Super Randonnée 600k Permanent

[joshua bryant]

For those who've gotten the newest American Randonneur or are awaiting patiently the arrival of their copy, there is a new program introduced on the final pages that I, personally, am very excited about. Its the Super Randonnée 600k. A 600k permanent with a minimum of 10.000m (~32k feet) sanctioned by the ACP (audax club parisien) and offered in 2 flavors. First as a randonneur within a time limit of 50 hours and second as a cyclotouriste within a ~7.5 day time limit. I'm personally excited (and have been for a couple of months since seeing the draft of the article as one of the RUSA editors) because I've been dreaming of this type of event for several years. One which successfully blurs the lines between randonneuring and touring. I got into riding brevets in part because I've had a long-standing interest in touring, but haven't had the time to do so, while simultaneously enjoying the challenge of more strenuous cycling endeavors. Randonneuring and now the advent of the SR600k with its 2 disciplines together fulfills a lot of my personal interest in the sport of cycling. I'm looking forward to seeing what routes our North American randonneurs come up with and hope that it strengthens our community by encouraging traveling to other regions to participate in these permanents and communication with like-minded individuals.

Ride well and often, fellow (and lady) randos


Joshua Bryant
Cycles J Bryant LLC
cyclesjbryant.com
503-381-8989
4614 SE 52nd Ave
Portland, OR 97206

[WMdeR]

Dear Joshua,

Once approved, "Foon" Feldman's Colorado Haute Route 1200k permanent will likely qualify.  The Cyclos Montagnards Colorado Challenge 2 qualifies at first glance.  I bet the SIR "Mountain 6" (or its Cyclos Montagnards variant) is close.  A 6-gap 600k back east would be a stout 'un, as would a run (one-way) along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive.  It'll be great to see what we come up with....

Best Regards,

Will

William M. deRosset

Fort Collins, CO

[littlecirclesvt.com :: mike beganyi]

Who / what certifies the climbing?

Online? A particular service? TopoFusion's custom algorithm?

Our 400k here in VT shows 14k to 18k depending on what we use to calculate it. Thats a big spread.

But that route was not designed to be a climbing fest, even through it feels like it. Who knows, it could be more, or less.

For rides in the NE I'd have to check on the recently completed VT 600k (from VT over the Whites and then back to VT).

And a sVT Six Gap ride would get you ~11,500-12,000 in 132 miles. So you could ride it 2 times.

Six Gap Georgia gets you about the same in 104 miles.

[littlecirclesvt.com :: mike beganyi]

Sorry, you'd have to ride the VT six gap nearly 3 times to get the climbing and the miles.

[pamela blalock]

Quadzilla in the original form might qualify for randonneur.

This year Quadzilla was 4X200km rides - all in daylight. To our legs,
it felt like we'd done a 1200km, but with a bit more sleep. More on
our blog...

http://blayleys.blogspot.com/2012/08/quadzilla-day-1.html
http://blayleys.blogspot.com/2012/08/quadzilla-day-2.html
http://blayleys.blogspot.com/2012/08/quadzilla-day-3.html
http://blayleys.blogspot.com/2012/08/quadzilla-day-4.html

pamela blalock
watertown, ma

http://blayleys.blogspot.com

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[Tim Foon Feldman]

Will deRosset wrote, "Once approved, "Foon" Feldman's Colorado Haute Route 1200k permanent will likely qualify."

Haute Route is an approved permanent, RUSA #1220.

It is listed as 49000 feet of climbing. As Mike Beganyi points out, it's not clear how to determine a route's climbing. My Google spreadsheet for Haute Route (here) has a sheet on elevation that shows 38,000 feet between the low points and high points of the sixteen big climbs and an estimate of another 8,000 feet of small climbs, but it's only the terrain of the central Colorado mountains that allows a straightforward calculation of the former.

That said, this is a 1222-km route, not 600 km.
- How long can a SR600k be?
-- Can it be 620 km? 700 km? Longer?
- If it's significantly longer than 600 km then what is the time limit?
- What is the climbing requirement if longer than 600 km?

Tim Foon Feldman
Rocky Mountain Cycling Club

PS: Haute Route has not yet been successfully ridden, despite an attempt by Vernon Smith and myself this summer.

PPS: There is a sequence of six 200-km permanents that follow the same loop as Haute Route. Collectively known as the Six Pack, they are RUSA #1433 through #1438. And there is a sequence of four permanents that represent the intended four days of Haute Route, RUSA #1567 through #1570, owned by John Lee Ellis. So pick your pleasure! But back to the topic of the thread, none of these are a SR600k in distance or climbing.

[Mark W]

Here in Houston we're trying to figure out how many parking garages we have to come up with the climbing. Probably be a lot of info controls, of course.

Mark W

[WMdeR]

Hi, All,

Yep, too fast on the draw.  

The Super Randonnée is a 600K event with more than 10,000m of climbing.

