'd like to read it.

....................R

SCVTalk.com

Getting close. The ride support and extras are really coming along. I hope we get a full crowd that will really appreciate--and take advantage of--the Expo and SAG support. Visit the website (http://www.santaclaritacentury.com/) for details.

With all the rain, I haven't ridden a lick. I've never ridden 52 miles and the idea of riding to Acton and back is a little daunting. I have a Trek 7.7 FX, today I put the 23mm tires on it and took off the trekking bar and went back to the flat bar with bar ends. I sure hope it's a sunny day!

With all the rain, I haven't ridden a lick. I've never ridden 52 miles and the idea of riding to Acton and back is a little daunting. I have a Trek 7.7 FX, today I put the 23mm tires on it and took off the trekking bar and went back to the flat bar with bar ends. I sure hope it's a sunny day!

I hear ya! Hate the rain when it's cold out too!

Ride up to Acton really only has one real climb before Bicycle John's and one after (before descending Sierra Hwy). Just plug away, don't push yourself past your limits, and you'll be fine. After the top of Sierra Highway (about mile 30--35), it's all downhill from there. Literally. :) So think of it as a 35-mile ride, instead.

Just finished the Tour de Palm Springs. Looking for others and saw this. Thinking about it. Though I have not done much climbing the past couple of weeks.

100 miles!

Lessee...

The hard part is the Aliso Viejo Climb at mile 35. It stair-steps for 2-3 miles with some short, steep rollers, steadily climbs for another 2-3, then very steep (12%) over the last 200-yards.
About 3-miles later, there's a steady climb up Mt. Emma Rd, 1-mile, 5%.
At mile 60 or so, climb up Sierra Highway, 1 mile, 5%-ish, wide shoulder.
At mile 83-ish, climb up Sierra Highway (different climb), 1-1/2 miles, 7%.
At mile 88-ish, climb up The Old Rd, 3/4-mile, 8%.


Then that's it. 10-miles downhill/flat to the finish.

it's all downhill from there. Literally. :) So think of it as a 35-mile ride, instead.

Ok, my normal ride is 35 to 40 miles, so now I feel better! :thumb:

Hey folks. I'd love to do this - but I can't decide between the 50 or 100 mile ride. Any advice would be great!

I'm M33, and I ride regularly on weekends with LaTri & LaGrange in the Santa Monica mts, usually 40-50 miles, sometimes 60-65, with about 2000ft of climbing. I can outclimb a bunch of Cat5 and some Cat4 riders (I don't race bikes, though), but my back and butt start to feel it after about 60 miles. I'm a triathlete, so I only ride about 3x/wk, but I do run 10-12 milers on the other days in addition.

I've never ridden over 65 miles. Think the century is too much? Or should I be ok as long as I take some rest breaks in the middle?

Thanks!

I'm doing the 50 mile route because the 100 mile route duplicates much of what the Tour of California riders do, and I'm not up for that.

At my level, climbing up to acton is a pretty tough task. It's not that Soledad Canyon is steep (only in a few spots does it get above 3% or so), it's just a long ways on that road.

Very pretty though!

Anyway, if you're concerned that you'll be slow, rest assured I'll be behind you. So come on and join us. This is the first year Velo is putting this on, it benefits a charity, and it can only get better next year.

Also, the ride down Sierra Highway is beautiful and very pleasant, it's also quite fast!

This looks like a fantastic ride! I hope that there is a good turnout!

Hey folks. I'd love to do this - but I can't decide between the 50 or 100 mile ride. Any advice would be great!

I'm M33, and I ride regularly on weekends with LaTri & LaGrange in the Santa Monica mts, usually 40-50 miles, sometimes 60-65, with about 2000ft of climbing. I can outclimb a bunch of Cat5 and some Cat4 riders (I don't race bikes, though), but my back and butt start to feel it after about 60 miles. I'm a triathlete, so I only ride about 3x/wk, but I do run 10-12 milers on the other days in addition.

I've never ridden over 65 miles. Think the century is too much? Or should I be ok as long as I take some rest breaks in the middle?

Thanks!We'd love to have you come out.

Let me answer some questions...

First You can do the 50-mile option. I'm sure you'd have absolutely no trouble.
Second In the 100, the climbing is (mostly) over by mile 62. There are 2 little "kickers at mile 82 & 85, but they're only 1-mile and 3/4-mile long. Really not too bad.
Third At mile 75, there is a bail-out option that avoids these last two climbs and will get you just about 80-miles by end.
Fourth If you pace yourself, I think you can do it. It would certainly be a challenge, but I think you could.

So, there are options. In the end, you'll have to decide for yourself. Hope this info helps. :)

I'm doing the 50 mile route because the 100 mile route duplicates much of what the Tour of California riders do, and I'm not up for that.

At my level, climbing up to acton is a pretty tough task. It's not that Soledad Canyon is steep (only in a few spots does it get above 3% or so), it's just a long ways on that road.

Very pretty though!

Anyway, if you're concerned that you'll be slow, rest assured I'll be behind you. So come on and join us. This is the first year Velo is putting this on, it benefits a charity, and it can only get better next year.

Also, the ride down Sierra Highway is beautiful and very pleasant, it's also quite fast!Thanks for the kind words.

We're getting many more partners donating goods and services than I thought we would for a first year. And the expo will feature many more vendors than I thought, as well.

