Final Logistics... and stickers!!

Final logistics here. First, some more motivational vacation video, this time from Hood River:



OK, the OO2012 is upon us! We have a great group, the route's clear* and the forecast looks good. Really, how could the OO2012 be any better? I'll tell you how- if we had finisher-stickers! And now, thanks to Colin F.**, we do!



Seriously, how cool is that?

*Speaking of the route, the upper Mill Creek gate opens Sunday, July 1 @7AM. Meaning, it'll still be closed when we descend into Upper Mill Creek on Saturday.
**Who will miss the ride, being in Oregon, but whom I consider an honorary OO2012 participant in light of his help in making the stickers happen.

Remember, if you're doing the whole thing, you need to be at my place @5:45AM for a 6:00AM start. If you're coming to the hootenanny and haven't done so already, reply and tell us what you're bringing.

Sue will meet us at Pinebrook Park around mile 30 (9:30 - 10:00AMish) and she's happy to bring or take away any personal items (special food/drink, jacket, picture of your kids, whatever.) She'll also have water, gatorade, Rockstars, Paydays and avocado sandwiches, as well as tools and a couple extra tubes.

If you're joining us at Pinebrook, Sue can take 3 bikes & riders. But you need to be at our place when she leaves and you have to get your bike on/off the rack (She doesn't do racks.) Ping Sue in the AM if you want a lift @801-518-3693 or sobbard@comcast.net.

Here's who I have down for the ride. Do me a favor and tell me now if you're flaking.

Starting from my house, doing the whole ride. We roll at 6:00, so be pulling up @5:45.

Mark A.
Jon S.
Tom B.
Tom M.
Tom D.
Ashley P.
Paul D.
Cory P.
Vicente P.
Joe W.
Alex O.

Meeting us in Pinebrook. Our ETA in Pinebrook is roughly 9:30 - 10:00, depending on speed and the route we end up taking. I'll text Sue and Chris C. from Big Mtn with an ETA.

Chris C.
Steve B.
Kris N.
Mark N.
Nate G.

Meeting us @mouth of Mill Creek:

Jim M.

Meeting us at some mysterious TBD point in the ride and possibly riding with us:

Jill B.

Looking forward to a great day. See you Saturday morning!

Updates & Reminders

I'm still on vacation (in Portland right now) but wanted to get out a couple of updates and reminders for the OO next Saturday. First, vacation is going great:



We have couple of new participants- Joe W. and Thorn…. (Thorn what is your last name, anyway? Yes, I've known you for like 4 or 5 years and yes this is embarrassing…)

But sadly, we may have a few would-be participants who may not be able to join and/or fully participate. In the Good-Excuse-But-Kind-Of-Spaceshot category, we have Aaron S., who realized that the 30th is his son's birthday. But Daren C. and Rick S. may have to cancel or reduce their participation for an entirely different reason, which brings me to my first reminder:

1) Don't crash before the OO. Darren cracked/bruised a couple ribs in Corner Canyon and Rick likely received a concussion (he Actually. Blacked. Out.) on a ride last week with the Wasatch Mountain Club. That's slightly better than a 10% casualty rate, and the OO hasn't even happened. So, as you ride this week, keep the rubber side down. Not like my cousin Phil (not to be confused with my brother Phil) with whom I rode last week in Berkeley:



Ouch.

2) Right now is a good time to do any last minute maintenance- not Friday night. Anything you want to do before the OO- new chain, replace fraying cable, etc.- do it early this week. Make sure there's still liquid sealant in your tires, and that your tubeless stem lock-rings are only finger-tight. Sandbagging is another activity that is best done before the big day.

3) Respond to the hootenanny post and tell me what you're bringing. Let's not have 15 bags of chips*…

*Unless they are Crunchy Cheetos.

