Brentani’s Cycling Blog

I had a little time to take the cross bike over to Bowen to try out the new section. As the title indicates, it didn’t go so well. I need to fix my mountain shoes, so I tried it today with road shoes, which might have exacerbated some of the problems I had…

First attempt. Rode up the bottom part from Main to Benefit taking it quite easy, and started in the 26 to avoid any messy shifts from the big to little chainring. On the cobbles, I decided to try going on the cobbles all the way to the top. The ground was definitely more firm than last time I tried it, but I was also already thinking about the final section to come, so I didn’t want to go too hard in the really steep section, and as a result I lost momentum, spun out, and had to unclip.

Second attempt. Rather than try the top section again after stopping, I just looped back down to Main to do the whole thing, this time transitioning to the sidewalk at the normal spot, before the 30% insanity. Everything was fine up to Pratt. It was then that I noticed that the transition from sidewalk to road on Pratt is anything but easy. There’s about a 3-foot hole, making it impossible to ride straight across Pratt, so instead, I turned left on the sidewalk and hopped onto the road a few feet north of Bowen, and then turned back to go up the steep road section from Pratt headed up towards Congdon. This section is incredibly steep. It probably isn’t quite as bad as the final section before you hit Pratt, but it’s not much better either, except you’re on good pavement. It’s short enough that you could easily sprint through it and hardly notice it, but sprinting is unlikely after finishing the bottom part, plus you need something for the dirt section, so I opted to put it in a low gear and spin it as much as possible. (I was probably riding the 26-26 at this point.) The transition to the dirt is a little scary…total bottleneck, and at 25% gradient, you need good control to make sure your line is good going down from a standard sized road to a 3-foot (or so) path. The path stays at 20% for the fist 10 meters or so, and is pretty rocky – rockier than I remember it from walking it – I managed to get through most of that, but eventually lost my line and unclipped. I tried several times to re-clip in and get going, but without much success. I was able to get back on the bike just before the low-hanging branch and verified that a rider of my size (gewilli would probably have problems) can duck under it, but if I were out of the saddle I probably would have clocked myself. From there I rode to the top, popped out on Congdon and continued the gradual climb on Bowen up to Prospect.

Third and fourth attempts. Figuring what I really needed to do was practice getting a good line and mastering the terrain, I then rode down Jenckes to Pratt, so that I could just try the last section again. This time I made it slightly farther before unclipping but still not far enough. Walked it to the top, and looped back for another try. This time I barely got going on the path before I lost my line, so I just turned around and rode home.

Verdicts. So, I think it should be possible, but it’s going to require a lot of practice. (It certainly requires strength, but I think the real issue is technique, mostly handling the rocky section.) I won’t say it’s not possible on a road bike, but I don’t think I could do it. And as for how it compares to the Koppenberg? It doesn’t. Bowen to Congdon is in another league. In terms of elevation gain and distance the profiles, as I noted yesterday, are quite similar. But the Koppenberg has nothing approaching 30%, and a capable rider should be able to clear the Koppenberg in one try without special gears and skinny tires. Bowen not so much. (For one thing, no one would ever think to make a race go up Bowen, it would be a complete clusterf**k on the dirt section.) Anyway, I look forward to mastering this f-er.

Just when I think I know every hill in the city of Providence, I’m thrown a little surprise. And given that Bowen was the hill that inspired this blog, I think this qualifies as a major surprise. I just happened to be driving down Prospect today and turned onto Bowen headed down to Congdon where it deadends into Prospect Park. I noticed something I hadn’t before, namely a series of cement posts and what looked like a small path going into a thicket of trees separating Prospect Park from the neighboring house.

So I drove around to Pratt to see what it looked like from the bottom, and remembered that there was, in fact a small section of paved road (still called “Bowen”) that continues from Pratt, where I customarily stop. But what I noticed this time was what looked like a small path to the right of the bit of chain link fence.

I went home, grabbed my camera and got the Strava app ready on my new tablet toy and headed back. Not time to try biking it today, but I figured it was worth a stop and walk-up, which would tell me most of what I needed to know about whether it was suitable for biking anyway. There is indeed a path, and it is fairly bikeable, I think. The surface is probably a little rocky for a road bike, but if you were willing to risk a flat, you might even be able to do it with skinny tires. Cross would be better. The biggest problem, in fact, is a branch that runs across the path, but at worst, I think it might call for a quick dismount, or you might be able to just duck under it.

