Originally Posted by reidconti

yeah, the hail was... fun. We got under the tent at Pickett's just as it started to rain hard. We must have had 100+ cyclists crammed in there. Sacrificed the food table to the weather in order to fit more people in. Stood there from about 4pm to probably 4:40 at which point it let up and was just sprinkling so most of us made a break for it. A few headed down but most of us headed up. On the way up it was sunny, then hailing, then raining, then clear, then hailing.. etc. It was obvious the hail was localized, it always looked like just another mile and you'd be out of it. But only a few miles of road on the way up were dry, so I guess most of the area did get hit.

As we stood under the tent we couldn't believe the crazies (like Ramon) who cruised by uphill or bombed downhill. I was freezing standing elbow to elbow under the tent -- most of us had no jackets and it was 55 or colder (55 by the time i got back to my bike after the hail had let up). I don't know how you guys survived the hail while riding -- the stuff we saw later on the way up wasn't as bad.

The summit was about 2 miles further up than I expected -- it was at mile 108, but Woodford and Picketts were 2 miles earlier than i expected, so i thought my computer was off by 2 miles.

The last climb where you can see the unrelenting road for 2 miles just sucked. Got to the summit, ate my ice cream, and asked the radio peeps what the weather was like down below. By now the sun had come out at the summit but the ground was wet so you could tell they had also been subjected to the hail (as it was fairly localized we weren't sure). It sounded clear at Picketts and Woodfords so I made a break for it. Sure enough, the road was drying out, some sun.. a few miles of wet road and a bit of rain in spots, but not bad.

Don't have my computer on me, but I was somewhat slower

11 hours riding to complete, 52.5 max speed, somewhere around 11 or 11.5 average. Average HR was 151.