You do gravel?

maelochs said:

I was going to suggest riding along on the gravel as a private rider making use of public roads, which would allow you to turn back home whenever you wanted ..... but my next thought is, "Why bother?" It sounds like not a fun gravel ride.

Sounds to me like you need to get on the Board of Directors for next year.

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longjohn said:

Our annual Pedal The Lakes September ride has some changes this year. They always offered a 30 ish mile ride, a 65 mile ride, and a century, on these western Pennsylvania hills. This year they are offering a 35 mile ride and a 65 mile ride. They dropped the century and said if you want to do the century, ride the 35 and then the 65. Both these rides have SAG support and rest stops. They added a 75 mile gravel ride with no SAG, they say you should arrange your own SAG if you are a new gravel rider. No rest stops on the gravel ride, they said the ride will take you through two small towns that have a convenience store that you can buy drinks and nutrition.

I think the gravel riders are getting the short end of the stick. They haven’t published the route yet and they won’t publish it until next week and only if you sign up and pay they will email you the route. They will attempt to mark the turns with arrows spray painted on the dirt/gravel but said those arrows won’t last long with four wheelers and other vehicles running over them. They said a GPS with turn by turn is required.

This ride will probably go right past my house and on all the roads I normally ride. They warned people that the difficulty of this ride would be similar to a 125 mile pavement ride. Why they have to make it so difficult is beyond me. We start with the road riders at the marina. When you leave the marina there is a gravel road crosses the paved road less than 100 yards away. If we go to the left it will involve a hill that is probably unridable. I have been down it on my bike one time and after I made the decision to try it I had regrets all the way down, but I made it. I personally can’t even imagine myself or anybody else making it UP that hill.

I so wanted to do an organized gravel ride but with them saying how difficult this ride is, no SAG, no rest stops, and I know most of the roads we will probably ride I think I will just have to do the road rides. They also said you will need to download the directions to your device because many areas won’t have signal.

The only thing I can think of as to why they are making it so hard is people have been asking for a gravel ride and they didn’t want to be bothered. They made it hard so they could say they offered a gravel ride and nobody signed up.

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newleaf150 said:

That's too bad they seem to have half-a$$ed the gravel ride. I'm into the idea of a 75-mi self supported gravel ride as something I plan and choose to undertake. Doing so as part of a big event but with no external support at all just seems like a prescription for a miserable day. I'm sorry it worked out like that this year. I hope that they come up with something better in the future. Seems like a good way to drive one's riders away to other events.

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longjohn said:

I’m still riding some gravel but some of our gravel roads are really bad this time of year. One road they dumped dirt on to fill the potholes. When it rains or snows it’s mud. After a few dry days it is dust. Our township supervisors are clueless about maintaining a gravel road.

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