Charity/Fun Ride Route - Advice Pls!

meanredspider

Need some thoughts as your perception gets a bit distorted by experience.

Trying to set up a "short" route for a charity/fun bike ride. The route is meant to present a bit of a challenge to less experienced riders but not be too daunting. We're a little bit stuck by tthe terrain around where we want to cycle as it's partly in memory of a colleague and this area is where he lived and where he's buried. The difficult choice is whether to make it 37 miles and avoid the hill or 26 with the hill. The 26-mile route is here

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/95624572

as I rode it this morning. I haven't ridden much in June so my "hill legs" were a bit absent.

What do you think? Is it reasonable or too much for your average "got a bike in the shed" type? I really don't know.

suzyb

I think the big hill in the middle could be offputting to people who don't ride regularily. Although route maps don't really give a good idea of actual steepness etc.

Cleat Eastwood

our local pct used to run a similar thing, it was for, like you say bike in the shed types, that route was 30 miles with a mild 'hill'. I think the reason it was popular was two fold.

1. The 30 mile was a round figure that seemed a challenge for your average commuter.

2. The presence of the 'hill' means that those who had to walk (it was only 4-5%) it had reason to comeback next year and measure their improvement.

Is there anyway to add 4 miles and include the hill.

Oh and the ride used a local CC as a halfway point, so toilets etc were available.

There was also a ride that was 26 miles (marathon distance) again for hospital awareness around delamere forest. That was quite popular. I think the key thing is to give the average family cyclist the opportuniy to stretch themselves and maybe take along family, kids and friends.

It seems a great idea, and hope it goes well for you.

ollyridesfirst

Looks alright for the general leisure cyclist....hill comes after 10 miles so you're nice and warmed up.....and if it's a charity/fun ride then most will have mountain bikes with tripple cranks anyway.

They then have a nice descent after it and also another descent to finish

meanredspider

suzyb wrote:

I think the big hill in the middle could be offputting to people who don't ride regularily. Although route maps don't really give a good idea of actual steepness etc.

If it helps (and it probably doesn't) MapMyRide categorizes the hill as Cat5. It's the highest point just near me (called Mt Eagle) and has the TV mast on it.

meanredspider

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

Is there anyway to add 4 miles and include the hill.

Oh and the ride used a local CC as a halfway point, so toilets etc were available.

There was also a ride that was 26 miles (marathon distance) .

Yup - easy to add miles though we're under some pressure to cut the distance to 20 miles. There are some toilets at the bottom of the hill at Culbokie playing field I think.

I actually quite like the idea of it being marathon distance (now you mention it) - encourage people to ride the distance that others run (albeit without a big hill in the middle)