Originally Posted by
ksryder
It's a long day in the saddle. Last year with the mud it took me just under 18 hours. This year it was dry but unexpectedly hot & the second half was against a 17-20 mph headwind, it took me 15:45. That included roughly 45 minutes of stops.
Ted King probably would've had 3 minutes of stops but he had to change a flat; he still came in 45 minutes before anyone else. By all accounts he's a super nice guy.
Congrats ksryder! That's is some ride. The names near the top are pretty impressive, just to pick 2 are Peter Stetina and Geoff Kabush. Some locals drove out there, one who was around 50th, so I looked at the results last night. Really, the way bikes have evolved, if you stripped down many of those current tech gravel bikes the winners were on, and a 29" hardtail of today, you'd have a hard time telling them apart. Any vintage bike that could start to compare would take a very large 700 tire. Maybe something like an early trek 750. I was laughing with a guy on a ride Thurs about how so many people do centuries now, you forget how hard they can be. You get to about mile 80, and if you've been working and pushing the peddles, the last 20 can really be hard.
200 on dirt?!?! The winner averaged over 20mph. That means there were stretches where these guys were in groups, flying, like the local A group on a weekday ride.