cascade 1200
I’m all signed up and excited for SIR’s biannual Cascade 1200K. I managed to get my name and money in yesterday morning when the registration opened up. There are already a number of riders from all over the country signed up. Finishing a 1000K or longer qualifies you for an early Paris Brest Paris registration next year, so I’m guessing that there will be even more riders gunning for rides like this.
I’ve read numerous stories on people’s Cascade experiences. It has been on my radar since I’ve known about randonneuring. It is widely considered one of the harder 1200K rides in the world, and right in my back yard!
I’ve ridden the first section of the route on other brevets, but everything past Naches is relatively new ground for me. I know that Day’s 2 and 3 go through some seasonally hot areas of the state, so I’ll need to figure out a way to acclimate myself for that. We are lucky enough to have a fairly moderate climate around Seattle, so it is always a bit of a shock once I end up on the east side of the Cascades. I’ve done well in the past though; it shouldn’t be a huge issue.
Check out some ride reports and photos from previous editions.
Geoff Swartz – “Living the Dream!”
Ole Mikkelsen – Ride Report
Lothar Hennighausen – Ride Report (How about these names!?)
Val Phelps – Ride Report
Jake Kassen – Ride Report … his photos here
Flickr pool from 2008 (so many pictures)
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 pm
“Same here” about all signed up and excited. It looks like you already put the whole route (at least as it was in 2008) into bikeroutetoaster. Would you like to share it (i.e. make it public and post the link)?
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I was excited about riding this until I saw your profile. That day two will be a killer in the heat.
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 am
Joseph – I did indeed. Keep in mind that this is a really rough 2008 version. I’m not sure what the Highway 410 situation will be this summer and there is a pretty good chance of some reroutes. Also, bikeroutetoaster wouldn’t let me trace any bike trails, so this is over their highway equivalents. This is a long way of saying, don’t use this for GPS purposes. I just wanted to check out a full elevation profile.
http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=100149
Pat – I know you are still excited. The heat was really bad in 2008, but I’ve heard that was probably the worst year so far. With any luck, we won’t have it quite so bad.
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Yipes, I just looked at that course again… It seems to have dropped most of the route. Sorry about that Joseph. Lame.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Thanks, Robert. I loaded that route of the first day via an exported/imported gpx file into
http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=tzammanxsteeznmx
which has the nice feature (scroll down until you see the enlarged profile) to link points on the profile with points on the route.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:59 am
I think this year will be the original route through Elk pass and Old Mans pass to Carson
Robert this is the route of the C1200 permanent so I think Geoff already made the toaster course
Vinny
February 5th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Thanks Vinny.
I knew this probably wouldn’t be exact. I just clicked out what was run the last time around. Send me a link if you get the chance.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Oh man….. Totally forgot about this – count me as a “maybe” for now.
Gotta do this at some point though, this route is just too much to miss out on.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
Say…um, what’s the scene like for poaching a ride like this? You know, if a unannounced person of interest just happened to roll out with you and look at your cue sheet sometimes. Maybe ask for bites of your food from time to time but generally kept to themselfs?
Hypothetically.
February 8th, 2010 at 7:56 am
You can pry my food from dead, icy cold hands.