Stay tuned for final updates later this week after I get home, including an Awesome Sticker Update. I'll also be posting a final participant list. (Which, BTW, would be a good time to tell me you're flaking, if you know, you're the flaky type…)

-Alex

Preparing for Sandbagging

The OO2012 will be a long ride. On long rides, it's important to be efficient about time, and so I've been thinking about how we can make the best use of ours on June 30th.

One of the big time-sinks I've noticed on large group rides is the time spent early-on sand-bagging. One-by-one the members of the group take turns explaining why their upcoming performance on the ride will be far below their normal, expected, elite/pro-level athlete level. So, in advance of the ride, I thought we could all get ahead of the curve just a bit and do our sand-bagging here. Just post a comment to this post, explaining now why you'll be at a terrible disadvantage and riding way slower than your normal super-fit self, and then we can all just not bother to read it here rather than tuning you out in person and saying "uh-huh… uh-huh…" on the 30th. Sound good?

Of course, I recognize that all of us* have very busy lives and may not have time to comment at length, so to save time, you can simply select one of the standard sandbagging excuses I've provided below. Just hit post a comment, type the letter of your selected excuses(s) ("A", "B", "C", etc.) and you're good to go!

*Probably no one more so than me. I am way busy.

A) I'm just getting over a cold/flu/pneumonia/Ebola.

B) I was traveling at sea-level all last week for work.

C) My bike was in the shop all last week so I haven't ridden all week.

D) I'm way over-trained.

E) I'm hung-over.

F) I'm a pussy.

Hootenanny Logistics & Sides

After the ride we'll have a hootenanny at my house. A hootenanny in this instance means that I will provide burgers and salmon (or whatever strikes my fancy at Costco the day before) and you bring something else, where "something else" can be a side or dessert or whatnot. I'll have a fair amount of soda and beer, and if you drink a lot of either and/or have a favored brand, you're very welcome to bring more.

Rather than me try to coordinate sides, just comment to this post, saying what you'll bring. That way later commenters can avoid an excess of bean dip or pecan pie or whatever. Thanks.

P.S. I have a great hootenanny joke, which most of you have heard, but if not…

So this stockbroker from New York City strikes it rich, retires, moves out to Montana and buys a ranch. His first day, as he’s unpacking, he hears a knock at the door, and opens it to see a grizzled old rancher standing at his doorstep.

Rancher: Howdy neighbor!

Stockbroker: Neighbor?

Rancher: Yeah, I live in the ranch 20 miles down the road, and here in these parts, that’s neighbors! Anyway, I just stopped by to welcome you to the neighborhood and invite you to a hootenanny I’m havin’ Saturday night.

Stockbroker: A hootenanny? What in the heck’s a hootenanny?

Rancher: Aw, a hootenanny is a great ol’ time! That’s when we get together, do a little eatin’, a little drinkin’ and a little dancin’. Later on we do a little more drinkin’, a little more dancin’, maybe some fightin’ and… (with a conspiratorial wink) maybe even a little f*ckin’!

Stockbroker: Wow, that sounds like a great time! Count me in!

Rancher: OK then, see you Saturday night!
The rancher turns and starts to walk away, when the stockbroker thinks of another question.

Stockbroker: Hey, uh, by the way, who all’s going to be there?

Rancher: Oh, just you and me…

Overland Participants and Grouping

Wow. This is going to be an awesome ride with a total all-star cast. As of Thursday, June 7, here's who's opted-in:

Mark A.
Chris C.
Kris N.**
Chris R.
Rick S.
Steve B.
Jon S.
Darren C.
Tom B.
Tom M.
Tom D.
Ashley P.
Aaron S.
Paul D.
Cory P.
Jill B.*
Vicente P.
Eric D.
Alex O.

(If you don't yet know everyone else, don't sweat it. Just address anyone you don't know as "Chris" or "Tom" and you have a decent shot of getting it right.)

*Likely Segment 1 only
**Likely Segment 2 only

(I'm keeping Colin F. on the dist in event of a rain-date resched, and Jim M. on in hopes of luring him to the hootenanny.)

