Overall
I am done with my ride and I am recovering today. I slept until about mid-day and my body is still in recovery.
The Good
It was a lovely ride through some of the best the state has to offer. I saw some incredible scenery I have never seen before and met some really nice people. The staff was fantastic and worked hard to make the ride pleasant. We had fun and people were generally very happy.
The Bad
The ride has tried historically to offer something for all levels of riders. Cyclists on the Sierra-to-the-Sea range from bike riding Grandparents (like myself) to hard core, very driven and competitive cyclists. The folks who plan the event have historically tried to make everybody happy, which is simply not possible. The hard core "racer" type riders have historically not been happy and some have complained in the past that the ride is too easy. This year the ride management seemed to want to make the ride more of a challenge, they seemed to me to be more aggressive in route selection.
In my opinion, on the first day they ran into a perfect storm of too much heat, too many climbs and very bad roads that, in (again) my opinion, threatened rider safety and the ability of both riders and support staff to cope with riding conditions on the first day. We were lucky to have gotten through that day without serious injury (again in my opinion.)
The Ugly
Arguing between and amongst event staff and clients was too public to be ignored. There were more incidents of conflict this year than I ever remember.
My rating of this ride
My "new scale" rating [Link] 85.
Technorati Tags: Cycling, sierra-to-the-sea, ACTC, ssloansjca
2 comments:
Hi Steve -
Never done this blog business before, but here goes. I'm an average rider; hills don't bother me; the previous S2S I did was wonderful; but this time was exhausting. I, too, felt that parts of the route were too difficult this year, leaving no time for me to stop and have that short stack and coffee that I'd had (actually, with you and several other riders a couple of years ago in some out of the way spot on a quiet road). A lot of the beautiful scenery was replaced by dry, difficult, lengthy roads. Serendipity was absent. I especially missed that beautiful ride down from Columbia as well as the rather quiet day along the American River Trail. And a wind farm is for the purpose of generating wind..... It would have been nice to have the alternative routes we had before. I really would have enjoyed an hour or two each day to waste time talking with other riders over an ice cream.
I had a good, if challenging time -- especially through the wine country and along the coast. I loved Ink Grade, and I can't thank the sags enough for waiting for me each day. Also, the dinners were great! I didn't run into any staff dissension, but Mike and I had several encounters with other groups of riders who were apparently only socializing within their cliques. Uncomfortable, especially when we were told to find 8 other people and wait to be called for dinner.
So, this is my first blog reply, and now everyone can read about it. Will I do S2S again? You bet. The good far outweighs the bad.
I think Carol's comments were on Sierra-to-the-Sea 2007, my review was based on S2S 2006. I did not do the ride this year and do not know if I ever will again. I spent time visiting friends and family instead.
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