buelito

Well, I guess I’m ready for Ride the Rockies. Today was a brutal day—83 miles, close to 7000 feet of climbing on a classic ride in the Shenandoah Valley. SkyMass. Starts in Front Royal, VA and goes up Skyline Drive to Rt 211 (about 31 miles)—then a long downhill into Luray. From Luray, up Massanutten mountain (brutally hard hill…) then rollers back to Front Royal. Temperature in the high 80’s and very humid. It was a brutal day. I rode the folder—the dahon Speed P8 that I plan to take to Colorado in 2 weeks. I changed the tires from the big apple’s to marathons, and shaved a pound or so off the total weight, but the bike is still heavy, and although I was fine on the rollers, flats and downhills—I was slow going up the long steep hills. Skyline Drive was OK—I didn’t get dropped too badly. Massanutten was another story—that is a tough hill with ramps approaching 16%... the last 20 were tough as my back and triceps started to hurt—riding with a fast group is very different from riding alone. Total time, including stops, was 6 hours flat. I feel really good about that.

Train safe

Jiten

I've been waiting for this ride report since I read from your other posts that you were going to take your Speed P8. Please keep us updated on how it's going, with pictures if you can manage it. Did you upgrade the gearing of your P8 or is it the stock gearing?

Derailed

Wow -- very nice job. I'm impressed! Please do post back about your upcoming ride.

invisiblehand

Congratulations. I did this with the NWT a few times. What I remember of Skyline Drive is that the hills are not terribly steep but really ... really ... long. Regardless, few people get through it without lots of sweat.

Of course, total amount of climbing heavily depends on the algorithm and its granularity. If you want to pat yourself on the back, realize that most estimates of elevation change are quite a bit higher than 7000 ...

https://www.potomacpedalers.org/event....asp?id=229265

crackerdog

Wait until you find out what your lungs think of thin air at altitude. Your legs are ready... Hope you have a great time in the Rockies but plan to take it a bit easy at first to see how your lungs do.