Haute Route coming to US in 2018, Asheville, worth a kidney?

burnthesheep

Is this worth giving up a kidney for?

It is coming to the US, within a 3 hour drive of my house. It's a very pretty area and probably the most challenging without a plane flight for this part of the US.

The main charity of the pro team our company sponsors is a leading sponsor or charity for the event. I'm trying to work an angle with our company's outreach group to see if they would sponsor a work team.

If they don't offer any help for organizing a team and maybe splitting a little bit of cost.........how much worth it is this?

I've seen the GCN show video of the guy doing it, and it looks like a multi-day Ironman level of event. I say that to mean top notch organization and planning for the experience. Ironman is expensive for a reason. And I assume this is as well.

Opinions?

sancho_panza

Yes, they're an excellent operation and I am sure that they've considered this recent expansion and can roll it out smoothly - which means the new Asheville event will be every bit as well organised as the others.

But is it worth the cash? Well, the three-day events seem good in that they're a single location but in terms of value they are actually 2 and a half days as the final day is a TT. That's nit-picking though and if you compare the whole thing to the Ironman set-up then it's a similar cost but much more involved.

Is the riding around Asheville "worth a journey" as the Michelin Guide would say?

I'd say go for it, but not before you've considered one of the European 7-day events

term1te

I've just returned from the HR Ventoux. A 2.5 day event based out of Bedoin. Generally very well organised, almost too slick in places as I ended up feeling like a box at an Amazon distribution center some of the time. If I were to do it again, I'd go with some friends, or a team. Going on my own I might as well have undertaken two sportives and timed my self on Strava for the TT, for all the interaction there was with the overall event. But then I'm a miserable old git. That said, the food, etc., was good, the route well marked and marshaled. Stunning scenery, even if the wind was too strong on two days to get to the top of Ventoux. The staff were very friendly and generally helpful. So if you've got a spare kidney, and your more sociable than me, go for it.

There was a large spread of standards, even within a give age range, with a couple of teams taking it very seriously, and others just hoping to finish. I'd definitely go back to Bedoin though, which will please the local mayor, who seemed to take over every presentation where a microphone was involved.