2011 Santa Clarita Century
 

Santa Clarita Century
April 2nd, Valencia Town Center.

Putting the call out!

There's 3 routes to choose from:

• 100-miles (7am) ~7,000-ft
• 50-miles (8am) ~3,000-ft
• 25-miles (9am) ~650-ft

We have a police escort for the first 5-10 miles of each route but riders can start whenever they want. The hundred miles is good training for the upcoming KOM series and Mulholland Challenge (following weekend).

All proceeds go to a local charity. A very nice hotel has a very nice discount if you're tired after the ride and just wanna crash (1-block from the finish line).

From the 2010 ride...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2801/...6307ef16ce.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/...11fd4c9c8d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2733/...e598d953d1.jpg

I'm in for the 100... pretty excited, this is my first century with a fair amount of climbing. My previous century was Palm Springs which was an easy 3500 feet. Not looking forward to wind in Palmdale though, supposed to be >20 mph.

Hope to see you there. I'll be leaving in a few minutes to start setting stuff up.

Hoping you don't have too much wind, either. It's kindof a feature of the area, though.

how was the ride? i wantew to do it but i am doing a small century tomorrow with more elevtion.

Well, I was hoping for no wind, but it was not meant to be (they do hit the outlying neighborhoods of Palmdale, after all).

On the up-side, it's always fun seeing the expressions of accomplishment, exhaustion and finality on riders as they come back from 100, grueling miles. :D

I made the decision to bailout after reaching the summit of Aliso Canyon Rd. The wind was out of control, I felt a little dejected after that but I didn't think is as safe at that time. Oh well, there's alway next year... I won't preregister though, I wait to see what the weather conditions are looking like. All in all the rest of the day was not bad, turning a 100 mile into a 70 mile still had plenty of challenges. This was my first century with a fair amount of climbing, so the 70 felt like 100.

On a side note, I hope the organizers do a better job with the SAG stops. There was only one stop location for nutrition, the others were just to refill your water. The one location that did have nutrition was pretty bleak at that. I think that a $60 entry fee would provide better support.

The first stop was at 25-miles: Acton Park. A loop into Angeles Forest, and 25-miles later brought you back to Acton Park for stop #2. 25-largely-downhill-with-2-climbs-in-between-miles later, and you arrive at Fire Station 123 on Sand Canyon Road for SAG stop #3. Another 25-miles, and you'd be at the finish with a huge Turkey or Roast Beef deli sandwich awaiting you for stop #4. In between a couple of the SAG stops were two water-only stops.

Sorry the wind was so fierce. It seems to be a feature of the Antelope Valley :(

Wind wasn't all that bad, of course I'm from Texas. Got there a bit late so pretty much spent the day riding past people. Had one very angry guy in a Buick I ended up calling the cops on but otherwise the car factor was more or less OK, though there was once piece of road in Palmdale that was a pretty sketchy and I passed one of the guys just taping up a "bike riders" sign where you get back on Soledad near the freeway on ramp where there was zero shoulder. Ended up cutting it down to 90 miles because I had an afternoon appointment so I got back in a bit under 5 hours.

Don't do these very often but it would have been good to be able to review/download a route sheet prior to the event. I didn't find the sandwiches at the end but I didn't work all that hard at it because I needed to split. Not a deal for me but I could see where less strong riders could have used another refreshment/food stop on the route. One giant pothole could have used some warning paint. Route markers were well done. More fig newtons. Seeing the lions at the sanctuary was pretty cool.