The Deer Creek Challenge

On Sunday I rode the inaugural Deer Creek Challenge, a 100 mile ride with 12,751 feet of climbing. Actually, I climbed12,752 feet because I got off my bike and rolled it back downhill a few feet at one point.

It’s a tough ride – a “challenge” in fact – because there’s so much climbing. In fact it’s enough of a challenge that several of my friends decided not to do it because they felt a bit intimidated. The course itself is a bit weird because it’s created specifically for elevation gain, and to do this it goes around a mountain neighborhood at the beginning and again at the end. Some beautiful houses and spectacular views, but as several people commented, why would anyone want to live that far out and up?

While the ride goes through some beautiful countryside, it doesn’t have the purity of the Triple Bypass, which is an incredible point-to-point ride that goes over 3 passes (although Vail Pass from the East hardly counts as a pass). Nor does it have the amount of climbing of the California Death Ride (129 miles and 15,000+ feet of climbing), but its claim to fame is that it has the most climbing of any Century in the country.

Some of the climbing is relatively easy – big chain ring stuff – but for a lot of it I was in my very easiest gear, and I heard people saying they’d get easier gears next year. I’m not the greatest climber when it gets really steep, but the reward is some lovely downhills.

The aid stations were great and two of them even had hot pizza which was wonderful. Several of the aid stations had GU, which I thought was a great idea because GU is always great to carry for a quick pick-me-up.

Because many of the roads are twisty and steep, there are speed limit signs all over the place. Many of the roads have 25 mph signs, and some are limited to 30 mph. Unfortunately, you’d have to be riding your brakes down some of those hills to stay at 25, which would be ridiculous given how fast and smooth they are. In addition to which, not everyone has a bike computer to tell them their speed. I don’t know if these speed limits were enforced at all, but hopefully they will never be enforced for this event. I know I’d stop riding it if I ever got a speeding ticket.

But I didn’t get a ticket, and I rode the downhills fast (how fast I don’t know since I’m one of those people without a bike computer). The ride was great fun and I’d definitely do it again.