Bowen, take 2
I took another crack at Bowen after my ride today. I only did the cobbled section from Benefit to Pratt. It went about as well as could be expected, but it is very difficult, and for now I’m standing by my assessment that it is more difficult than the Koppenberg. Turning onto Bowen from Benefit, the cobbles are so nasty that there is really only about one line you can take to successfully get going. And as I discovered on Monday, if you stop on this thing, you’re not getting going again. The cobbles are bumpy and nasty the whole way up, but they are really only treacherous at the very bottom. The other place it gets dicey is on the transition to the sidewalk at the top. There’s also only about one good line there to get on the sidewalk. Once you get on the sidewalk, things don’t get much better. It kicks up almost immediately to 30%, and I thought I was either going to break my chain, tumble over backwards, or both. I was practically doing a track stand in my 38-25. To make things worse, the gradient actually increases slightly from the 30% section I calculated, so that just before the top, the gradient is probably closer to 33 or 34. This was definitely an experience, and I’ll be back soon to try the whole thing starting at Main and ending at the top of Jenckes.