I haven't done the ride in Boone, but I can tell you that 10,000+ elevation gain is tough even for a lot of little guys. Here's the thing. A friend of mine did the Assault on Mitchell again this year. With the rain they were 10 hours in the saddle. Any time for me over 7 hours in the saddle is really uncomfortable. If you try it, remember riding anything over about 60 miles is very different from shorter rides. I bonked really hard on a century a week ago. I knew better, but just didn't eat enough. You have to eat, eat more and drink a lot or you won't have a chance. Bad nutrition that you can get away with on a 50 mile training ride will kick your butt on a century. OTOH, I've read that BS&G is really well supported so you could be fine to do as much as you can and then SAG the rest of the way in... The mountains around there really are pretty.
You could come over and do the metric at Cherohala Challenge this Saturday as a tune up. It's only about 3 hours from Boone. 6000'+ in the metric.