Once you hit Congdon at the top, you can continue on Bowen for one more block of easy climbing. The addition of these two sections increases both the overall length (obviously) and the section from Pratt to Congdon is the steepest part of the whole hill, continuing at almost the same grade as the final 30% section of the cobbled part below Pratt. The whole thing also compares quite favorably with the Koppenberg in terms of average gradient and steepness. The dirt section is probably difficult enough to make me give it the nod as the harder of the two hills, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I get over there with my cross bike.

Also of interest, the top of the cobbled section is now covered with a nice (but not too tall) layer of crabgrass that makes the ground much more firm than it was when I tried to ride the cobbles all the way to the top (I tried this just after I got the cross bike, but couldn’t maintain enough momentum to not have to dismount in the 30% section), so I think I may now be able to ride the cobbles all the way to Pratt (or just before it).

I haven’t been riding much, because I’m in full-on dissertation mode. I did ride up Marin Ave about a week ago, and will shortly post some thoughts on that. In the mean time, I had this little project sitting around and thought I’d post some of it. Before I became a full-time musicologist, as a composer I wrote a few radio-documentaries (or German Hörspiel) and have always had it in the back of my head to do something on the idea of climbing. In particular, there are some nice parallels between an “idea of up” and Glenn Gould’s “Idea of North,” which is, in a way, my touchstone for the genre.

So what follows in a draft of the introduction I would read for such a radio piece. The rest would be composed primarily of interviews. I have some people in mind for that, and will probably start contacting them soon (Doug?!?), but I don’t expect to actually start working on this until after my dissertation defense. Enjoy!

On July 27, 1998, the cycling world was treated to an exceptional feat at that year’s Tour de France. After an opening week marred by the disqualification of the entire Festina team for systematic doping, the defending champion Jan Ullrich seemed poised to consolidate a second victory in as many years. The script for winning a Tour de France seemed all but inevitable. After five years of Miguel Indurain’s victories, one by the Dane Bjarne Riis (where Ullrich also finished second and scored a brutal stage victory in the final time trial), and the previous year by Ullrich were all accomplished in much the same way. In each of those years, the winner would gain massive amounts of time during the time trials, while keeping challengers on a short leash in the mountains.

Those mountains, the very monuments that were treated with such reverence by aficionados of the tour, had become almost irrelevant to the final outcome of the race.

At the time trial on Stage 7 at the 1998 tour, Ullrich had followed the script to perfection. He won by a minute over Tyler Hamilton and his closest competitors for the climbs lost over three. While the Italian Marco Pantani had escaped to win on Plateau de Beille, Ullrich seemed in command of the race when the peloton reached the Alpes, and Stage 15 to Le Deux Alpes. After allowing a few inconsequential riders to escape on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Fer, an elite group of riders assembled in the torrential rainstorm on the Col de Galibier. A Frenchman, Luc Leblanc, sitting four minutes down on Ullrich attacked twice, each time Ullrich responded with a viciousness that left audiences wondering whether anything could be done to break his hold on the race. Words like “superman” and “unbeatable” had been used frequently in the preceding week.

Shortly after catching Leblanc for the last time, all that changed. Marco Pantani, having waited patiently through the attacks by Leblanc, accelerated from the group leaving Ullrich isolated and bewildered. The effortlessness of Pantani’s attack changed all assumptions about Ullrich’s presumed dominance in the space of seconds. Leblanc made another attempt bridge the gap to Pantani, but cracked before he could catch his wheel. Pantani, meanwhile, flew up the mountain, catching all of the day’s previous breakaways. By the time he crested the Galibier he had regained almost his entire three-minute deficit to Ullrich. On the day’s final climb to Les Deux Alpes, Pantani dropped all of the remaining riders and finished the day over nine minutes ahead of Ullrich. He took the yellow jersey by almost four minutes over the next closest rival, a lead he maintained to Paris. This provided confirmation that the Tour de France could be won in the mountains, a fact that would be validated several times over the next decade.

But for all of the drama of Pantani’s ride, a drama in which the climbs themselves played no small part, Pantani claimed to dislike climbing. When asked why he climbed so quickly, he retorted that he only did it because he wanted the climb to be over. It is difficult to gauge how seriously to take such a statement. Pantani would be suspected of doping several times over the subsequent years and was ultimately found dead of a drug overdose in 2004, leaving more questions than answers about his motivations and mental state. What does seem clear, however, is that Pantani was more of a racer than he was a climber, in spite of the mythologies promoted by his fans. For Pantani, going uphill was incidental; he was a climber because he excelled at it.

