A Couple of ?'s re: Wild Ride Bike Rally, May 15

Has anyone done this ride? I know that part of the country is pretty flat, and I just wanna find out if it's a pretty easy ride (I may have a couple of beginner riders accompanying me). Thanks for any info. :)

Link

Is that a mass start? if you are riding with beginners it might be a good idea to start at the end of the pack.

That's all I got.

I rode this the first four or five years they did it. It's a good ride and not terribly difficult. The last time I rode was in '08 with my daughter on the trail-a-bike so we only did the 16. It's a whopping 340 feet of climbing total. The next route up is the 40, which I have also done and it's 581 feet of climbing. The 40 is an out and back so you can kind of adjust your mileage to your liking. For example, one year I rode with a beginner who wanted something a little longer than the 16. We rode the 40 route and turned around at rest stop #1 on the route map, which gave us 26 miles at 485 feet of climbing. There's also an option on the map to cut off the 64 miler to make it 50. I've done that, but I don't have the data...won't be too much more climbing though. The "hills" aren't terribly difficult and there aren't that many. The 26 mile route is pretty much all in town and suburban neighborhoods. The longer routes take you out by a lake and to more rural areas.

Unless they've messed something up in the last two years, it's always been a nice ride with nice support at rest stops. There is plenty of police support at intersections in town since it's a fairly populated area. I would expect a couple of thousand at the start, but they usually stage it pretty well and it's not as congested as some other rides I've done.

Thanks for the info. From the pics I've seen online, it does look like A LOT of people participate in the ride. Guess I'll be one of 'em! :)