Discussion: long ride

I'll probably try the "tour" tomorrow, since it may be my last chance for a century ride this year. I'll set down a time and route that you can try to improve on later in the fall (or not). If my foot is hurting - more likely than not - I'll quit after doing the western, much hillier 70 miles.

Do you still have the route we figured out? I took a quick look a week or two ago and didn't find it.

I redid it on ridewithgps, which shows the grades (if you click on grade; then you can magnify parts of the ride by selecting them). According to mapmyride, it has 2 cat 3, 1 cat 4, and 7 cat 5 climbs. Worst grade is actually going over the notch on 116; gets up to 10%, but only briefly. (I might check to see if the climb is easier in the other direction.) Middlefield is a royal pain: 700' down just to go right back up. I checked out going River Road the whole way north (and catching Chesterfield later from rt 9), but it was worse.

A piece of cake relative to the D2R2.....

The part where you ride a mile on I-91 (around mile 68) looks fun.

Decided to skip that section and stay on route 5 :-)