Road Ride Report Tri-State Century Ride Nov. 6, 2010.

What a great ride that I decided to try out. Had completed the Santa Barbara Century with about 9,600 ft of elevation gain figured I could handle one more Century before the end of the year.

The ride was just incredible. The roads went for miles and the views were postcard like!

Made the drive up to Mesquite, NV in about 5 1/2 hours from the OC (of course left early mid-day to avoid the nasty 91fwy traffic out of here!). Met a few other riders from the OC to try and make one last long ride of the year.

Weather was perfect and a cool 55 degrees for the morning start. Highs only to 70 to 75. Just right for an all day ride. Only about 125 riders at the start and no easy way out with a metric century. It was only one option of 114 miles with 8,000 ft of climbing.

Got to the start line and my group was running late at the start. Since it was such a small group of riders and opted to take off with the gun start as not to get dropped in the middle of no-mans land!

Stayed with the lead group for the first 20 miles and it was a hammer ride at that point. Steady 24 mph on the rolling hills. I knew we still had all the big climbs ahead and pulled back to save some in the tank. Lead group was only about 15 strong and knew it would break up soon. I got spit out the back and slowed the mph to 21mph to recover for a little.

Got picked up by the second group and was more my pace for the long ride still ahead. Met some great guys all from Salt Lake and St. George UT. We talked for awhile and agreed to stay together for the ride.

First hill climb was tough at mile 30+. Steady hard climb for about 7-8 miles. Of course we are still all fresh so the first climb was good. The other tough part is all the exposure and canyons. Wind would blow/howl for a few miles then disappear as fast as it came. Trust me when the wind blows in the canyons....steady 15-20 mile wind! Thats when staying together in numbers counts.

The ride just had great views and endless roads that had little traffic if any at all. Mainly get passed by ranchers in their trucks with a few "Howdy's" thrown our way.

On the return home we had one more big climb back at mile 75+. Now that was a do or die moment!. All of us looked at each other and just said see you at the top for the re-group! Turned the I-pod on and justed spinned the pedals for 8 miles of relentlless climbing. We all made it but could feel the tank on empty! Hit the gu hard and bananas! Re-grouped and knew we had another 25+ miles back to the finish.

Lucky for us a lot of it was down hill as speeds up to 45mph on long stretches. Last 5 miles were rollers and had enough recovery to mash those few miles home!

SAG stops were great and people are so much friendlier in far away places. Even the drivers were nice and only buzzed once the whole ride!

Would I do it again....why not...Just cant beat riding in three states in one day!

 

wow, that looks like a beautiful ride. Was this Planet Ultra?

 

Yes. Planet Ultra. They really did a great job at the SAG's. Husband and Wife combo that put on the ride. They really put a lot of time in setting up for the first year. Good turn out for the first run. Kudos to the couple for setting up such a great ride!

 

I wonder how they managed to get insurance for all 3 states. I know Debbie is a lawyer so she knows what she's doing in that regard. But I've had so many issues on her century and double century rides that I don't depend on them any longer. One year we did the Mulholland century and we get to the top of a climb in 100 degree heat and there is no water. One of the volunteers there is a friend of mine and he was pissed. They had called over 2 hours before to tell them they were out and they were still waiting. He sent his wife down to get some but we moved on. We found a hose in some peoples front yard and used that. So I'm glad you had a great ride but I think folks should know about these mishaps that happen.