Mark Thomas Pre-Rides CHC'21

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Just finished pre-riding the CHC1200 with several of the locals. Thought I’d offer up a few observations and some unsolicited advice on a few topics.

Ride timing: 

The ride has a short first day - only about 300 kilometers. This throws out a lot of the usual thinking about timing, in particular about when to get going each morning. I believe that the ride organizers are going to make all the controls untimed. This would be good, because the official closing times at Walden would normally be 1:16am, 11:48pm, and 4:35am. 

If you tried to leave by the closing times, you would do a lot of unnecessary riding in the dark. You might also have super-long distances to cover until you could get supplies. For example, if you leave too early on Day 2, you may reach Saratoga WY with nothing open. That would put your first available services (Centennial WY) at 185 kilometers over the highest point of the ride. Don’t do it.

My recommendation is to take advantage of the short first day to get some extra sleep. On the pre-ride, we left at 5am for Days 2 and 3 and 6am for Day 4. We still finished comfortably with 5 hours to spare, with overnight stops of 9.3 hours, 6.6 hours, and 6.4 hours.  Knowing what I know now, I would have opted for 4am, 4am, and 6am, adding an hour of morning dark riding and losing an hour of nighttime dark riding on Days 2 and 3.

In case this info is useful to your calculations, note that my on-bike time at CHC was 52:54 vs 57:40 at PBP2019. But for the altitude, I think CHC (which I’ve now done twice) is easier than PBP.

Altitude:

I think that the altitude of the ride is definitely a factor for us lowlanders. What I experienced was a feeling that I needed to shift down by a gear or two compared to what I would expect to ride on the same grade at home. Luckily for me, the climbing is not steep and therefore I had gears to spare. The pass climbs are remarkably gentle by WA standards, but they sure are long.

My plans included no time to acclimatize. I arrived in CO the day before the ride. By the time I reached Cameron Pass on Day 1, I was 10,000ft higher than where I had woken up less than 36 hours before. 

It was suggested to me that I could ameliorate the effects of altitude by making sure I was well hydrated. (“Pound the Gatorade” for 2 days prior to the start, I was told.) Between Gatorade and water bottles with electrolyte tablets over those two days, I was super-hydrated. (I used Endurolyte Fizz, but imagine that the Nuun ones or the GU ones would be fine.) I don’t know if there’s science behind this, but I’m not going to argue with success. I kept it up through the ride with a couple of electrolyted water bottles each night/morning at Walden and a fair amount of Gatorade at stops).

Weather:

I think it should be emphasized that you should be prepared for anything from wet, cold hypothermic descents to blistering hot, unshaded stretches. I think we were pretty lucky, actually. The most uncomfortably cold section was a descent from Cameron Pass on Day 1 in a steady rain. It was maybe 50F or high 40s. The other significant rain was between Steamboat Springs and Gore Pass on Day 3, but it wasn’t cold. Pre-dawn temperatures on Days 3 and 4 were mid- to low 40s, but warmed up pretty quickly with the sun. I never used my raincoat, but my tolerance for wet cold is higher than most. Two short-sleeve layers (one wool), a vest, and arm warmers got me by.

Our daytime highs were maybe mid-80s at most, but two weeks earlier, there were 100F temps in CO. I was pretty concerned about the possibility of heat issues, but they didn’t materialize on pre-ride. For me, it was unzipped jersey, no base-layer weather. But be prepared.

Supplies:

Without really high temperatures on the pre-ride, we were fine for services. We arrived Walden the first night in time to order burgers at the restaurant (last orders taken at 8:00p), but mostly we cached food via our drop bag support. (In my case, an awful lot of Ensure, but it got me by). Unless I’m mistaken you will have night/morning food at Walden all three nights.

Key spots. On Day 1 - Ted’s at base of Poudre Canyon and Rustic store halfway up. Plan on nothing after Rustic until you get to Walden. On Day 2, there is a whole lot of nothing between Saratoga and Centennial. Food is available in Laramie, but you have to take a left at control towards the interstate instead of following route to right. We went to a Subway, but there are lots of other options too. Plan to get from Laramie to Walden with nothing.  On Day 3, we stopped in Steamboat, Yampa, Kremmling, and Hot Sulfur Springs. (Note that the route does not actually go to Granby, so there is nothing after Hot Sulphur Springs.) This was just enough. Day 4 was not stressful for services availability and a nice sit-down breakfast in Rustic after Cameron Pass climb set us up nicely for rest of the day. Apparently the tailwinds that we enjoyed from Fort Collins back are not normal, so it may be a tougher slog, but there are lots of services over the last stretch.

I carried 3 water bottles, but they were insulated ones, so I only had 64oz capacity. With no bad heat, it was enough, but there were one or two stretches where I used nearly all of it. I carried lots of bike food.

Traffic / construction / roads:

Riding on Friday and Saturday of the 4th of July weekend garnered us some extra recreational traffic. It should be a little better during the week. The worst stretch for me was the section of US40 on the way to Kremmling after coming off of Gore Pass. No paved shoulder, highway traffic, ugh.

Road construction at the base of Poudre Canyon will require you to wait for a pilot car, but the wait wasn’t too long. You will probably encounter it in both directions, but we retuned on a non-work day, so only one way for us. Construction is scheduled to start at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass (Day 3) before the main ride. Not sure what the effect will be. A bit of construction between Willow Creek Pass and Walden on day 3 was only a traffic light and a narrow bridge - not really an issue at all.

By and large the pavement conditions are good, but there are some significant stretches with cracks all the way across the road at annoying frequency. You won’t regret having the biggest tires you can mount.

Other:

Watch out for wildlife. It’s really fun to spot a moose and maybe get a picture. It would not be fun to hit one. (Another reason to limit night riding.)

Sunscreen - you’re up high, after all.

Don’t forget to pack your jerseys. It’s harder to ride without pockets. Don’t ask why I know.

Any questions, holler. Have fun. It’s a beautiful ride. Scenic high points are Poudre Canyon and the Snowy Range. Lots of pretty elsewhere too, but the fire and beetle devastation can be a bit heartbreaking.

Mark