The French (ACP) program is presented here (English translation):

http://www.audax-club-parisien.com/EN/index.php?showpage=422 

I bet one could be constructed from the local east-coast rides without too much difficulty; however Mr. Feldman's Haute Route is too long to qualify for "around 600k", no matter how scenic or inspiring it may be.

Cheers,

Will

William M. deRosset

Fort Collins, CO

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[George Swain]

Hi Joshua,

This is very exciting news indeed! I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with. 

I'm eager to get cracking at a Catskill Mountain 600K permanent what would meet the requirements. We'll be riding a 200K permanent with 10,000 ft of climbing this weekend so the challenge will be broadening, connecting and deepening a few of our existing routes. Maybe we'll have to take in the famed "Devil's Kitchen" climb on this one. Stay tuned. The ADKs would be very nice, too. 

This will hopefully encourage a whole new family of "rando-tourism;" sometimes it's hard to get 3-4 days away for a 1200K, but an epic accomplishment in a weekend - that's doable.

Best regards,

George Swain

http://thehudsonvalleyrandonneur.blogspot.com/

[NickBull]

About a dozen of us just rode Gappity Gap, which is a 200km (about 128 miles) with about 12,300 feet of climbing.  It's definitely the hardest 200km in this region.  It starts in Sperryville, Virginia just east of Shenandoah Park, then proceeds west over Thornton Gap, Edith Gap, Edinburgh Gap, Wolf Gap (taking us into West Virginia), and finally Mill gap.  After controlling at Lost River, you turnaround and retrace your route.  So ten gaps with an average climb of just under a thousand feet.  Ninety-three miles of the ride is either ascending or descending one of the gaps!

So three rides of Gappity Gap would qualify as a Super Randonee, though I'm not sure that three out-and-backs would comply with the spirit of the SR600! 

Anyway, at least for the typical terrain of western VA and eastern WV, it takes thirty gaps, more or less, to amount to an SR600.

Nick

[Jason Karp]

I've been messing around with this a bit, initially thinking that being in the Rocky Mountains this should be pretty easy to design.  But what I've found is that the road builders out here did a good job of going around mountains instead of over them-unless I go mountain biking.  It's really tough to squeeze 32,000 feet of climbing into 600K.  Here's my closest attempt-which I'd love to get some feedback on: http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/1847786  I have no idea if Trimble's elevation calculation is accurate.  I hope it's undercounting and there's a better way to figure elevation-seems like that's one of the big questions in all this-how to accurately calculate the climbing.

The route starts and finishes in Cooke City, MT.  It uses Beartooth Pass over and back, the Chief Joseph Highway over and back, and Dunraven Pass and Craig Pass in Yellowstone Park-both over and back.  Even with all that it came to 701K which might be too long?  I have a 207K permanent that goes from Red Lodge, MT to Cooke City, MT and back (Beartooth Pass both ways) with 14,000 feet of climbing.  I just did it this last weekend and it pretty much toasted me.  Doing 32,000 feet in a little over two days looks really, really daunting.

[Jan Heine]

At 8:37 PM -0700 8/8/12, Jason Karp wrote:

It's really tough to squeeze 32,000 feet of climbing into 600K.

Same here. The SIR Mountain 600 km course is very hilly, yet the climbing is only 6600 m instead of the 10,000 required. Even the Raid Pyreneen comes out to only 9600 m of elevation gain per 600 km.

Since every uphill also has a downhill, you have 300 km to climb the 10,000 m. That means an average gradient of 3.3%. We'll have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to do this and still have a scenic course and a sense of covering a wide swath of the country, rather than riding lots of back-and-forths up various passes.

Jan Heine

[DistanceBiker.com]

"Run" the Colo. Haute Route as a PAIR of back to back 600ks.
~ Rando Richard

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[Yiping Lin]

When I first found out Sophie Matter's La Super Randonnée de Haute Provence at ACP website, I was intrigued. Here is the English information of this permenant. The scenery is super! I wish I can try this permanent in the near future.

Since it's quite hilly here in Taiwan, I also designed a route like this one. Here is my version of Central Mt. Super Randonnée (check out the elevation profile), 602km with 12,151m climbing. It will pass the highest paved road in Pacific Asia, at 3,275m (Wuling). Many cylists here ride up there to take a picture like this one.

However, the tracffic on some section of this route is quite heavy during the weekend (especially the part from Wuling down to Puli), so it is best to ride this route during the weekdays. Another concern is riding at high mountains during the night is quite dangerous.

My friends recently attempted to climb Wuling twice in 16 hours , west (Puli) to east (Taroko) and back. It's 223km with more than 7,000m climbing. Unfortunately due to the road condition (tracffic control, opening 5 min every hour) and the rain, my friends DNF at the last 10 km to Wuling. The last 10km from the east to Wuling is very very steep. (If use the speed limit of 12 kph, my friends could finish this ride, but it would be too late and too dangerous)

Every year there is an international road race to Wuling from Taroko. This youtube clip covers the race last November. 150 cyclists attended (some from Japan, South Korea & USA).

If you happen to visit Taiwan, must try the route from Taroko (east side) to Wuling. It will be unforgettable.

Yiping