This documentary is not about riders like him. No, there is another sort of rider—one to which I proudly number myself—for whom the competition, that is the racing, is incidental; we climb for the love of climbing. What draws us to spend weekends seeking out a new hill with a particularly severe gradient profile? What, moreover, draws us to subject ourselves to the inevitable torture of attempting such hills, even when our level of fitness dictates we’ll suffer more than someone like Pantani ever would? This documentary gathers together several cyclists who are all suited, in their own way, to provide insights into precisely these questions.

Well, yesterday was one hell of a smack down. I’m not quite sure why I showed up, except that I seem to be the one in charge of announcing and leading the ride. It’s been a rough month. About 3 weeks ago I got some sort of horrible virus or potentially strep (though the test came back negative). My doctor put me on amoxicillin. About 5 days later I was covered in red spots from head to toe. And after missing the smack down that week I decided to try the next one, even though I hadn’t really been off the couch/out of bed in about a week. I got to the meetup and rode with the group until Greenville Ave and didn’t even try to keep up when the pace picked up. Took a scenic route home.

Next week, I skipped altogether and went for an easy bike path ride. Still on a one-ride-per-week schedule, I stopped with the cross bike on the way home from CT Monday to do some hill repeats on Case Mountain. And by repeats I mean one. total distance for the ride was probably 4 miles. Nice steep hill, on dirt, but still. That one climb, likely because of the difference of climbing on dirt, etc, and using new muscles, had my legs killing me all day yesterday. But I went out for the Smack Down, without high hopes. The legs actually improved a bit with riding.

I lasted a bit longer. I got popped off just after Greenville Ave, but reconnected in time for Austin, but never had a chance to hold on going up Austin. A new (and quite strong) rider Melissa was also otb at that point, so we took a short cut so that we could ride with the group a bit at the end. Pretty much took it easy for that part of the ride, but some of the short steep hills hurt like hell. I just didn’t have any power. The group caught us again on Winsor, and we were able to hold on pretty well until back to the bike path.

Came home, had dinner. Puked dinner. Still feel like crap this morning. Something’s clearly not quite right and I’m pretty sure I’m still recovering from whatever that virus was, because there’s no reason for that ride to have been that tough. Sure the pace was hard, but I actually took it pretty easy for a majority of the ride. Maybe next week?

After a crappy Battenkill and two lackluster Smackdowns I’ll take 55:58 on the climbing circuit. (This is the new one, not the old one with Wilbur Hill.) That’s about 30 seconds faster than my fastest time on the course last year (I think I’ve only done it about 4-5 times). And it’s a full 3:00 minutes faster than the time I did it earlier this year. So, I’m not noticeably slower than last year or anything like that.

Hopefully next week will go better on the Smack Down. Three weeks ago I rode with Brown riders Eddy and Peng, and Kirk from our team. Kirk has been riding less than me and got dropped, while I was only barely hanging on to Eddy, who was doing most of the work. The next week I skipped because of crappy weather. This week I hadn’t ridden for 8 days going into the smack down so I knew it wouldn’t be pretty. I felt good on Greenville Ave and put it what felt like a hard pull, but I’m not sure how hard it was for anyone else. Going up Austin, I was third wheel behind Curtis S and Nate. Curtis pulled off about 3/4 up, and then Nate took over pace making. Since we moved the sprint point up a bit, I jumped just before the turn, but Paul Curtis and a couple Brown riders all came up past me and that was that. Going into the next sprint I was drifting off the back, which is not a good place to be, and as a result I never caught back on until the regroup point in Chepatchet. And then I couldn’t hold anyone’s wheel going up Tourtellot, so it was a bad day all around.

I had a few hills in the database that I had found by browsing Google Maps in terrain mode, but never gotten out to try them out. It never really seemed worth it, given that getting there from Providence would make for at least a 70 mile ride, and it would be mostly busy annoying roads to get out there. Today gave me the perfect opportunity to explore the area, however. I had to drive to Dayville to hand Jude off to his grandmother (so he’s off playing with clocks for the day…), and I brought my bike and worked out a ride to hit some of those hills and a few others. There were even some nice dirt roads, so it’s good practice for Batten…er, yeah, I already did that race. So, in addition to North Road and Ross Hill Road, which were already in the database with the wrong names (N Road and Roth Road, respectively), there were about 4 other hills big enough to be worth putting in. Nothing mind-blowing, but all hills that would be very nice if we could move them a little closer. Hence, I’ll keep the descriptions short and sweet.

