Tree In The Road Ride: Route Info

 The Tree In The Road Ride, happening on June 28th at 8;30 am from Atlantic, Iowa, will leave from the parking lot behind a Mexican restaurant on the corner of IA HWY 6 and Hickory Street. For more on this ride go back to my last update on June 1st which has links to all the other previous posts on this ride. (LINK)

In this update I will share the route link and talk a bit about parking, what the route will be like from data I've checked, and contingencies for weather related circumstances.

Parking: I do not know how many people will be showing up for this ride. It is not a ride which has any organization, so there is no registration, and YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN ADVENTURE if you show up to ride a bicycle at the same time in the same place as I do. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU. This goes for parking as well. And since I don't know how many cars will show up, and since the ride starts in a restaurants parking lot, I suggest you park in random places on the street or wherever you feel comfortable parking at. Make a bad decision and you may get towed, get a ticket, or maybe worse. I don't know and this is going to be something you have to figure out for yourselves. 

Route: The planned route I am riding is 74 miles or so. Here is a Ride With GPS link for this route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/50514296  There are not going to be cues handed out, so if you prefer to navigate by cues, or have cue sheet back up, then you'll have to make your own. 

Route Details: I've taken some time to delve into some climbing data for this route. Climbs in this area tend to be longer than they are around the rest of the state. I counted 10 climbs of over 100 feet elevation gain. (I know.....mountain climbs measure in much more gain at times.) These ten climbs account for 1,512 feet of gain which is just over half of the ride total given by RWGPS for the entire route. There are four other climbs equaling 300 feet of gain. Most of this is all on the front half of the route since a large chunk of miles coming back is on paved bicycle path. (Approximately 21 miles) 

 

What this means is that if you decide to ride this route you'd better bring your climbing legs and a bike that has a gear to climb in, (or three!). Now, we are stopping for stragglers and we will be making various stops along the way, (see previous updates), so this is by no means a "race", or even a fast paced group ride. N.Y. Roll and I are taking this in as a tour of sorts.

 

Attendance: As of this writing I only know of three other folks coming to try this out besides N.Y. Roll and myself. Judging from past rides I've been a part of like this. I'd expect anything from around six to ten or as high as twenty-five riders. But again, I have absolutely no idea who is showing up beyond a few who have told me already that they plan on showing up. 

 

Weather: Right now this ride looks to occur in typically hot and humid weather. However; in case of inclement weather or if some kind of weather event presents itself during the ride, N.Y. Roll and I will be cutting the route short, or making necessary changes to assure our safety. You probably should have a plan for yourself if you decide to ride this route. 

 

That's probably it for updates on this ride for us. We have a motel room reserved in Atlantic for the evening before the ride. If you happen to be around, and want to meet up, let me know. Otherwise I'll probably not post again on this ride until afterward. I may make a mention in the FN&V about any interesting tidbits related to the ride, if need be.

 

Questions? Comments? Hit me up....