Sunday, August 16, 2009

Mt Lemmon Century

I have made this ride into an annual late summer ride. I did it last year on July 22 according to my GPX file that I had on Topofusion. The goal of the ride was "to slingshot myself back into fitness" (I had not been on the bike for an "epic ride" for 4 weeks). Let's just say it was hard and I think it may have worked. We will see in the next few days as I start to increase miles on the bike.

This year, I tried to make it more of a social ride rather than a solo deal. Chris Campy, Andy Suter and I (and later Max Moris on his 29er nonetheless) all began the ascent at 5:30. The first ascent was perfect. We got to Summerhaven, ate some cinnamon buns, drank some coffee before descending and going for round 2. The heat prevailed during this 2nd ascent to Summerhaven. Chris seemed to be the only sane person in the group; he bowed out after 50 miles. The heat was pretty unforgiving, forcing us to run out of water before Palisades. Andy led most of the way, watch out for this roadie turned new mountain biker. I guarantee we will be seeing his name in future bikepacking trips/races.


The profile from the base (we started at Le Buzz unlike last year).

108 miles, 13,974 feet of climbing, 8.5 hours of moving time

Here is an interesting profile of the speed (y-axis) vs time:


42.3 mph is my new fastest road bike speed. Anyone have anything faster?

6 comments:

tims said...

great effort Chad! monster of a ride.. re: speed on a road bike.. I do, but I am far too old to go that fast ever again. Hit 60mph descending Mingus back when I was racing (1990-91 seasons)
came out from behind the road cut on that long long downhill runout near the bottom and the wind blew me a good 10feet sideways (at least it felt like it!)

I'm much more safer/slower and saner these days! :)

ScottM said...

I dig the profiles, but where was the camera?

Glad to hear Max is rocking 100 miles. I'm sticking to less than 20 and mellow.

Chad said...

I forgot to mention that Max bailed after 50 miles.

Next time I will bring the camera :) Want to camp on Lemmon next weekend?

Unknown said...

I love seeing this stuff, I miss the AZ trails (ok, the company is passable too).

Great way 2 ride.

But only 40-something on the roadie? Geeze, lay off the brakes man! You can do so much better than that.

Dave said...

I've hit upper 40's on the mtn bike on pavement a few times.

bustour said...

This looks like a good ride. I might have to give this a try in the next month or so...seems like a good training ride for the Rock y Road 50/50.
I hit about 48 coming down Lemmon last month...I was trying to keep up with this Corvette that had just passed me.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...