Great Lakes - Pedal the Kettle Century 9/20

I'm thinking of making the trek up north to do this ride on Sunday, Has anyone ever done past rides, any comments would be appreciated... Thanks, John

http://www.springcityspinners.org/ptk.html

I have done the metric two times and it is a nice ride with a fair number of hills (less than a mile, but not steep) through the Kettle Moraine and a big hill or two to top it off in the last 5 miles. It is a nice ride which is well-supported and has gotten 300-400 riders. Showers and meal afterwards are nice too. The Spinners group is a nice group too, not a lot of hammerheads.

I'll be doing the century. From club members and others who've done it before, I've heard it's a good ride.

I'm thinking about doing the ride with one or more friends. I'll be heading up from the Rockford / Beloit area. The only thing holding me back from doing the century is missing 12 o'clock Packers kickoff! :thumb:

Just ride faster :)

Unfortunately, too much going on this weekend... no century for me.

Anyway, sickmtbnutcase can attest to what I think of hills -the only good hill is going down. Damn if you don't always have to go right back up one again.

Ha!

Hope you have a good, but busy weekend. I'll make my legs suffer just a bit more for ya :)

Pat, you missed a hell of a ride! Will definitely keep doing this one year after year.

Clicked off 102.79 miles in 5:24. ridewithgps.com says 2885' of gain, not too bad (probably more though and the legs feel it). Had a blast, awesome roads, great scenery and good support. :thumb:

Pat, you missed a hell of a ride! Will definitely keep doing this one year after year.

Clicked off 102.79 miles in 5:24. ridewithgps.com says 2885' of gain, not too bad (probably more though and the legs feel it). Had a blast, awesome roads, great scenery and good support. :thumb:

Sounds like a hoot! You shaved about 20 some minutes off your time for the Cream City Century without having to drag my ass around! Great job! :thumb:

I did get out at the crack of dawn today for a relativly easy flat 60 miles at 18 mph. Then off to a family b-day party.

I did some interval training for about a week after the Cream City 100, and the past 10 days I have felt real strong, averaging mid 19s for 30-40 mile solo rides, so I am kinda sorry I missed this ride. Hopefully next year.

Keep up the intervals and you can pull me up the hills next year :)

1) Absolutely beautiful route, lots of rolling hills and large stretches of freshly paved roads with very little car traffic. I've only ridden in the Whitewater / Kettle Morraine area a couple of times in the past and I really loved it. I'll definitely try to find myself up in this area again.

2) Great Route markings. Fluorescent green with two markings before every turn and one marking after each turn as confirmation is great, I wish every invitational was marked as well. Even with the great marking I did turn the wrong way once, I think I was just following another rider that wasn't doing our ride, so on Little Hebron road, I turned West instead of East and ended up at Highway N. Had to backtrack and added about 3.5 miles to my ride.. At time it was okay ( except for the additional eastbound headwind I added) , but as I approached the High School and saw 103 on the odometer I was ready to be done. I felt that even more strongly as I crawled up those final big rolling hills.

3) Well spaced rest stops that were stocked with lots of varieties of mostly homemade goodies. I almost single-handedly ate the entire batch of peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies at the 2nd rest stop. They were awesome! For todays ride having those 3 final rest stops only about 13 miles apart was a blessing, due to #4

4) Mother Nature was both kind and evil today. Temperature was perfect! Was able to start the ride with just arm warmers and left them on until about 10 am or so. BUT about halfway thru the ride, the wind really picked up from a mere breeze to what felt like gale force winds out of the East. I'm sure it's part mental and physical but the howling of the winds usually resulted in my yelling out some explicative. Drafting for some reason didn't seem to make much difference but I must thank the Tandem couple Gary and Cheryl ( I believe) riding the Co-Motion and wearing Ragbrai 2008 jerseys that allowed me to sit in their wake and pull me along between the 2nd to last and final rest stop.... I struggled quite a bit with that wind since I'm built more like a football player rather than one of those fast,skinny biker types...

All in all it was a very rewarding day to actually finish this ride and I would definitely do it again... ( hopefully with 40 miles of tailwind!)

- John

1) Absolutely beautiful route, lots of rolling hills and large stretches of freshly paved roads with very little car traffic.


Wasn't that fresh pavement the treat? I want to know who on Spring City's board works for the road maintenence crew for SE Wisconsin. I've never had a route with so many new roads.



2) Great Route markings. . . . I did turn the wrong way once,. . . At time it was okay ( except for the additional eastbound headwind I added)


I left my GPS at home and was winging on distances. But the threat of more headwind did keep me vigilant to read the markings.



3) Well spaced rest stops that were stocked with lots of varieties of mostly homemade goodies. I almost single-handedly ate the entire batch of peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies at the 2nd rest stop. They were awesome! For todays ride having those 3 final rest stops only about 13 miles apart was a blessing, due to #4


Normally, I would have skipped one of the two last rest stops. Not Sunday. I needed the fuel. If it is any consolation, I believe I single handedly finished off the molasses cookies at the 4th rest stop!



4) Mother Nature was both kind and evil today.


I really, really tried to show my appreciation by oohing and ahing over the gorgeous views at the beginning of the ride--crips greens, hints of gold in the field, deep blue sky with wisps of clouds, but, apparently that was not enough to appease Mother Nature. Someone, somewhere put her into a mean streak with that wind. Ouch. On the bright side, after 40 miles of head wind/cross wind torture, the hill at the end was of the "oh, more pain? sorry, too numb, can't feel any worse"

On the bright side, after 40 miles of head wind/cross wind torture, the hill at the end was of the "oh, more pain? sorry, too numb, can't feel any worse"

That describes those last hills pretty well :lol:


But yeah, the new pavement...wow! :thumb: