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09-12-09, 05:23 PM
THis is a ride that is one of the newer ones in Ohio. It has been on the calendar of rides for couple years , but everytime I have wanted to go the weather didn't cooperate. Well this year it did and Tina and I set off to give it a go, even though it was a 1 1/2 hr drive and started at 8 am (reg 7am) meaning an early morning. The ride has 3 options 25 miles trail (holmes county rail trail), 60 miles and 103 miles. We of course did the 103.
The ride was the brain child of a local Doctor and supports historical efforts in this Town and todays was their 4 year and largest turn out so far; about 110 I was told, most doing the 60 and around 30 or so on the century. It tours the central Ohio Amish country one of my favorite places to ride. The usual rest stops, food, nothing special but plenty of it, BTW this ride includes a spaghetti dinner at the finish on the Court house lawn, nice way to refuel after the ride. The organizers one fault that I can say is, beleive it or not, no maps or que sheets just road markings (well done ones, but that's all) he say's he will change that next year as a lot of us made our own que sheets from a map he had at the start.
The ride: It is, as far as I know, the only police escorted mass start in Ohio and I liked that feature, as it put us all on the road at the same time so it was easier to form the various groups early and since we had police leading, we got out of town without any problem. The terrain was a nice mix of big hills, rollers, long flats and scenery everywhere, even a nice large dam crossing. It passes though lots of small towns and Amish communities. The riders are an interesting mix as well, everything from the usual roadies and upright riders to one Amish girl in full long dress (yes dress!) to three amish boys in long denim jeans with reflective ankle straps in dress shirts riding brand new Trek Madones (don't tell me those people ain't got cash). The roads for the most part were very low traffic, it was nessary a couple times to be on some of the more trafficed tourist routes but for the most part we encountered little traffic. Lots of farm animals and their accompaniing smells.
Me and the misses where in the lead group at the start and tried to stay there but the hills would cause Tina to get gapped and after a few of them, the gaps got to long to cross back over and we spent most of the remainder in between two groups. One, too fast to catch and the other, too slow to catch us. We would recatch the fast group at all the stops but then they would drop us again after, that is untill the lunch stop. We left the lunch stop ahead of the fast group and fully expected them to run us down again, well I guess they left a little to late and we held them off for the final 44 miles to the finish.
So, we did the ride in 5:51 at 103 miles at 17.6 average (hilly), this is our second century this week, did one on Monday (labor day) at 103 miles also, at 19.5 average at 5:10 (flat to rolling). Pretty happy with the results and Tina received some nice compliments from the other riders too!
I would recommend the ride, the organizer is very enthusiastic, and plans to continue the ride in the future. He planned to correct those issues we pointed out and was happy for the feed back. I promised to spread the word about his ride too! So if you are an Ohio rider, check this one out, I think it is worth the support, even with the few short comings.
The ride was the brain child of a local Doctor and supports historical efforts in this Town and todays was their 4 year and largest turn out so far; about 110 I was told, most doing the 60 and around 30 or so on the century. It tours the central Ohio Amish country one of my favorite places to ride. The usual rest stops, food, nothing special but plenty of it, BTW this ride includes a spaghetti dinner at the finish on the Court house lawn, nice way to refuel after the ride. The organizers one fault that I can say is, beleive it or not, no maps or que sheets just road markings (well done ones, but that's all) he say's he will change that next year as a lot of us made our own que sheets from a map he had at the start.
The ride: It is, as far as I know, the only police escorted mass start in Ohio and I liked that feature, as it put us all on the road at the same time so it was easier to form the various groups early and since we had police leading, we got out of town without any problem. The terrain was a nice mix of big hills, rollers, long flats and scenery everywhere, even a nice large dam crossing. It passes though lots of small towns and Amish communities. The riders are an interesting mix as well, everything from the usual roadies and upright riders to one Amish girl in full long dress (yes dress!) to three amish boys in long denim jeans with reflective ankle straps in dress shirts riding brand new Trek Madones (don't tell me those people ain't got cash). The roads for the most part were very low traffic, it was nessary a couple times to be on some of the more trafficed tourist routes but for the most part we encountered little traffic. Lots of farm animals and their accompaniing smells.
Me and the misses where in the lead group at the start and tried to stay there but the hills would cause Tina to get gapped and after a few of them, the gaps got to long to cross back over and we spent most of the remainder in between two groups. One, too fast to catch and the other, too slow to catch us. We would recatch the fast group at all the stops but then they would drop us again after, that is untill the lunch stop. We left the lunch stop ahead of the fast group and fully expected them to run us down again, well I guess they left a little to late and we held them off for the final 44 miles to the finish.
So, we did the ride in 5:51 at 103 miles at 17.6 average (hilly), this is our second century this week, did one on Monday (labor day) at 103 miles also, at 19.5 average at 5:10 (flat to rolling). Pretty happy with the results and Tina received some nice compliments from the other riders too!
I would recommend the ride, the organizer is very enthusiastic, and plans to continue the ride in the future. He planned to correct those issues we pointed out and was happy for the feed back. I promised to spread the word about his ride too! So if you are an Ohio rider, check this one out, I think it is worth the support, even with the few short comings.