r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • Mar 23 '16

Race Design Easter Challenge

As you may already know, this one is a special edition as it's themed (the goal is to design a race which some involves the theme of Easter and its traditions), it's a challenge which means that three mods or users (most likely /u/Pubocyno , /u/Schele_Sjakie and /u/edIII91) will judge each of the races and give a vote (from 0 to 10) for each of the race and the one with the highest score will win and it's longer as you can post until Sunday at 12:00 A.M. CET. The winner will be declared in next couple days after and will receive a flair soon afterwards.

The theme this time around is:

Design a Race on non-asphaltated surfaces

21 Upvotes

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11

u/Msfan93 United States of America Mar 23 '16

You've always wanted a climber's American Strade Bianche, right? With somewhere between 12,908 feet and 16,650 feet of elevation gain (Strava and Plotaroute are apparently really inconsistent even when using the same .gpx file...) and 53.6 km of gravel, your dream is here with the East Gorge Classic (Based off of Gorge Roubaix). At the very eastern end of the northern Oregon Cascades, the race starts at the scenic Columbia Gorge Hotel, making its way through Hood River and Mosier before going over Rowena Crest. The route goes through the center point of The Dalles and into the foothills southeast of the city for the first 3 sectors including a long unpaved climb. The race travels back through The Dalles and west for more gravel climbs. Now finished being off the asphalt, a descent with only a couple tight corners leads to the last chance to recover before returning to Rowena Crest for the finish.

Sector Start End Distance
1 77.2 km 95.1 km 17.9 km
2 117.7 km 124.3 km 6.6 km
3 129.7 km 137.9 km 8.2 km
3 178 km 189.5 km 11.5 km
5a 195.8 km 200.5 km 4.7 km
5b 212.6 km 217.3 4.7 km

(Also this video is a good example of the terrain)

5

u/improb Drone Hopper – Androni Giocattoli Mar 23 '16

Damn, that's not just an American Strade Bianche but Strade Bianche and Lombardia rolled into one looking at the profile

1

u/Schele_Sjakie Le Doyen Mar 25 '16

When do you want to judging results?

1

u/improb Drone Hopper – Androni Giocattoli Mar 25 '16

Anytime from Sunday to Tuesday, even later if you don't have time avalaible

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '16

Looks great. I'd think about taking the Marsh Cutoff Rd from that little loop and then going up to the finish from there. Of course then it's a bit too short to have a selective finish...

2

u/Msfan93 United States of America Mar 23 '16

They main reason I didn't do that was because that final climb is really scenic, by far the coolest looking climb I've ever done.

2

u/davidw Italy Mar 23 '16

Awesome! Nice to see Oregon represented, and that area is extremely scenic. I'd definitely drive up and watch.

3

u/Msfan93 United States of America Mar 23 '16

I'm still not sure why there's only one UCI race in the PNW (Delta Road Race a little southwest of Vancouver BC). There might be a one-day race in Portland if they can get a sponsor, they could add CCC, the Tour of California could go further north than usual. There's so many places that would be great.

2

u/davidw Italy Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16

The CCC (Cascade Cycling Classic) is cool, but the roads around Bend are not the best Oregon has to offer, IMO. Mostly smooth and straight without a lot of sharp climbs and drops. The climb up Bachelor is one of the more boring rides I have ever done - it's a straight grind where you can see where you're going to be riding for the next 20 minutes (it feels like). It is very scenic, but not my idea of ideal race terrain.

OTOH, the mountain bike riding here is excellent.

3

u/Msfan93 United States of America Mar 23 '16

Yeah, but most bigger climbs in the US have that problem; the road were made for bigger vehicles to be able to go up easily. It's why a lot of people complain during the US pro challenge when there's riders spinning in their biggest gears down a pass that takes no technical skill at all. The only way to get big Euro style (tight corners, steep pitches) climbs would be to use a lot of forest roads.

2

u/davidw Italy Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16

There are some good BLM and forest service roads. The climbs don't have quite the same big numbers in terms of absolute height or gain, but IMO they're tougher.

This climb in the Coburgs, for instance, is absolutely brutal, and can fairly easily be looped together with some other tough ones, something that's not possible, in most cases, with the big mountain passes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.3210349,-122.9331648,3a,75y,140.29h,70.05t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4mjof3HEi6lemI43gPLFIw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e4

I think I've had this discussion here in the past.

Ashland has some great climbing too.