1. Cook Hill Road – Leaving Dayville, I headed south on Cook Hill Road. Not a bad hill, but nothing too special either.
2. Cooper Hill Road – Next up, this one starts out really steep. It’s a little anticlimactic however, because there’s no real sense of finishing it, because it keeps going up very gradually for a while after the steep part and you’re pretty much fully recovered by the time you hit the actual top of the hill.
3. Aspinock – this is another steep one that I wasn’t really expecting, but a nice hill nonetheless.
4. At the top of Aspinock, I saw a nice looking hill going down the other side, so I took that road, turned around, and came back up. Hurry Hill Road might have been the hardest one on the ride. The bottom is really steep.
5. Then there was Ross Hill Road, and other steep climb. After the top, there’s a stretch of unpaved road until you get to Tucker District Road.
6. Last up was North Road (labelled on google maps as “N Road”), a long nice climb.
7. And just over the top, I saw another descent that I decided to take and ride back up. That was Quinns Hill Road. At the bottom of the pavement, the pavement ends, but because I didn’t actually take the road, I don’t know how long the dirt section last.

And this is probably a good time to mention that I destroyed the database about a week ago. Word to the wise, before doing stuff with the SQL server, you should really make a backup, no matter what a small task you’re doing. I was about to start working on the new pavé module (It’ll be cool, whenever I finish it…I’m going to start cataloging dirt and cobble sectors) and was going to delete some garbage entries in that table. So I did what anyone would do and wrote “DELETE FROM [main_hill_table]” (I obviously meant “DELETE FROM [pave_table]“)…”425 entries affected.” Oh, fuck. And since I had switched over to ridewithgps for all new hills, I had two options…convert all my previous veloroutes to ridewithgps, or fart around in the code. I opted for the former. I remade some of them, and some I just downloaded and then re-uploaded to ridwithgps and then re-downloaded them and uploaded them to brentacol. Very tedious, and I lost a few hills, but I’m back to 416, with a few new additions, so only about 15 missing, and some of those were probably obsolete or test entries.

I just announced that the Mark Nicholson Smack Down begins again tomorrow night (5:00 from Casters, 5:15 from De Pasquale Square) so I’m now awaiting the inevitable flood of questions about whether this ride is appropriate for a particular skill level. I never know how to answer these questions, but I think I’ve had an epiphany tonight. Sadly, the answer to the question “should I come on this ride?” is probably “no.”

I really don’t know what the pace will be like tomorrow. It depends on who shows up, what kind of mood everyone is in, how tired people are from yesterday’s race and a whole host of other mitigating factors. Hell, I don’t even know whether I’ll be able to hold the pace. As much as we try to sell people on the pace of this and similar rides, the pace is not the issue here. Fabian Cancellara could announce a group ride tomorrow, saying that he’s going to go all out for 3 hours, and I might show up. Not that I could hang on very long, but I know that I can fend for myself once the inevitable happens.

The point is, if you have to ask “should I come on this ride?” then you probably shouldn’t. If riding home on your own (navigating unfamiliar roads, changing tires, tubes, etc, or worst case scenario, calling for help), in the event that you’re dropped, holds any terror for you, then you probably are not an experienced enough rider for this sort of ride, and you should probably wait for the next “no-drop” ride. And if you’re an experienced enough rider to get yourself home, then you also wouldn’t have needed to ask me if you should come.

And now, a few other pointers on how to ride one of these rides:

1. No one cares if you join in the pacemaking. Really. If you’re feeling under pressure, just hang out at the back and when people come off the pace line, let them go in front of you. If you do this, and then win every sprint, well, then you’re just a dick.

2. “What do I do if I get in a breakaway and don’t know the directions?” No shit, someone asked this at the beginning of a Smack Down one year. Answer: Oh, I don’t know, go ride by yourself and find your way home. These kinds of hammer-fest rides inevitably mimmic breakaway and breakaway riding to some extent, especially leading up to and coming out of sprints, but the point isn’t really to have a bunch of people riding by themselves. In general, if you think the pace is too low, don’t try to go off the front, ride at the front and lift the pace. The people behind will get the point that you’re strong (so you can placate your ego), and you’ll get the workout you need. Win-win.

