Saturday April 19th started out at 4:00 AM. Up out of bed and getting together my cloths and bike for a 5:30 AM pick up by my good friend Chip Camillo. Plenty of Coffee and warm cloths made up the morning routine. Chip talked me into doing the Dairy Roubaix bike ride in Wyalusing. This style of ride is really catching on around here. The ride incorporates paved surfaces and dirt roads or Pave’ much in the same way of the great French classic, Paris Roubaix. It also provides a wide variety of challenges to the rider from bicycle set up to tyres and air pressures.
I chose to use sew-ups or tubular tyres on a road bike set up. Vittoria Pave’ are made for just this surface and you can run them with very little tyre pressures for comfort on the rough surfaces and smoothness on the paved surfaces. I chose to run 80 PSI in mine. Chip road a cyclocross bicycle which is made more for the dirt road surfaces but not as smooth on the paved surfaces.
We got to Wyalusing at 7:00 AM and after driving around the camp ground for 30 minutes we found the place where we were supposed to be. Hot coffee and oatmeal were on tap for breakfast. 55 miles layout in front of us and 250 of my closest friends would make for an epic day in the saddle.
The first two dirt road section provided me a little difficulty. The first one was downhill and a bit sandy and the second had a lot of gravel rocks which made my bike very unstable. Not having wider tyres made my bike wash out in the corners or slide on the marbled surfaces. Chip’s cyclocross bicycle has a huge advantage on the gravel roads and he quickly caught me. One we were together I regained the advantage when we were on the pavement again and going downhill! I was able to close the gap on many riders in front of us because I had much larger gearing.
After the rest stop it was more hills three more to be exact. Long about mile 45 my legs cried that is enough. I eased my pace to a nice tempo and strolled in for the last 10 miles. One huge climb and I was back at the car. Three New Glarus Coffee Stouts topped off the ride. I never want to do it again! Ok a few days later Yea I’ll do it again Next year. I had a lot of fun!
