This ride benefits the Pleasant Valley Fire Department. There are 3 routes: 30, 50 or the 'dirty 30'; but you can combine them if you want to do 80 or 110 miles.
There are some hills out in this neck of the woods. Nothing major, but a lot of ups! Rita, Teeny the dog and I elected to do the "Dirty 30". The "Dirty 30" option is 15 miles of hard packed gravel roads and 15 miles of smooth pavement. The gravel was fine for our hybrids, but when you add hills, it was quite the workout. When we came to pavement, our bikes pedaled a lot easier and those hills didn't bother us quite so much!
The roads were in very good shape and very few cars. As noted above, the gravel roads were also very smooth and could be ridden with either a mountain bike or a hybrid. Nice scenery.
This ride had great SAG support -- we saw them many times in 30 miles.....and we were on gravel for 15 miles.
The door prize offerings were amazing: bike computers, nice pumps, flashing lights, tire inflators. Everyone got a ticket when you signed in. There was the option of a 50:50 drawing, too. T shirts were available for $15. Registration was only $25 and considering the possibility of prizes and the awesome lunch, it was a heck of a deal!
Lunch was REALLY good. There was pit beef that was very tasty, veggie burgers, salad (really good, I had 2 servings!), pasta salad, fruit salad, iced teas, beer, and ice cream sandwiches (including mint chocolate chip!). We could eat outside, but elected to sit in the huge cafeteria.
I will ride this again next year. If I'm feeling more "c", I will stick with the 30 pavement; if I'm feeling more "cc" or better, I will definitely do the dirty 30! The hill and gravel combination that we chose was a challenge -- a lot more work in pedaling, but we left with smiles and happy tummies.