3. “Should I wait at the tops of hills/after sprints?” is a slightly different version of the same question. You don’t really need to, if you know where you’re going, but why not? I mean, things string out at sprints and climbs unless everyone is really evenly matched, and the next hill/sprint is considerably less fun for everyone if you end up with 5 groups of 3 riders each. Let it regroup a bit (and no, I’m not talking about waiting around for someone who completely blew up), so that people can recover and have a reasonable size group when you get to the next sprint point. Otherwise the people behind spend all their energy chasing and even if they catch up, they’re toast when they get to the next sprint, so it’s not really a fair fight. Especially when the terrain is mixed. If a big guy gets dropped on a climb, and then you win the next flat sprint because you didn’t regroup a bit, that’s not really the classiest way to out-sprint the big rider, now is it?

Well, I had fun and probably put down a valuable training ride, right? So not all is lost. But, I finished last of the Prov Velo crew in the 4s and had a pretty slow day in the saddle. I had good intentions for this race. Back in the winter, I decided that, since (and now’s probably as good a time to mention it as any) my hill climbing season will likely be completely shot by the scheduled arrival of baby #2 sometime around June 26, I should give myself some sort of early season goal, and try to get into decent shape for Battenkill. That was December. I dutifully signed up for the race, and almost immediately came down with a nasty cold (adenovirus, it seems) that lasted from Jan 1 until the beginning of February. At which point some tickets to Germany to work do some research at Darmstadt fell in my lap, and – believe it or not – that proved to be more important than training. In Feb and March I mananged to get out about twice a week tops, and had one ride that was as long as Battenkill. So I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.

From the line, I couldn’t get into my big ring, which was funny, since I was fretting about the condition of my rear shifter, but there wasn’t any sign of a problem with the front. After fidgeting for a bit, I got it to work, but I was at the back of the pack. And let’s face it, that’s where I was headed anyway. Given that I hadn’t done a road race since Tokeneke 2 years ago, I decided not to fight it and just hang out there until things got going. The first hill is Perry Hill Road. I actually felt pretty good on that one, and a lot of people were already dangling off the back. I finished smack at the back of the main group, which meant I actually climbed the hill pretty quickly, relative to the rest of the pack.

Doug doesn’t find the next one (Juniper Swamp) too hard, but this is the second time I ran into trouble going up it. Somehow this hill just doesn’t suit me or something. Both times I managed to lose the main pack and get in with a group of people who aren’t as strong on the climbs as I was. (in 2009, I was with a decent group, but they couldn’t stay with me on Joe Bean, which is a hill that does seem to suit me.) This year, I dropped most of the group I was riding with on the rolling hills heading into Joe Bean. First I left my group on a climb and bridged to a solo rider. We worked for a while until it started going up again and he drifted back and I bridged to another rider. He was stronger and we got really close to a big group before he cracked, and I wasn’t going to bridge on my own. My hope was that I’d catch them easily on Joe Bean. But by the time I got to Joe Bean this time my legs were already starting to crap out. I had almost bridged to another group, and figured I’d catch them on Joe Bean, but the group was also coming from behind. One of that group (someone who I think must have flatted, because he wasn’t in the group I had been with and he was pretty strong) caught me and I held his wheel to the top, but then things started to fall apart on the way down. I was beat by the time I hit Meetinghouse Road and really couldn’t hold anyone’s wheel. I wouldn’t say I was bonking like I was in 2009, but my legs were cramping and it was all I could do to turn over the gears. Around this point I was sort of riding with a pair from Rutgers, who seemed to have also thrown in the towel. They were mostly riding side-by-side and let me ride away on the downhill section after Meetinghouse. I managed to catch one more person from my group going up Stage Road, but he passed me again on the descent. Rolled into town and found Curtis in the finishing area.

It was at this point that I said to Curtis, “I wonder if I should try to stick around for the finish of the 5s, to see if Donny or Keith won.” It had been something of a running bet as to who of these two was going to win their cat 5 field. It was both of their first road races, but they are both strong as hell, and had been regular fixtures at the smack downs last year. Donny had been racing cross all fall and had been training like a mad man all spring. Keith was coming off knee surgery and there were some concerns about his descending skills. I think most people were picking Donny. I was routing for Keith, but if I were a betting man (for sums larger than the 5 I put on Keith) I probably would have gone with Donny.

