| QUICK STATS | This Ride | 2010 Cumulative |
| Distance | 99.70 miles | 3239 miles |
| Elevation Gain | 10585 feet | 35.63 miles |
| Average Moving Speed | 12.57 mph | 14.86 mph |
| Dog Bites | 0 | 1 |
I was a little concerned about this ride after
last weekend. I was convinced that the biggest problem last weekend was the heat. And perhaps I therefore wasn't drinking enough water. Easy enough problem to fix, or at least improve upon.
The other difference from last weekend is the support. Last weekend I hauled my CamelBak (with about 60 oz. of water) around Mt. Bachelor. Along with two water bottles. Today we had rest/water stops all over the place. I had 3 water bottles, and my original intent was to only fill the third one as needed later in the heat of the day and use it as a mister for cooling off my body.
Did it work? Yep. Although the heat wasn't as bad as it could have been, so it's hard to tell if the solution worked well or if the heat problem simply wasn't that bad this time. It wasn't that it didn't get hot. And my heart rate was higher than ideal during that stretch. But it seemed under control. I was able to keep going and just live with the fact that my heart rate is apparently 10 or 15 beats per minute higher when I am hot.
The main reason we decided to forge ahead and attempt a ride with an advertised elevation gain of 10,500 feet was due to how the organizers mapped out the ride. Basically you start with 35 miles of fluff, and then you do 3 big climbs. And in all 3 cases the climb is an out-and-back. So if your legs decide they just can't go up anymore all you have to do is turn around and ride back down. Pretty cool, eh?
Altitude comparison with two previous rides:
| Altitude Comparison | Mountain Lakes Challenge (6/19/2010) | Cascade Lakes Century (7/25/2010) | Mt. Shasta Century (8/1/2010) |
| Lowest Altitude | 1,860 ft | 3,600 ft | 3,030 ft |
| Average Altitude (over the entire ride) | 4,160 ft | 4,800 ft | 4,350 ft |
| Highest Altitude | 5,400 ft | 6,400 ft | 7,800 ft |
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The most interesting one is the average altitude. I would have guessed the Shasta ride was higher on average than both of the others. Of course, if you consider climbing or elevation
gain to be the real work of the ride, then the Shasta ride was twice as hard as last weekend's Bachelor ride.
According to
this altitude chart I'm used to breathing air close to sea level with an oxygen content of about 20 to 21%. On this ride we ranged from about 15 to 18%. The numbers don't seem dramatically different, but when you are pumping your legs and breathing rather heavy all day long that drop in oxygen is quite noticeable.
Okay, some details about this ride. We got up at 3:45 a.m. and drove to Mt. Shasta from Central Point (Medford) and started riding at 6:00 a.m. We have learned the hard way that starting early, even extremely early, is usually much better than having to ride later in the heat of day. And this time it worked fairly well for us. It was only fairly hot on the first part of the final big climb.
The scenery was beautiful. Lakes, streams, mountains. Beautiful.
The traffic was minimal. Particularly early. It picked up a little later in the day, but was still quite within reason.
There were a few stretches of bumpy roads. I think you have to expect some of the freeze-thaw cracks when you are riding in the mountains. Nature of the beast. However, the majority of the time the roads were nice and smooth. Old Stage Road was a dream to ride on, having obviously been paved fairly recently.
The support was almost as good as the scenery. Plenty of food and cold water, and even a wide selection of soda pops which I put to use on the later stops. On the final climb they even had valet parking for your bike. Sounds ridiculous when you first read it, but let me just tell you it was pretty stinking awesome to have someone grab your bike and deal with it so you could stumble over to the food and water (and pop!). Oh, and they had chairs at the stops. Most rides don't have chairs. This ride was obviously supported by cyclists for cyclists!
We had a very nice burrito meal at the finish. Chatted with a fellow from Roseburg who had already completed the super century (140 miles with 6000 feet more climbing than we did).
Before the ride I had estimated how long it would take us: 7.5 on-the-saddle hours and 9 overall hours to finish the ride. But I was basing that on last year's map, which was 5 miles shorter than this year. They added the 5 miles up front but kept the 3 big climbs unchanged. It took us 7 hrs and 55 minutes on the saddle, and 9 hrs and 20 minutes overall.
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