Beverley Heroic 2017

[hiflange]

Oct 15th - Who's going? What will you be riding? Should I go fixed wheel this year or am I kidding myself??
If this rain keeps up we should have some nice hard packed roads to look forward to.

[wexford]

I'm aiming to do it with a few mates, although I've got Cape to Cape starting four days later and I'm worried about recovering in time!

I've never done it before and am wondering whether road racer or CX would be the way to go, given my understanding of the road surface. It'll be about finishing it without too much discomfort and in a reasonable time, rather than going particularly fast.

[hiflange]

CX I reckon, the fatter the tyres the better. Most of the gravel is actually pretty good if it's been wet, it packs down hard and is smoother than the sealed sections. If dry the gravel sections are loose, it's very slow going on a roadie. Pushing through the gravel is slow and hard, staying upright equally so. If it's really wet it can get mushy. The sealed sections are coarse seal, again fatter tyres roll over it easier.

[wicksey]

Same boat, will be doing it on the CX bike and only the 50 miler with the C2C looming.

[wexford]

Looks like I'll go with CX bike, and maybe the shorter version this time around!

[wicksey]

Was going to register, but to be honest $81 for a 80km unsupported ride feels like it's taking the piss. Might head out and do the loop the weekend before, and do the loop from York (The York so-and-so.)

[hiflange]

Registrations for the Heroic rides on Sunday close midnight tonight.

The long range forecast looks great; there's the possibility of a little rain during the week and on Saturday, hopefully enough to dampen the gravel sections a bit, Sunday is partly cloudy and 19° just perfect.
I'm still hopeful I can have my 1947 5 Star ready.

[hiflange]

Such a great day out there today; beautiful weather, good company on the road. I did the 50 miler on the bike above which performed flawlessly. Hand on heart, I enjoyed this ride more on a 70 year old fixie than I did on any of the other bikes I've done it on ('52 5 speed, '55 10 speed and an early '40's frame with '80's groupset). A few other forumites were out there today. dv told me that he an I were one of the "8".. an elite group of riders who have been in every Beverly Heroic to date.
Anyway here's a pic of the 100 milers leaving town at 6:30 this morning. The day started with smoky fog courtesy of DEC prescribed torching of state forest to the west. Very light winds and a bit warm and sticky at times, still a welcome contrast to the howling northwester we endured last year. 130 riders makes it a break even for the event organiser apparently. Well it's the most fun I've had in a while, I really don't think it would be the same riding it solo. I don't know what the break up is but I'd guess that there were 40 people doing the 100 mile and 90 doing the 50.
Anyway, here's a pic. I woke up early after dreaming of missing a checkpoint, wandered down to the 6:30am start for the 100 milers; this is they rounding the first corner..

[billy70]

I competed in the Road Race on Saturday and found it an exceptionally well organized event. Massive kudos to SPR and all of the volunteers for making it so successful.

Congratulations to those who placed and everyone who played.

[wexford]

Coming in a bit late (haven't checked the forum for a while). I did the 50 miler too, with three other friends. We had an incident coming into York when one of the guys touched wheels with the bike in front as we were switching to single file and went down. I was riding my CX bike (anticipating the gravel to be a lot worse than what it was!) and managed to bunny hop him before going off the side and somehow keeping it upright in the gravel on the shoulder. He was grazed and sore but otherwise ok.

I loved the knobby CX tyres in the gravel but regretted it horribly for the remaining ~45 miles, and spent the rest of the ride wheelsucking my mate.

Lovely day out and lots of good vibes in the group.