Wilderness 101
Mountainbike Groupride on the 101 race route
July 2nd, 2000

Reported by Steve Thorne
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Yesterday, at roughly hour 6 in the saddle, I had an epiphany--human beings who ride bikes off-road are mere dust filtration units.

"The Wilderness 101" is a slight modification of what was an ultra mountain bike race some years ago (and which might be coming back as soon as next year). This ride presents a wildly scenic tour of the Appalachians of central Pennsylvania. After the first 15 or so rolling miles, the course becomes rather precipitous. A few statistics from yesterday's version of the Wilderness 101:

• Total distance: 107 miles (they added a few miles over the original 101)
• Total climbing: ~9, 000 feet
• Saddle time: ~8:30 hours

The ups and downs: We suffered 2 tough ascents on rocky jeep tracks and 1 "technical" (for me) ascent that was short (a mile) but very steep, rocky, and loose. The remaining major climbs were on graveled fire roads. Fresh gravel, btw, is washy and can be tough going up or down, but many sections hadn't been maintained for years and were hard packed and fast. A few descents were technical due to them being single track or over very rocky terrain, but most were on wide fire trails and hey, descending is always a pleasure after so much climbing. And btw, there was a hike-a-bike at mile 94 to end all hike-a-bikes, a wall sheer enough to make technical climbers happy.

As I've indicated, for a mountain bike event this caters to roadies as much of the distance goes over gravel fire roads. On the flats and faux flats we were mashing big gears and flying. Needless to say it was tons of fun to rip and get into impromptu sprints after plodding up interminable climbs.

Unique aspects of the route included two rides through rails-to-trails railroad tunnels and a long and narrow single track descent through mountain laurel growing up to hub height around the trail.

Cecilia managed the first 40 miles admirably (which included 2 of the tougher climbs) and then showed the good sense that I lack and opted to sag out.

A few more stats:

• Mechanicals: 4 flats (one, mine, was a side-wall gash requiring a new front tire that someone had fortuitously stashed in the sag wagon); 1 broken rear derailleur cable (someone had brought along a spare!)

And for the curious, my consumables included:

• Plain ol' H20: 350 ounces
• Water bottles of cyto (in addition to H20): 8
• Times I ran out of water en-route: 2
• Power bars: 2
• Balance bars: 3
• Cliff bars: 1
• Sandwiches: 1 (turkey & cheese)
• GUs: 6