DROVES - Day 1

A few friends joined us in East Burke over Memorial Day weekend for the 2012 version of DROVES - Dirt Roads of Vermont Epic Sojourn. As noted in the previous blog entry, DROVES is an informal gathering of friends who like exploring Vermont's dirt roads. The crowd this year included several past participants, Jake Kassen, Emily O'Brien, Dominique Codere, Cristine Lamoureux, David Lafferty, Emily Searles Lafferty, David Wilcox, Ted Lapinski, and first-timers Matt Roy and Mo Bruno-Roy. Brian and Andreas joined us for half the day on Sunday.

Some folks stayed at the Village Inn, while the rest of the gang stayed at the Bike Barn. We met each morning in front of the general store for our rides.

The gang on Day 1

DROVES - Dirt Roads of Vermont Epic Sojourn

Updated for 2013 -

For the past several years, John and I have spent Memorial Day weekend climbing and descending some of the finest dirt roads Vermont has to offer. Over the years, friends have found links to our routes, guessed our starting times, and ridden the same roads at the same time. We love riding with other dirt-road loving folks.

We will be staying in East Burke, and starting rides at 8AM in front of the General Store. We usually ride as a social group and regroup at the top and bottom of the big climbs.

Misguided Angels - Flèche

Warning: It was a long ride. This is a long post! But it is mostly photos...

Last month I blogged that my favorite randonneuring event is the Flèche Vélocio. This past weekend, The Misguided Angels had an awesome flèche ride. The team this year included members from several previous teams. Dena and I have now done 4 flèche rides together. Norm and David had each been on one flèche (with me) prior to this one. This meant that everyone was quite familiar with the drill. Although it would be a first meeting for Norm and David, which means they would have plenty to talk about over the 24 hours!

This route had some striking differences from my previous routes. First, it had some complicated travel and logistics. It was much more urban, and it was much flatter than any previous route.

So many rides, so little time to blog!

When I started this blog a few months back, I wondered if I would find enough interesting things to write about in the winter to keep a blog going. Well I managed to come up with enough to write about for a few months and had enough time to keep it pretty current. But ironically, as the riding season has kicked into full gear, I am finding that there just aren't enough hours in the day to blog about all the rides!

Regular readers know I kept myself busy with some climbing in March and April. 

Here's some of the other stuff I've been up to.

Just after we returned from our all too brief vacation in California, we had the Ride Studio Cafe Brevet Season kickoff party and 100km ride.  Despite a dire forecast, we had a big crowd on the ride out to Lost Lake. Rob and Patria even took time away from the Studio to join us for the ride!

Gargantuan Bragging Rights

Just back from massage, where Morgan had to spend considerable time working on my shoulder that I likely strained while patting myself on the back!!!

This email arrived in my inbox a few days ago...

Thank you for participating! Congratulations on your Specialized Challenge effort - and what a challenge it was! Specialized and Strava tasked you to put in 47 days of relentless climbing and suffering and that you did. Nearly 11,000 global participants climbed close to 420 million feet of elevation in just six weeks. What amazing results! Without a doubt the most difficult challenge yet, just over 700 riders completed the goal. An extra round of applause goes out to these die-hard riders. A Classic Climbing Challenge from Specialized highlighted a few extraordinary riders who are, apparently, born to climb. In the end, Brian Toone of Hoover, Alabama and Jeremy Philippe of Grenoble, France pushed one another near the 500,000 feet of elevation mark, blowing away the challenge goal in only a few weeks. Ultimately, Toone took top honors, climbing 468,661 feet in 96 rides for an average of 4,881 feet per ride. Not to be outdone, top female riders kept the competition strong as Pamela Blalock of Watertown, Massachusetts and Virginia Vaquero Casey of Morgan Hill, California traded off the lead on their way to over 200,000 feet of vertical ascent throughout the challenge. In the end, the two finished just 4,516 feet apart with Casey inching ahead. She climbed a total of 216, 206 feet over just 34 rides for an astounding average of 6,359 feet per ride. Congratulations again to all the competitors around the world who made this challenge so fun, motivational and truly extraordinary! Keep it up, Strava and Specialized