Any Clydes riding 3-state, 3-mountain?
 

I just registered on a whim. I'm fine to ride alone, but it's fun to know someone at an event.

Finals week for me, or I'd be down there in a heartbeat. I love that ride up over Lookout Mountain, which I have done.

The 3 State 3 Mountain is an event that is on my long term goal list, but it will not be this year. It will be a blast when I get to the point that I am capable of doing it.

I put my success chance at less than 50%. I rode my first century of the year this weekend, and while it had around 4000 feet of climbing, that's a damn sight short of 9000 feet. The rest stops should help a lot, but we'll see. I may well be one of those people you see in the pickup truck.

I'll be there....I'm weighing in around 250 these days and have done 3 state in the past. You can do it!!!! And by the way, 9000ft is being very very generous...my garmin shows 6942 ft total. The first two climbs you should just have the strategy of conserving energy and pushing the gears. Save as much energy as possible for Burkhalter Gap (the final climb up the backside of lookout). I spent 36 minutes out of the saddle climbing it last time...and you can see the entire death march ahead of you except for the last few hundred yards that hop up into the 15-19% range.

One final note...BE VERY CAREFUL ON THE DESCENTS!!! It is going to very tempting to fly down them but they are often curvy, wet, and have gravel at times....not to mention the millions of idiots who think they are suddenly pro cyclists descending.

Oh yeah...and try Mama's italian on Market street downtown....fantastic and cheap (cash only though)

here's a link to my report after riding it 2 years ago.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...state+mountain

Ride Report:

Extremely unhappy with my performance this ride as I had planned to do the 100 miles, but the weather did not play nice. Before the ride, I met some random guy, dressed pretty casually (bike shorts, shirt/jersey in solid color, bike that looked JUST like mine). We rode the first 48 miles together.

As we started, it began to rain, after foreboding all morning. At the first hill , it began to thunder and the skies opened. Cold rain started falling. That was fine on the climb. Then we got to the top, and it started raining even harder. There were rivers across the roadway, washed out stretches of dirt and leaves, fog, zero visibility, and a plague of locusts (maybe crickets, who knows, who cares). We averaged around 10-10.5 mph for the 8 mile descent. Both my hands went numb from grabbing the brakes so hard. I was shivering for quite a long time at the rest stop and even 15-20 minutes into our departure from there. At this point we were 22-23 miles in, and had eaten up 1:45 (we did the first 7-8 at a good clip). Everyone was talking about calling rides, or getting sagged out, and a handful of riders looked to have hypothermia. Stupid garmin was messed up, didn't stop fully for this rest stop. About 1:55 we headed out

We decided to head off and see if we couldn't ride ourselves warm. From mile 22/23 to mile 46 I kept up with my riding buddy who rode FAST, for me at least. He dropped me by mistake around mile 46 into a brief headwind. I was just spent from keeping his pace. After five minutes of cruising around 13-15 mph, I tried to catch him for the rest of the ride, but he was GONE. Right after we decided not to risk another freezing miserable descent and took the turnoff for the metric century, the rain stopped and the mother****ing sun came out. **** YOU SUN! **** YOU!

In the end, the ride was right at 4:00 for 60 miles, 11 mph average for a 6 mile hill climb, which I'm happy with, a good clip on the flats and rollers, and some pure hell on that descent mixed in. I had plenty in me at the end, I'm fairly certain I could have done those "mountains," if I hadn't been so petrified of another freezing descent.

BLEH