Northern California - Fall River Century?

Anyone ride this before?

http://www.fallrivercentury.com/

I'm considering this one for a change of scenery. I'm interested to know how significant the climbs are plus anything else you all know about this one.

Here is a short write-ups from a couple years ago (at bottom of page) I found of the web. I considered it when I was starting centuries, seems to be a fairly easy one in beautiful scenery.

http://www.lkmcreativesolutions.com/centuries.htm

And a couple more:
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=140357
http://www.sonofabike.com/journals/2007_FallRiver.htm
http://wilddescent.blogspot.com/2008/07/fall-river-century-128-miles-of-smoke.html

Anyone ride this before?

http://www.fallrivercentury.com/

I'm considering this one for a change of scenery. I'm interested to know how significant the climbs are plus anything else you all know about this one.

I'm also considering this one. I know it's far but I've heard it's absolutely great ride. If I have my motorhome by then I would consider driving.

Thanks for posting. Looks like a great ride, so hopefully we won't have fires again this summer...

Anyone ride this before?

http://www.fallrivercentury.com/

I'm considering this one for a change of scenery. I'm interested to know how significant the climbs are plus anything else you all know about this one.

The 2008 Fall River Century was my first century ride. I took the motorhome and stayed at the RV park located at he fairgrounds in town.

Unfortunately, we had the huge fires in the area last year, but luckily the wind pushed the smoke in such a way that the skies were clear except for the last hour or so of the ride. That hour was bad enough, however, as I felt like I had been smoking my entire life when I finally finished the ride.

The scenery is pretty nice, but Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta were both not visible due to smoke in 2008. The river and falls are nice as is the lake. There was not very much traffic at any point, even on the main highways, and the roads were pretty good.

The ride support was great and the loop out to the little town of Day (near the end of the ride) was great. Those folks must have been baking for a week! Everyone was really nice.

The ride is an interesting mix as you ride through many miles of forest, some miles through the valley which is typical range/ranch land, and then loop out through volcanic areas that look like the moon where there are only a few scrubby trees. It is quite an interesting area geographically speaking.

There were two climbs of any real length, both about 6 miles long (one called six mile hill, oddly enough!), but nothing real steep or terribly difficult.

The dinner afterwards was great and breakfast at the cafe in town was also good the next morning.

I will ride this again for 2009, hopefully without the smoke.

Ray

Thanks Ray. I'll probably ride this or STP, depending on how work goes this year.

I've done that one several times (it was my first century, back in 1997 or so).

It's very pretty country (with views of Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta), enthusiastically supported by locals, relatively cheap to enter, and it's cooler up there in July than down here in the valley (though even there it can get near 100 degrees sometimes).

Plus, you can camp at the fairgrounds for free, and they have showers for after the ride.

It's a good one.

Not a lot of climbing, however, despite being up in the mountains.

I was thinking I might throw the bike, sleeping bag, and tent into the back of a cessna and fly up and camp the night before the ride. The Fall River airport is only 3 miles away from the start of the ride ;)

Has anyone heard what day the 2009 event will be on?