Moving Up the Leaderboard...By Accident

At this stage in the Le Tour Challenge, I fully expected to continue my slow slide down the leaderboard, but I was buoyed by the news that as of this morning I'm now ranked 15th overall out of over 1600 participants, and 2nd in my age category. Woo hoo! I'm delighted to be the Alberto Contador to Jeff K's Andy Schleck. This all came about as a result of an error in calculating yesterday's route, combined with a last-minute decision to climb the nasty Yellow Barn Road.

Yellow Barn never seems to get any easier, no matter how many times I take it on. It's a very deceiving climb, since it takes you on a number of turns in which the road ahead is shielded from view by the Yellow Barn Forest. My trusty Garmin tells me the real truth, as I watch the altitude and curse my way up to 1800 ft. Then I think about the climbs that those poor souls in France are experiencing, and it's all put back into perspective. The truth is that like most crazed cyclists, I really do love the struggle, and the there are few purer, more simpler pleasures than cresting the last part of the hill and switching back into the big chainring for the rewarding descent.

As you can see by this screenshot, Yellow Barn is over 700 ft. of climbing stretched over two miles, with sections of 12-16% grade. I sometimes wish there were more rural climbs in our area that were much longer at a consistent 6-8% grade but not quite as steep, but you have to take what you get. I'm hardly complaining though, since I believe that we have some of the greatest cycling roads in the northeast.

I'm working at Ithaca College all week, so I've been looking for fun roundabout ways of getting there. For yesterdays mini-epic ride, I totally miscalculated how many miles it would take to add on the Brooktondale-Willseyville-Danby-IC portion of the ride, and my total was just under 50 miles. The good news was that the mysterious MapMyRide/Le Tour Challenge software liked my combination of distance, average speed, vertical ascent and climb categories.  Interestingly, the software automatically assesses and categorizes the biggest climbs, calling the initial Remington/Oakcrest climb Cat 4 and Yellow Barn a Cat 3. I'm guessing that Connecticut Hill might be a Cat 2, but I'm not trying that one anytime soon.

Today I took Ringwood Rd. from the Ellis Hollow side, and I just can't get enough of that buttery smooth new asphalt. There was a light mist for the bulk of the ride, which was just a perfect treat and antidote to the humidity.

Le Tour Challenge, Stage 9 (7/13)

Le Tour Challenge, Stage 10 (7/14)