Post by billjacobs on Jun 6, 2005 12:47:13 GMT -5
Dual Geek suggested I post a report on a couple of rides. The first was this past weekend's Fletcher Flyer, co-sponsored by the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club and the Western NC Alliance - it's a fundraiser for the Alliance (a very effective conservation group), and benefits from the Alliance's ability to supply volunteers.
As it's name suggests, the Fletcher Flyer is designed to be pretty fast -- the goal is to create the Asheville-area century with the least possible amount of climbing. This year's course got it down to 4,000', all of it in rollers rarely exceeding 200'. If all goes well, think of it as 100 miles of drafting.
The route is basically indescribable. It generally wanders around the Fletcher area for a while, and then runs over to Brevard in the French Broad and Mills River Valleys, with a detour up into the Mills River Recreation Area on the way back. Lots of twists and turn, and to some extent makes up for the lack of climbing with a generous supply of stops and starts.
A very wide assortment of riders, of course, but we had a pretty good lead group of 50 or so until the metric and full centuries divided at about 30 miles, and about half went the metric -- including lots of Asheville Bicycle Racing Club people who had been participating the day before in the State Championships at Southern Pines. The pace was not particularly stressful, although a few riders (including my Cashiers friend, Steve Viguerie and a middle-aged Asheville racer named Kent) would occasionally goose things a bit when they took pulls.
Then, at about 40 miles, Steve flatted. I pulled out with him, and, in an extraordinarily gracious move, so did Kent. After 3-4 minutes to fix the flat, we went after the group. I will quickly add that most of the real work was done by Steve and Kent. Fifteen miles later we were back on, but not exactly fresh, and were in need of water. A rest stop came up after a couple of miles, and at 55 miles we expected the whole group to stop.
No such luck -- about 20 kept right on going. So off to the races again, for a while with an uneven group of five. I almost died when, shortly after I had finished a pull and rotated to the back, the rider in front of me slowed down, muttered something about turtles, and turned around to get a turtle out of the road, leaving me seriously gapped with Steve doing a strong pull. They eventually saw my plight and slowed enough for me to get back on. Then we lost another rider to a cell phone call, so it was Steve, Kent and me again. This time, Steve and Kent didn't have the pop they had earlier, and we never got back up tothe main group. Kent was feeling his prior-day races and took a short-cut back at about 80 miles. As for Steve, he was beginning to feel the effects of reduced training time due to this spring's heavy work responsibilities, and of having ridden more than 60 only once since January. We passed a few full-century riders along the way (and lots of the metric riders, whose route had rejoined ours). And Steve shocked me with an attack on a 200' hill at about 95 miles -- seems he didn't care for the paceline manners of a rider we had picked up, and decided to drop him; claims he figured I would follow and also break away, and we could get back together up the road, which we did (the traffic light helped).
All in all, while this ride has its frustrations (among them lots of intersections and turns that break up both rhythm and break-aways), it's uniqueness makes it fun. If you can avoid mechnical problems, and coordinate your refueling with a strong group, there's not much other than time in the saddle to keep you from riding home in the front group. And completing a full century in under 5 hours is sort of a kick. I think this would be a great one to have a group of fairly equal riders take on together, and play around with things like staging a coordinated break, or setting up for a sprint finish. And it supports a good cause.
Next weekend, I'm off to the Cherohala Challenge, and will post my impressions. Hope someone (or more) will do the same for the BS&G.
As it's name suggests, the Fletcher Flyer is designed to be pretty fast -- the goal is to create the Asheville-area century with the least possible amount of climbing. This year's course got it down to 4,000', all of it in rollers rarely exceeding 200'. If all goes well, think of it as 100 miles of drafting.
The route is basically indescribable. It generally wanders around the Fletcher area for a while, and then runs over to Brevard in the French Broad and Mills River Valleys, with a detour up into the Mills River Recreation Area on the way back. Lots of twists and turn, and to some extent makes up for the lack of climbing with a generous supply of stops and starts.
A very wide assortment of riders, of course, but we had a pretty good lead group of 50 or so until the metric and full centuries divided at about 30 miles, and about half went the metric -- including lots of Asheville Bicycle Racing Club people who had been participating the day before in the State Championships at Southern Pines. The pace was not particularly stressful, although a few riders (including my Cashiers friend, Steve Viguerie and a middle-aged Asheville racer named Kent) would occasionally goose things a bit when they took pulls.
Then, at about 40 miles, Steve flatted. I pulled out with him, and, in an extraordinarily gracious move, so did Kent. After 3-4 minutes to fix the flat, we went after the group. I will quickly add that most of the real work was done by Steve and Kent. Fifteen miles later we were back on, but not exactly fresh, and were in need of water. A rest stop came up after a couple of miles, and at 55 miles we expected the whole group to stop.
No such luck -- about 20 kept right on going. So off to the races again, for a while with an uneven group of five. I almost died when, shortly after I had finished a pull and rotated to the back, the rider in front of me slowed down, muttered something about turtles, and turned around to get a turtle out of the road, leaving me seriously gapped with Steve doing a strong pull. They eventually saw my plight and slowed enough for me to get back on. Then we lost another rider to a cell phone call, so it was Steve, Kent and me again. This time, Steve and Kent didn't have the pop they had earlier, and we never got back up tothe main group. Kent was feeling his prior-day races and took a short-cut back at about 80 miles. As for Steve, he was beginning to feel the effects of reduced training time due to this spring's heavy work responsibilities, and of having ridden more than 60 only once since January. We passed a few full-century riders along the way (and lots of the metric riders, whose route had rejoined ours). And Steve shocked me with an attack on a 200' hill at about 95 miles -- seems he didn't care for the paceline manners of a rider we had picked up, and decided to drop him; claims he figured I would follow and also break away, and we could get back together up the road, which we did (the traffic light helped).
All in all, while this ride has its frustrations (among them lots of intersections and turns that break up both rhythm and break-aways), it's uniqueness makes it fun. If you can avoid mechnical problems, and coordinate your refueling with a strong group, there's not much other than time in the saddle to keep you from riding home in the front group. And completing a full century in under 5 hours is sort of a kick. I think this would be a great one to have a group of fairly equal riders take on together, and play around with things like staging a coordinated break, or setting up for a sprint finish. And it supports a good cause.
Next weekend, I'm off to the Cherohala Challenge, and will post my impressions. Hope someone (or more) will do the same for the BS&G.