Can't wait to see it go off!

I'm in, and will be starting with a small group of friends. They're a pretty fast bunch, though, so it's uncertain if I'll be finishing with them. ;)

I know we're all looking forward to this one- it's an interesting route, there's not too much climbing (all relative, though), and is a great way to kick off the year.

Cheers!

Forecast looking good! High of 70, sunshine and high clouds makes for a cool and very pretty ride

Bump!!!

Online registration is closed.

Like all other rides, day of ride registration will be available.

Weather forecast for this Saturday, looks to be the best of the month.

Come out an join us.

Forecast looking good! High of 70, sunshine and high clouds makes for a cool and very pretty ride

Look a little closer at the forecast, and you'll see that there's 11-14mph winds from the NE for most of the day. For the century, that means extra challenge of mostly headwinds during the climbs in the first half of the ride. Then there's tailwinds going downhill most of the second half.

I haven't ridden these hills before, so I'm eager to check out this new territory.

Last I heard, there were 60-some signed up for the century. It won't be crowded out there.

We're expecting in the neighborhood 200+ riders for the whole event. Right now, there's 176 pre-registered online (75-century, 101-half), 20 or more pre-reg'd by mail, plus we're expecting a good couple handfuls to register morning of.

Wind out of the east can be tough in only a couple spots. For the most part though, I think the hills and trees do a good blocking job.

Bruised my rib last week riding, had to pull out this week :(

Hopefully you guys put this on again next year!

Great ride, Mark. We spoke for a minute afterwards, I was sitting in the chairs as the camo crew was picking everything up at like 3:30. ;)

The wind was an added, uh, *bonus* since this was a kinda-sorta "training ride" for the KOM. It made a moderately hard course that much tougher. The first 25 mile section was just brutal. Fortunately, the group I rode with hung together, which help ALOT. :)

Great support, nice course, I hope to see this ride grow!

Is the wind typical for that area/time of year?

We like to help people train for the KOM series.


Is the wind typical for that area/time of year?

I would say about 5-10% of the time that we ride to Acton, we encounter a headwind. Then about another 15% of the time we encounter the wind on the way back. Coming back it is not too much of a problem since it is downhill.

Today was an extreme, when I was putting out the route arrows on the course yesterday, the wind was hardly blowing. Tomorrow the forecast is for light winds. Today was just an anomaly, kind of like the extreme heat on last year's Mulholland Challenge. If we could have had yesterdays lack of wind with todays temps, it would have been a perfect ride.

Thanks for the compliments, we look forward to making it a better ride next year.

Excellent job on the route arrows. This was the best marked coarse I've ridden. Having each and every turn marked was real nice. I hate when only "some" of the turns are marked. I think what you did was better than what Solvang does, which is pretty good.

In general, it was a great event and I was glad to have done it on the first year. Hopefully it will turn into a big ride in the comming years, cause then I'll be able to brag about how I did it the first year.

I started a few minutes after 7am. I ended up riding with a group of about 8 fast guys, which made a huge difference with the wind. I ended up getting dropped going up Aliso since I was starting to cramp, but I did catch up to them later at the Bicycle Johns rest stop. That turned out to be of no real value since my legs were really too fried to ride anyone else's pace other than "my own". I got seperated from them comming down Sierra Hwy when I hit a little rock with my front tire at 45mph and flatted. I managed to come to a stop safely though.

On Sand Canyon road I came across a burning motorcycle laying off to the side. The thing was fully engulfed in flames with thick black smoke pouring across the road. It was pretty surreal.

Those Italia deli sandwichs are pretty tasty. I'd be happy to see them there again next year.

S'funny you say that. Back at HQ, we were getting reports of unknown persons moving the arrows and pointing them in the wrong directions (my favorite was the "up and over a fence" one :lol:) on the bike path.

It looks like nobody got real lost, so that's good. We're already brainstorming ideas to keep these "somebody's" from moving the arrows again in the future. I voting for the armed Sheriff deputies on patrol, but I doubt that'll happen... ;) :D

Also, for those that did ride, if you could help us out: let us know where we screwed up, how we can make it better... Just go to this little online survey (http://tinyurl.com/d5jjhj) I threw together. Shouldn't take much more than a couple minutes to complete. Thanks.

If we could have had yesterdays lack of wind with todays temps, it would have been a perfect ride.

I disagree here. For us hard-core types, this is part of cycling -- you're subject to the weather. You can't just push a little harder on the gas pedal, you grunt harder. It's part of the challenge.
For me, this was a perfect ride.
Having fought the surprise winds give more feeling of accomplishment now. We ascended 7000 ft on the century, but I'm personally taking credit for 9 thousand, considering the wind.

I finished around 1:20pm, so I may have gotten by some of the mischef before the fact. Hopefully there won't be some new episode on "Jackass" featuring a bunch of confused cyclist going around in circles.

My guess the problem you had with the arrows was probably only on the bike path, which is a bit twisty. At that one detour, getting back on the path was easy to miss. The group I was riding with at the time spotted the arrow, but a buddy of mine just went straight on there. However, I would guess that particular detour won't be there next year so it's probably a one-time issue.

I'm personally taking credit for 9 thousand, considering the wind.

:thumb:

And on the topic of the weather, organizers need in the future to state in the website whether this is a "rain or shine" event, or if it possibly cancels with rain.