Anyone riding it tomorrow? https://www.rougeroubaix.com/

yep


I'm oscillating between the thoughts of 'I might finish with the winning break' and 'my legs are going to poop out at mile 90'

Good luck! Have you ridden this one before? Looks pretty intense.

I'm just hoping to make it to St. Fran as a spectator this year to check out the action. Only heard about RR for the first time earlier this week.

Yup, my fourth (and probably last) time. I'm in M55+.

ETA: 291 pre-registered.

good luck everyone

hope it doesn't rain.......

Hey guys, how'd it go? Did they throw in a lot of gravel sections this time?

I'm curious what bikes you guys used. CX or road?

I caused a crash, slipped on the edge of one of the ft deep puddles right around a corner in the first gravel section; never saw the main group again. Bike got messed up. came to a rest stop and fixed it up the best I could. worked with several groups of stragglers before passing them (cat 5's not the easiest to work with). got a flat tire (probably pinch flat) on one of the last gravel parts, came to a rest stop and got a new tube. finished 30th or something. that totally sucked

Bummer! At least you didn't hit this pothole


Next year, I hope to be one of the Cat 5s.

I came in towards the bottom of the M40+/M55+. spectastic may have passed me at some point after the second gravel section. The high point for me was riding past most of the 4/5 whippersnappers as they walked up Blockhouse.

Congrats on finishing. How long did it take? I haven't ridden Blockhouse yet, so I'm curious why they were walking it. Was it due to lost traction because of skinny tires or not enough horsepower?

My time was 5:56, which put me ahead of about a dozen Cat 5s - hey, I'm 62, I'll take what I can get. Of course, there was a 60 year old who beat me by almost an hour.

My guess for the reason folks were walking is lack of familiarity with what climbing feels like. It's not the same feeling as pushing hard on level ground. In Louisiana, there's almost no chance to acquire that familiarity. I've had to search out climbing and drive to it.

Lack of climbing... Yeah, I can see that. I'm in BR, LA. The only thing to climb around here is the levee.

yea I passed a bunch of people. When I saw a van up front, I thought "I can't believe it, we caught the main group!" NOPE It's the women 1-4. And because the rules said we can't work with riders from other races, I just kept going, and that was the worst time to have dead legs, no group draft, and a bent derailleur hanger, because it was right before the steep gravels.

spectastic - Were you wearing a bluish kit with plaid?

I was wearing a red/white jersey with black bibs

Okay, I was riding with a guy for a while who sounded like he had similar issues.

I wouldn't be surprised. a lot of us had similar issues. I heard they had crashes in every race