Obviously this is a big group to ride together, and over 80+ miles, it's unlikely everyone will want to go the same pace, where "pace" means that we're at the same re-group points at the same time. Which is totally cool. All I ask is that if you're not going to go the same pace as, well, me, then just let me know. You can "let me know" in one of 2 ways:

1) Tell me at a re-group point. ("Pete, Bill, Betty and I are going to go ahead/slow down at our own pace…") Where practical I encourage you to group up with at least one other rider*.

*As I am not coming back at midnight to search for your lost hypothermic ass…

2) Text me the same thing at 801-694-2374. (BTW, I will only be checking texts and answering calls at re-group points.)

Stickers

So I wanted to have an event chach-kee (sp?) to hand out to finishers after the ride. My first idea was jerseys, a la the totally awesome inaugural Steiner100 jerseys back in 2006*. But jerseys are a lot of money and I am a retiree on a fixed income, so I bagged that idea.

*And which I encourage S100 vets to wear for the OO2012.

My next idea was stickers. As many of you know, I love stickers. And I thought an event sticker on cars around town could get people thinking like, "The OO2012? What's that? How come I don't know about it??" But minimum quantity is like 250 stickers, and since the max number of people doing the OO will probably be like 20, that seemed overkill.* So I bagged the sticker idea, too. But just so you know, here's what it would've looked like:

*"Overkill" in this instance being defined as roughly a hundred bucks. I guess I could've left the year off and used them in future years, but that would've been like a 12 year supply... Oh BTW, I still have super-cool WatcherSTICKERS if anyone wants one...

Yeah, so anyway, you're not getting anything.

The Route

Here's the route, from my original email. (I'd draw a map but I'm lazy). The 2012 Obbard Overland starts and ends @my house* on Saturday, June 30th.

*I already emailed you the address and/or you've already been to my house. I don't want to put my address on a public blog 'cause you never know who'll show up.

Segment 1

From my house the route goes up Emigration Canyon over Little Mountain Pass, down the other side to the reservoir where we'll pick up the Mormon trail. Follow Mormon trail to Big Mountain Pass, then* down West slope of Mormon trail to Jeremy Ranch Road. JR road South to Jeremy Ranch, under I-80 to Pinebrook Park. This segment is slightly under (I think) 30 miles. If you are meeting us here we should arrive around 10-ish (unless we take the hard-core option below)

*A harder-core alternative here is to take Great Western from Big Mount South to Parleys cell towers. This would add 1 rigorous hour to the ride, but would give us the Avenues descent.

Segment 1 re-group points: Little Mountain Pass, Start of Mormon trail, Big Mountain Pass, Bottom of Mormon trail

Sue will likely meet us here with water, drinks, snacks, tubes, tools and anything you gave her to bring up. (If for some reason the Sue-resupply plan does not pan out, we'll swing by the Jeremy store.)

Segment 2

(This is exactly the route of the 2007 Chris C. birthday ride, for those of you who participated.)

Up Pinebrook Center trail, down Wallow to Mid-Mountain. MM up, up to ridge and follow to The Canyons Red Pine Lodge. We'll stop here for water. Continue on MM all the way South past Armstrong, Powerline and Spiro junctions to Crescent Grade. Climb Crescent Grade to Apex, Apex to Keystone, Keystone to Scott's Pass. Up Puke Hill and along the Wasatch Crest to Great Western (GWT), descend GWT down Mill Creek to Big or Little Water. Descend Mill Creek Road to Elbow Fork, pick up Pipeline trail, follow to Rattlesnake, down to road, take Wasatch Blvd/Shoreline back to my house. This segment is around 55 miles.

Segment 2 re-group points: Emily Roosevelt Memorial chair/overlook, Red Pine Lodge, Crescent Grade Junction, Scotts Pass, MillCreek Saddle (top of GWT), Big Water T/H, bottom of Rattlesnake, then Wasatch back to my house.