I had no sooner finished my comment to Curtis than I saw Keith weaving through the crowds. He started 40 minutes behind me. Mother f$#ker. I asked him how he did. He won it. He and Donny had apparently ditched the rest of their field at about 20 miles in (at which point they had only gone an average speed of about 16 mph) and cruised together for the next 20 miles or so. I don’t know any specifics of the attack, if there were one, but Keith rode the last 20 on his own, only starting to cramp a bit at the top of Stage Road. His finishing time was 3:01. I don’t know mine exactly, but it was probably 3:35 or something. His 3:01 is extra-amazing given that he did the first 20 at 16 mph where I did the same stretch at around 21 in the 4s. Anyway, in addition to being very happy for him, I feel somewhat vindicated, because I’ve been talking that guy up all year, and I really think he may be the strongest rider I’ve ever ridden with, which includes several Cat 1’s and 2’s. If he decides to try out some of the hill climbs this year, people better watch out. I think top-10 at Washington is within his reach.

I rode the Mark Nicholson Smack Down Route today and had some thoughts on routing and sprint points, which I here submit for general discussion and voting. First, the route…I suggest the following change to the route. When you get back to Tourtellot Hill Road, take a right instead of a left. (this is how Mark G. and I originally marked the route, but Mark N. originally intended the route to turn left on Tourtellot Hill Road and go back to Snake Hill Road.) This change only adds a couple miles to the route, but keeps more to back roads. And then, instead of taking Elmdale all the way back to Snake Hill, I propose we cut over to 116 on Pole Bridge Road, followed by a quick jog onto Winsor Ave, which is a much nicer way back than Smith Ave and Greenville Ave.

Now, on to sprints:

Sprint 1: This one is about a mile after you get to the top of Austin on Mapleville Road, marked by a rock on the side of the road painted to look like a Whale. I don’t particularly like this sprint. If I’m feeling good, I’ll launch my sprint from just after the top of Austin, and try to solo to the line. If that doesn’t work, however, I generally sit out, because I find that sprint scary as hell. Here’s why: The run up to the line is mostly flat, but just before you get there, you veer slightly to the left, crest a tiny little bump and descend for about 10 meters before you hit the line. It’s wicked fast, and completely blind. We’re pretty militant about enforcing the yellow line rule on the whole ride, but if someone ignores it here, and there happens to be a car coming……Instead, I’d propose to move the sprint point forward by at least 50 meters. There aren’t any landmarks as nice as the whale, but we could make the spint to one of the side streets. Or, closer to the top of Austin, there’s a Water tower thingy, or we could move it back to the intersection with Mapleville, which then makes the sprint more of a KOM. I kind of liked that this was a hard hill to figure out tactically, because the sprint was so far from the top of the hill, but close enough that it would pose difficulties for pure sprinters.

Sprint 2: no problems there. still love that one.

Sprint 3: This one has always been a bit confusing. When Mark G. and I selected it, we didn’t really have it in mind to be a climb, so we consciously chose a spot that wasn’t the top of a hill. But unfortunately the spot we picked is the second to last crest before the top of the East side of Douglas Hook. It just seems counterintuitive to sprint for that point, only to have the steepest and hardest part of the climb immediately following. I’d propose moving the sprint to the top, and make this one a KOM too.

Sprint 4: Tourtellot Hill. no problems here either.

Then, I think it would be nice to add one more sprint, something more tailored for big riders/sprinters. There aren’t so many great options, but here are 2 that might work:

1. Chepatchet. There’s always been sort of an informal competition to be the first one to the intersection of Douglas Hook and Rt. 44. We generally hang out in the parking lot here waiting for stragglers. The descent down Douglas Hook is very fast, so a sprint point at the parking lot would definitely favor the bigger riders, but only if they make it to the Sprint 3 in decent shape and not too far off the back. Someone like Greve or Gewilli could make up serious ground on the descent and be in contention for the win. And someone like me, even if I have 100 meters at the top of Douglas Hook, will find it almost impossible to hold the lead all the way to Chepatchet.

2. Intersection of Elmdale and Harmony Road. This would be after the top of Tourtellot Hill Road. Generally the last part of the ride after the hill is a little disorganized because there’s no real sprint points to keep people together. Some people hammer, others just let it go. If we added one more sprint in this area, it’d probably keep things a little more interesting. Plus the big riders will be out for blood after Tourtellot. At the spot I picked, there’s a road (Harmony) coming in from the left, with a big blue sign for “Harmony Farms.” Should be easy to spot. the road is pretty open, not too trafficky. There are quite a few curves in the road on the lead in, but not in a bad way. Seems like it’d be a fun sprint.