@eloy I’m 90% sure I am doing the Highlands Gran Fondo. If you promise cookies or muffins I should have room in my car.

RobertPeras said:

@eloy I’m 90% sure I am doing the Highlands Gran Fondo. If you promise cookies or muffins I should have room in my car.

Sweet. Jessica's birthday is that Friday, so whatever plans are made for that will take priority, but so far, looks like I could swing a long Sunday. Will let you know. Where you considering the 100 miles?

100 miles of course. I never sell myself short.

I did the Highlands Fondo last year. The course is cool and the timed sections are super challenging. It wasn’t very well managed though. The fast group of guys I was with had to do a lot of route finding and we made a bunch of wrong turns even with the GPS track on the Garmin. I still recommend it, but I probably won’t do it again. 

Good times at Farmer's Daughter Gravel Grinder!

This was an awesome day out.

Phil, Mark, Thierry, Jason, and myself, headed out for what was an amazing hard sweet ride. Solid NYC representation with ton of 5th Floor and TBD frends.

Started the ride a little hot with my friend, framemaker Doug Breismeister, but he flatted early, Jason caught up, then I rode most of the day with Jason, who is clearly really good and solid at this type of stuff.

With better pacing and slightly lower gear, I had a great ride (38 front 12-30 back, still too big, but good enough to survive)

Just a few of the highlights:

• Riding with Jason
• A few minutes of summer rain
• Gorgs weather, probably first 2019 short sleeves day
• Ice cream feed zone
• Riding and chatting for 4 or so miles with Curtis White and Cassie Maximenko (!!!!)
  

Big kudos to Mark and Thierry who looked sharp out there today!

Let's go ride bikes!

Probably the hardest day on a bike i've had , but two years ago i bailed after the second rest stop,so was determined to complete this year.
Great riding the Thierry, definitely help each other through the tuff spots, I think he is clear now about my feeling for some of those hills.
Great to see a good kissena turn out , 
Amazing rest stops , super friendly volunteers,& fantastic weather 

This ride looks so sweet. Might have to make a road trip out in 2020

Great day out yesterday. This was by far my hardest effort this year. Glad that @eloy pushed me to do the single track section this year. That may have been my favorite section of the ride (despite my cramping issues). 

The weather ended being perfect. The beer and food at the end was very welcome! Looking forward to more of these gravel rides. 

Next up, this saturday, The Fools Classic:

Here's a Pez write up about it
https://www.pezcyclingnews.com/features/no-fools-at-the-fools-classic-gravel-gran-fondo/?

Here's where you register
https://www.bikereg.com/41344?rc=5HUQRNJH

I am planning on being there, but was out all of yesterday for FDGG, so need to make sure with both home and work that it is ok to be away again.

@eloy , I also signed up , not realizing that it was memorial day weekend ,I'm probably heading out east for the weekend so will have to skip
i'll confirm later in the week

I had such a great day yesterday, so much so that I can hardly walk at the moment. It was a blast going through the single track muddy section during the first quarter of the course, however the gravel sections later on were increasingly difficult by the steepness of those goddamn hills. Watching Mark losing his shit over these conditions was entertaining to say the least.
Doing this event with my Kissena pals after all the shit I endured last year was nirvana to me and God willing, I'll do it next year.

I am in for the Fools Classic this weekend. Have a zip car in reserve in case Mark can't make it, could potentially take another rider.

Registration is closed, but there's room for day of reg.

Reports are of plenty of dirt roads, but road bicycle friendly.

Here's the route:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/29173167

What kind of bikes are people riding for these events? I know at a high level depends on the % of road vs dirt, surface type, rider skill, etc, but I’m curious about what bikes and setup you guys have and what you like/dislike about your setup. 

I want to do one of these events soon, would a Synapse disc on 32mm tires not be a fun day?

I guess it will depend on the course itself. More off road single track type and you should probably ride wider tires. If mostly gravel, i'm sure you'll be fine with 32mm but preferably on a wider set of rims. I did the Farmer's Daughter on a Giant TCX with Challenge Fango 33mm tires with latex tubes. They were sufficient for the course including the muddy trail sections. 

It 100% depends on the route and what your goal is.

Gnarly dirt roads and single tracks, are, well, gnarly.

Farmer's Daughter is straight up a gravel route, like Phil, I rode my cyclocross bike, a Van Dessel, with 33 Donelly PDX tires. and 1x 38 x 12-30 gears -- which were a bit high. There were plenty of people with wider tires (40ish) and lower gears.

For the Fool's Classic, just like last year's Neversink, I'll ride my road bike, a Giant TCR with 28 Vittorias and 52/34 x 11-30 gears.

For a farmer's daughter type course a Synapse could work, there was deep mud on some sections, so you would want knobby tires which are probably hard to find on 32, and super easy to find on 33.

I've rode fools classic twice both on 28mm tires , there a couple of really steep climbs , i had a 34 crank -28 cassette , wished for a 30 or 32 cassette ,but lots of folks ride gravel bikes to

spent some time Saturday riding around Pensilvania at the Fool’s Classic. Simple, well put together, solid rest stops...

road bike was fine, but there was way more descending on hardcore dirt/gravel than I expected, next time might bring the cross bike. Good day out. Very fun times.

Gorgeous photos Eloy

Took a nice gravel jaunt in north-western Mass and into Vermont. 

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ef-education-first-ready-to-race-off-the-beaten-path-at-dirty-kanza/

This is awesome , but I can’t help thinking that Trek are really missing out on press for Pete Stetina’s win at the Belgium waffle ride
btw
Ted King must be pissed 

Mark Taylor said:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ef-education-first-ready-to-race-off-the-beaten-path-at-dirty-kanza/

This is awesome , but I can’t help thinking that Trek are really missing out on press for Pete Stetina’s win at the Belgium waffle ride
btw
Ted King must be pissed 

Aren't they all buddies with Ted King? I think King welcomes the chance to ride away with a strong group, altho, he too would agree that one of the EF crew is likely to cross the line first.

Here's King's BWR video... he seems to ride a synapse here, he was on a cyclocross bike on other less roadie races...

https://youtu.be/3gebox-sdQ0

Yeah , i was kind of joking , but i did get a little sense at the end of that video , that he was a little bummed to lose the race

Shipping confirmed on the Broken Arrow - going to build it up this weekend! Hoping I didn't miss any random part in my inventory...

I'm thinking about doing this next Saturday or Sunday, June 8th /9th ,
it's about 70 miles from Brooklyn ,
Beer at peekskill brewery before taking a train back into the city

https://www.traillink.com/trail/old-croton-aqueduct-trail/

Forgot the link !

@Mark Taylor I'm interested and can join you on Sat, also provided my face has healed enough.

I could also do the OCA on Saturday 6/8.

If you guys happen to go on Sunday 6/9, I'm in.

I’m flexible, just nice to have company