Snowy Monk: Hard COEre 100 - the metric version...

Friday, November 1, 2013

Hard COEre 100 - the metric version...

I had been seeing my buddy Bruce log some ridiculous rides on Strava recently on his mountain bike... so I asked if I could tag along. Thankfully he had a ride in mind and we made it happen the other day. We chose to do the metric century ride in Henry Coe.... a park I'd never visited and a distance I had equaled ridden in my mountain bike. More course info here. http://www.hardcoere100.com/

So we found a date that worked for the both of us and after leaving the house at 4:30 am, I made it to the start a bit after 6 am. If I didn't miss that wrong turn right after seeing a fox, I would've been there with 10 min to spare.

Bruce also brought along his friend Ted, who leads antarctic expeditions and put South Georgia Island on my tick list of places to see before I die. A very strong cyclist, he showed up with a brand new Niner running 1x11 gearing, which was pretty cool. His bike started making noise halfway through the ride, and it was quite lucky that he made it through to the end as it died very soon after.

Henry Coe is a fantastic park for long mountain bike rides. It's very dry, with tons of rolling hills and it's HUGE. As you can see in the course map for the full century, the route is a big loop with no overlap. Pretty amazing. It's a really fun park for riding as you don't see anyone the whole day and you feel like you are really far out there. And you kind of are... I wouldn't really recommend backpacking or hiking here, as it's beautiful... but not that beautiful... go to the Sierra... the extra drive time is worth it.

Next year I'd like to do the full century on a 29er single speed on the actual day of the ride.