Battle of Olustee
 

I've gotten PM's from some guys here about this..

From: warmhearth@bellsouth.net
To: gccmail@gccfla.org
Subject: GCCMail: Battle of Olustee date and time
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:57:06 +0000

The Battle of Olustee will muster troops at 9:00 a.m. Sunday January 25 at
the Holiday Inn corner of 441 and University avenue. It will head North
on 441 then North on 121 at the Highway Patrol Station.
Ride length is something over 100 miles with one brief food stop at about
45 miles.
Expect substantial acceleration with 40 hilly miles to go.
Entry fee 0. Support 0. Sympathy 0. Club or group affiliation 0.
Bring lots of food, water, and attitude.
Committee to avoid responsibility (CAR)

Ken, I know that this ride is HARD, but that "hilly" bit makes me :lol:.

(And a belated Happy Birthday:thumb:)

I'm coming down with a few people. It should be a good time. Does this look like the current route to you? I have some friends interested who may not make it to the end with the group. (They know this going in.)

Map

Close enough. The group will probably stay together until the airport.

The "end" is at the brown Devil's Millhopper sign between milemarker 109 and 110 on your map. Some may opt to sprint for the green city limit sign 5' in front, but tradition has the brown sign as the final sprint.

I've done the "Olustee' twice.
Once in 75/sunny conditions, riding 2x2 for 70 miles, then it was on. Think there were 20 of us left of the 80 by the finish sprint.

The other time it was 42/rainy. Half of the 80 guys bailed before the start. Then we lost some more in the first ten miles from crying too loud. We then lost more guys at 20 miles in, when they realized their digits would not make it through 110 miles of pissing cold rain. Everyone was bailing, so by the time we hit the one store stop, there were like 15 of us, so we decided to skip the north loop and just hammer back to town. Epic ride. I think I have permanent toe/finger damage after that one.

Wow, that look vicious.

Question: Obviously consumption varies, but what is generally "enough water" to make it through this?

That's completely your call. If you misjudge you can always stop in Providence or Alachua to refill.

Ben Page has been asking me about this ride. I'll give him the 411 when I see him next.

Ben should be racing with us on Saturday. Right?

I'd suppose so. He wasn't around last weekend for the regular Sunday ride, but neither was I.

Ben came out and rode with us on Sunday until he dropped himself. He took a monster pull into the headwind and then disappeared otb. I'm not sure if he did that deliberately or on accident. :(

I'm guessing that he did it to get back to Gainesville to watch football. He's a big NFL fan.

It was a pretty seriously monster pull. Guys behind me were crying..

I forgot to mention that Ben's had some good luck in the races and I'm hoping he comes out this weekend. He's the dude who broke his crankset in the gainesville crit last year, and I watched him throw a chain in a final sprint at dade city and he still get a top3.

The Gainesville Crit is where I first met Ben. I was the guy who handed him his left crank arm with a wee bit of the POS Chin Haur BB still attached to it.

You should have been out on Christmas morning. There were four of us and two were Ben and Andreas Tosolini. There was a major pissing match. I even took a few pulls. Good times.:lol:

Andrea's fun. I'll see that guy riding on 121 in full TT mode and jump on his wheel for a free ride at 32 for a few miles.

When you see a red rocket coming at you, be prepared to jump on and go..

;)

Have fun tomorrow. I'm taking my sister and girlfriend to the Medieval Festival. I'll think of you guys while drinking my giant mug 'o beer at 10:00 in the morning.