Self-Supported Centuries and What's Your Favorite Century

[jobob]

I'm also looking for recommendations for really great centuries in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Oregon or Washington. Any recommendations?

If you check the Northwest, California, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain region sections of this forum, you'll find lots of discussions about various centuries in those regions.

[Alex]

Jobob,

Sorry, no links. I just saw the rides listed in the event calendar in the Utah Cycling newspaper. I was taking the easy way out by posting here because I didn't want to have to post in each individual regional forum! I'll peruse the threads there and see if that gives me the info I need. Thanks!

PW,

I guess I wasn't clear. A self-supported century sounds to me like something you could do any day. It is self-supported, after all, so there are no aid stations or anything. So, I'm wondering why? Is it just because you might have the company of other riders???

Alex

[teigyr]

I personally like the Amtrak century in California. There were some other ones in the San Luis Obispo area (like the Lighthouse Century) that were really great! I don't know how many are still in existence and I don't know of any great ones in WA yet but if you want me to go through my stuff, PM me and let me know! I can also provide websites, if you want.

There was a really great one in Paso Robles (Calif) but I have to check to make sure it's still around

[jobob]

Companionship's a part of it. Also, I suppose if an event benefits a charity, there's that.

Were those self-supported rides that you saw called "brevets" ? Those are unsupported (or minimally supported) endurance rides, although they tend to be longer than a century. We've been talking about brevets here a lot lately and many have posted about their brevet adventures recently, especially the uber-long distance crazy women like maillotpois and Fredwina. (I consider myself merely a crazy woman in training).

I can't say I've actually heard of any wholly self-supported organized century rides. There's one in my area called the Mt. Hamilton Challenge (which was held last weekend) where riders are supposed to bring their own food, and place it into bags to be delivered to various rest stops where the riders can get at it, but even so the MHC has those rest stops manned with volunteers, and roving SAG support as well (I think)

[Alex]

It turns out Cycling Utah has on on-line event calendar.

Here it is:

http://www.cyclingutah.com/html/roadtourscalendar.html

The rides are not called brevets on the calendar.

I've been reading the ultra-distance ride reports and I am in awe!

Alex

[jobob]

Well, I checked the info on one of those unsupported rides, (the Color Country Century on May 12) and it's basically a free, 100 mile club ride.

[jobob]

If you'd like to come to the Bay Area in August, registration for the Holstein Hundred opened up today, but it will likely fill up fast. It's a very nice ride in Marin County. There's a thread about it in the California section.

[silver]

I do century rides by myself. So I quess you could call them self supported century rides.

I've done 3 total. There is a course marked out by the local club in my area.

I do it to enhance my training. I do it to push my limits and make me stronger. I do it when I see that the weather is going to be beautiful and I want to be outside all day. I don't have to travel anywhere to do it, no extra time involved.

I rearrange my errands and work and obligations so that I can spend the daylight hours on the road. my route goes through little towns that have little convenience stores so that I can refuel. Mr. is home on the weekends and so I try to keep the weekends open for spending time with him, so I do my long rides during the week.

I've gone out a few times to try to ride a century and just wasn't feeling it. The weather wasn't inspiring or the training didn't feel right, or I got a call that I needed to go do something, so those days maybe I only got 50 or 70 miles, but that's still good training.

My question to you is why NOT do a self-supported century ride. The ones that I've done are some of the best riding days of my life.