Best Century Rides

[butterfly]

Butterfly Is there anyone that will be riding in the Hotter Than Hell Century Ride in Witchta Texas?? :D

[endochick]

I'll be doing it again this year. Have you done it before?

[Trek420]

Great idea. I've wanted to see a "TE Top Ten Centuries" thread. This year due to the AIDS ride I'm not doing many centuries. Thinking ahead to next year I may want to do some riding just to ride rides and want to know the best. I'll start it off by saying of the centuries I've done to date my favorite was the Chico Velo Wildflower. I'll admit it, I did the "mild flower" version.

Best Food!! I'd pay just to eat their food, linzer tort energy bars, gourmet micro brew root beer, the best black bean and wild rice salad I have ever seen or eaten.

Support: very good, plentiful and helpful

Scenery: very nice

Riders:good crowd

only down side, weather can be iffy, often rains

oops, almost forgot, Chico is North of the Bay area, about 4-5 hour drive, close to Redding.

www.http://www.chicovelo.org/

and editing again other rides that are on my "list of things to do" are the Party Pardee, and the Solvang. Love to hear about 'em.

[CorsairMac]

Where the ride was/is might be helpful also.

[NorthTahoe]

I just road my bike for the first time today and I am going to do the short version of the Party Pardee in just two weeks! It appears my "date" has backed out and I am on my own. I am a total beginner to cycling, but in pretty good shape as I am generally active. Can anyone give me some helpful input. I know the flat stuff will not be a big deal, but how many hills and how hard are they? This is learning under fire and I am going to do the ride even if I have to do it by myself. Any suggestions?

[SadieKate]

Welcome! Sorry it took so long to respond.

Are you new to both cycling and organized group rides? I don't know the route, but tons of people in this group have done tons of organized rides. I'm going to start a new thread with just tips for organized one day rides. These tips are sprinkled all over this forum but not really collected anywhere.

[NorthTahoe]

Hello Again-
I am new to everything having to do with cycling. With the winter weather back in the Sierra, my verying limited training has been forced totally indoors. I was just wondering how hard the Party Pardee is when it comes to hills. I am just worried about hills. I am in good shape, so 30+ miles does not scare me as much as what ever hills are on the route. I wish there was some type of data or map that told me what I am getting into. Later I have signed up for the Wildflower in Chico, but I am doing the Flat Flower and figure that should be easy. Is the Ione event rain or shine? As soon as the weather gets a little better, I plan to check out the Reno Cycling groups, but that will be after the Ione ride. Thank you for your help....

[Veronica]

We did Party Pardee last year on our tandem - the full metric plus some since we blew past a right hand turn :p

This is info from Thom's HRM showing altitude. None of the climbs were significant. A few are mildly steep. We broke our chain (wear not because of the ride) on one. It was right in the middle of the ride. There's nothing as bad as the climb out of Emerald Bay for example.

Veronica

[NorthTahoe]

Can you get a map before the race that shows the route for the 50K? I have not seen anything on the ride web site. I would like to drive the course the day before if possible. Thanks.

[Veronica]

I think most organized rides do not post their routes online. It keeps the poachers away.

V.

[NorthTahoe]

Thank you for the help. I hope to work on my hills if the snow ever stops coming down.