HarmonicD

Anyone else ride it today? I did the 75mi portion I think it's definitely one of the more challenging rides in LI. A lot of hills on the north shore of LI, and that one hill in Port Jefferson was the worst.

FrankieV

My friend and I started out doing the 75 but had to settle for the 50 after he t-boned an SUV.
He and his bike were a little bruised but the SUV had about 10G worth of damage.
Lucky man!
Great ride if you're a strong rider.
I saw lots of people walking those hills.
Most of the ride was through real nice areas and mother nature cooperated by holding back the rain.
Definetly on my list of rides to do every year.

If you liked this one, you'll like the Harlem Valley Ride next month.
Similar to this but with looonger hills.

revolator

I did this also with a friend on the 50. Took the wrong path at the Psych Hosp, and ended on the 75/100 path before doubling back. Was a beautiful day, and a nice ride with pretty good support.

The Gold Coast ride is also coming up mid July with even more elevation.

DSchlichting

Glad you guys found the route OK and, uh, challenging.
I did a lot of the route research on behalf of Bike New York, mostly on the western half of the ride. I saw the ride mostly while riding shotgun in a SAG vehicle working mostly between Huntington and Kings Park, but have these comments
.I was quite impressed the overall how well people handled the hills. Regardless of which riding groups (26/50/75/100) most seemed to know how to use their gearing. If riders were out of shape, or cooked by the heat, maybe they walked but the fundamentals were there. In addition, it seemed most riders did keep right and avoided car conflicts. This was a concern of ours on some of these narrow roads such as Chichester.
.With that said, people may climb OK, but there is a clear skills deficiency on the part of many riders when descending hills. Bike handling, braking, and excessive speed on choppy roads clearly need work. Our first SAG call was a person who failed to brake and missed a turn at the bottom of a hill blew through the intersection into someone's bushes. While cleaning up this mess, we saw a lot of really scary examples of bike handling when descending and turning.
.The decision was taken last winter to run the route clockwise rather than the counter clockwise we had originally envisioned. This decision was originally made to get the riders out of Huntington's congestion early, and as a safety issue, to reduce number of left turns. But in this case, it was even better as most of the hills (OK, Port Jefferson excepted!) were cleared early.
.The lanterne rouge (actually 2 of them) arrived back at Suffolk County College at 6:40PM. Despite some spitting rain, the refused our SAG offer and insisted on making that century!!

HarmonicD

Glad to hear that your friend was okay! What happened there?

FrankieV

Too much speed coming down a hill and not braking early enough.
He thought people were moving across the intersection and noticed too late that they had stopped again.
Luckily he's a seasoned cyclist and turned his body into the car.
Had he hit head on, he'd have been catapulted right over that car.

FrankieV

Glad you guys found the route OK and, uh, challenging.
I did a lot of the route research on behalf of Bike New York, mostly on the western half of the ride.

High fives to you and others who worked on this ride.
Just the right mix of ups and downs and the scenery was great.
The peace and serenity riding through some of those neighborhoods was incredible.
Rest stops were well stocked and the volunteers were great.
I'll do this ride every year.

If I could offer some constructive criticism:
The directions to the start were a bit confusing.
I ran into more than a few people who got lost getting there
The marking of the routes could have been better.
Cue sheets are nice, but arrows are better.
Those steep downhills could have had warnings about approaching intersections.

That's it..everything else was perfect.

revolator

Kudos for a job well done!

I would look to ride this next year, for both it being well organized, for elevation and a well thought out route.

One comment on one section where there was a clearly marked sign for a SPEED CONTROL ZONE, which was very good, I would emphasize it even more to the riders if possible? SLOW DOWN, ACCIDENT ZONE,
and if it were written by many of the bf'ers it would say SLOW THE F*** UP =). Something to that effect.

Does anyone have the century for the gps showing elevation and grade? I would be interested in seeing what the rest of the course looked like?

Thanks.

Junker

Here is my motion based gps stats https://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6117334.

This was an awesome ride, btw.

jbcNewYork

NOTE TO DSchlichting

I thought the route was acceptable; however there weren't many water views. What happened to Northport harbor - I did the 50 mile route and don't recall seeing the harbor. I've done the Huntington-Lloyd Neck and Northport rides in "Short Bike Rides on Long Island" numerous times. If you consult that book you might be able to add in some more scenic views on next year's ride.

Jonathan

revolator

Thanks for the mb link. Did you go off track on any part of it? I might use it on a solo ride also.

I noticed the second half of the century your HR was lower, was that intentional, or was just the grade that much easier (aside from Port Jeff climb)?

Good job on finishing the hilly century!

NOTE TO DSchlichting

For other routes or changes, ability to download the route to gps (specifically garmin) would be a very nice to have. I would even volunteer to ride with you and use my gps to pre record the gps route.

DSchlichting

A few comments:
.Signs were put up warning to slown on on down hills. Do you think our BF friends could sponsor an STFD sign on downhills? We'll see if the STFD concept gains traction with BNY management . . .
.But seriously, arrows were painted on the route late last week and reviewed and "freshened" on Saturday. Signs were put up then as well. One BNY staff member and I did the western part on SAT and we did add a number of arrows. There was a proliferation of Gold Coast arrows, some also in a shade of pink, and this no doubt caused some confusion. We thought we covered it, but I guess not. In any case, we did dispatch early on a volunteer marshall to one intersection where we heard complaints about riders taking the wrong turns due to confusion with Gold Coast arrows. In addition, the Huntington/Halesite rest stop closed late due to riders arriving late who ended up on Oyster Bay. We have no idea how that happened.
.Painting arrows is tricky, and must be done stealthily. Many of those little villages do not allow it and BNY will always offer to paint over them afterwards. You may have heard the story of the Montauk Century arrow painting crew being hauled in by the local police a few years ago (I don't remember where) . . .
.When get into planning these events, you have to keep in mind that the routes you like to ride with a couple of friends do not always translate into a route for a thousand (or two or three) riders. So to the post from jbcNew York. The original counter clockwise route included both Northport and Lloyd Harbor/Caumsett State Park. After riding these again, I determined that the combination of road width, road condition and traffic volume would not safely support an event of this size, so I made the reccommendation to exclude these roads from the event.
.However if anyone wants to ride Northport, the upcoming 5BBC ride to Eaton's Neck passes through, so join in . . .
.I am not conversant on GPS issues, but this has already been discussed by BNY management, so maybe we see it at some point.)

Junker

I missed one turn towards the end (getting off LIE Service Road,) I was tired and inattentive, however, I only went about a 2 tenths of a mile when I realized it and turned around. As for my HR, I guess after Port Jeff, it seemed easier, and I just got into a groove.

DSchlichting

No tragedy that you missed that turn. The little detour at the end into the industrial park and eventually to Moreland Road was done in order to avoid tired cyclists dealing with making a left turn across an often busy Motor Parkway onto Wicks Road. We did not expect to get a police officer at that intersection for the length of time needed (ended up we could get none at all), so we designed it so that riders could safely just ride straight across Motor Parkway. It was an investment in safe design as all 4 routes crossed here --75/100 came from the east and 26/50 came onto Moreland from the north.

HarmonicD

Funny, I also wound up missing that turn and then just exiting on Motor Parkway to make the left turn on to Wicks.