|
RE: Great ride!
|
Daren Williams
|
Sep 14, 2004 09:56 PDT
|
Ken, I assure you that the ground under my tent bore no resemblance to a
hammock in it's softness! But with a sleeping pad it wasn't bad. The
ground is pretty level and not too rocky. Let me know if your conflict
gets resolved and we can plan to meet up in Topeka.
Brian, I'd love to ride with you in Topeka even if you skip the old
school tour (I was just kidding about that, by the way :) I am serious
about the tailgating next year. I'll even plan to take Friday off to get
my smoker to Sedalia and get the brisket started Friday night!
Daren
Brian Hague wrote:
| |
Ken: I thought this year's route was hillier overall, but nothing bad.
Maybe my mileage this year is the difference. The hills on last year's
route were all concentrated between Chilhowee and Leeton, and other than
my
first year, I thought those were pretty tame. The tandem also makes a
difference; on "momentum" hills the initial downhill gets you up to
about
40-45mph, and you coast about half to 2/3 up the subsequent climb before
downshifting at all. Sydney and I didn't use the granny ring at all
last
year or this year. My computer has an altimeter, and to put it in
perspective, our worst hill this year was a 10% grade (the short one
coming
into Strasburg). That first hill after lunch, just entering Knob Noster
SP,
looked nasty from a distance, but it was only 7% (but a long, steady
7%).
For reference, "Lanphear Hill" (about 180th and Mission) is 11.7%, with
no
downhill to give momentum.
Generally, I preferred this year's route - it seemed prettier, and more
varied. But maybe I'm jaded from having ridden the same route three
years
in a row.
Daren: I might be interested in the Topeka ride, although I'd pass on
the
HS tour. It's up in the air right now because Sydney has a soccer
tournament that weekend and I don't know yet when she plays. If I could
start early and be done each day in time to get to her games I'd be up
for
it - but would we have to raise another $200, or can we apply some of
our
excess to the second ride?
As for camping, I'll stick with the Comfort Inn (because I'm waiting for
them to deliver this "room service" you indicated they have :D), but if
you're serious about providing the means to tailgate, I'll try to
arrange
something for next year. Each year they give me a "team car" window
sign so
Tonya can get into the main parking area, so we could bring paper
plates,
plastic ware, etc. Shoot me an e-mail sometime and we can kick it
around.
I definitely plan to make sure we have more team activities next year, a
point I'll cover more in my next post.
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Cobb" <kena-@everestkc.net>
To: <Team-@topica.com>
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 7:49 PM
Subject: RE: Great ride!
| | Daren, the teams who tailgated in Sedalia seemed to have a good thing
going. My only objection to camping is that I have more allergy issues
the closer I get to the ground. The dorms are noisy earlier in the
morning than I wished, and their beds resemble hammocks in their
softness. (That's a problem for people who need firm mattresses.)
Would you all say the new route was similar to the old, in terms of
hills? It seemed to me that they weren't quite as severe, but there
were more of them.
You have me intrigued about doing the Kansas 150, but right now it looks
like I will have a conflict.
Daren Williams wrote:
| |
Another MS150 has come and gone (my fifth!). What a great ride. The
weather was perfect and the route was, well, long!
I rode the whole route on Saturday with fellow Team COR members Chris
Culp and Nancy Miller. But we shared a number of miles with Dave and
Dagney Pullin and, due to our late start, got to see many others along
the way (Kevin and Kelsey, Lyle and Steven, Brian and Sydney, Jason,
Matt, Doug, Tom and many people I didn't recognize except for the
jersey!).
Chris and I camped out in Sedalia and enjoyed a beautiful evening. Ken,
I must say that I prefer camping under the stars any day to sleeping in
a dorm :) Next year I'd love to get a lot more campers out there and
compete in the tailgate contest. We'll call it Camp Hard C*O*R! Maybe we
can even get some green Army surplus tents, cots, etc.
So here's the deal: I'll supply the smoker, barbecue and fixins if
others will forego the luxury of a hot bath, soft bed and room service
of the local hotels and rough it with us in the Field of Teams. Forget
the hassle of booking rooms a year out, swapping, canceling, etc. You'll
appreciate the comfort of your own bed and bath even more when you get
home on Sunday!
Finally, I'm already missing the build up and excitement of the event so
much I've decided to ride again in two weeks in the Eastern Kansas MS150
in Topeka. It's a "Figure 8" route this year -- 75 miles each day,
beginning, overnighting and ending at the same location (my former
Junior High, now Washburn Rural Middle School). There's a century option
the first day for the real Hard COR riders!
I'd love to have some company, so let me know if you are interested.
I'll even throw in a free tour of my old school -- my old locker (if I
can remember where it was), the auditorium (where I got my first
kiss...backstage!), the principal's office (of course, I was never sent
there, but I remember the general vicinity) and much, much more!
Daren
Daren Williams
will-@fleishman.com
|
Ken Cobb
|
|
Daren Williams
will-@fleishman.com
|
|
 |
|
