Great Lakes - another hill challenge N.E. Ohio, shauck big hills

here's another chance to go big, SHAUCK BIG HILLS METRIC CENTURY
August 29, 2009

A Budget Metric Century with a few extras
Emergency SAG Service
Snacks and Drinks at finish
Customary Features
Map and arrows on pavement
List of places to eat
Do you like big hills? Routes of 50 to 62 miles will travel a lot of the really big hills on quiet roads in the Clear Fork Valley just west of the Mohican Forest. Small villages offer places to stop, rest, and get some food.

Start and finish is at the JOHNSVILLE FIRE DEPT. at the intersection of State Routes 314 and 42. Watch for bike ride signs. Registration from 7a.m. to 10a.m., cost is $10.00. All proceeds benefit the Johnsville Volunteer Fire Department.

Contact Information
Keith Elliott
tandemrider@earthlink.net
419-362-7715

Garysol and I will be there weather permiting

weather is looking mighty inviting at this point

This was one tough ride and well worth the 10 dollar donation to the fire dept. May not have been some of the longest climbs I've seen around Ohio but without a doubt some of the steepest!!

The day started out looking dismal at best, rain over night and still some light rain around this morning, but the radar held promise, so off we went. 1 1/2 hr. drive so we were taking a chance at best, we arrived to find it very wet but not raining and to tell the truth I thought we might just head home but as people started to show up, i noticed gary getting his stuff ready, so as I told the one guy, "he has the keys so I guess I'm going".

A nice group of about 25 started together and made for a nice warm-up on the only flat roads we would see for sometime. The first "official climb" was quite an eye-opener, and shed the group down to 8, there where 7 hills that were officially numbered and I decided that the designation was assigned to the hills that were 15% or better (no joke here!). On the first climb, the true climbers stepped up and now we (gary and I) knew who we would face for the rest of the ride, and one guy in particular turned out to be "THE CLIMBER", this guy was just plan strong, but to his credit he would slow or stopped to let the group back together every so often to keep it a group ride. Who knows how far ahead this guy could have been if he wanted to just leave us. This made for a more enjoyable day for all.

The Overall ride was very nice, hard, but nice, good road markings, lots of possible stops for food or water, mostly quiet roads. Some rather dicey tar and chip with loose gravel but overall good road conditions. plesant surprise was the chicken sandwich, roasted corn and brownies at the finish of the ride. For a ten dollar donation you don't expect to have eats like this at the end.

Now the only real problem, and this is well outta the organizers control, was a number of dogs that made things downright scary. One in particular proved to me that dogs can think, this dog was laying near the road and we spotted him, he got up and looked totally disinterested in us and started to walk towards the house, we both said "he's not interested in us" but as we passed he knew just when and how hard to jump and was on us so fast it was truely amazing! Lucky for us I don't think his interest was biting, because we could have done much to stop him or get away, but none the less it scared the hell outta us!! The rest (4 in all) were your typicial run into the road type, and fortunately none caused any harm, but it was close a couple times.

So the distance was 60 miles, I think or ave was 17+ and if I remember right gary said the climbing was around 4000 ft, nice little lunch and home by 2:30, not bad when you include a 3 hour drive

Ouch.....I am not sure if today's ride was that hard or if I just sucked that bad today.
Never have I felt the want or need for a compact crank but today I did.
Still even with all of my suckness I had a great time. Dan pretty much said all there was to say about the ride above so ill just leave it at that.........