A few friends and I did the CU Across the prairie ride yesterday. The weather pretty much sucked, raining on us the majority of the ride. Sice the weather was so bad we opted to do the 47 mile route as opposed to the Metric century like last year. I must say, this year the ride was much less of a “Scenic” route than last year, and I, overall, was a little disapointed. Last year it seemed really well run with more SAG vehicles (that I saw at least), more stops and MUCH better directional markings . On more than one occasion we saw cyclists going the wrong way. The markings were in very inconsistent places making is fairly difficult to navigate given higher speeds and/or rain in your eyes. Maybe I was just less tolerant because of the weather, but the widely ranging placement of the markings was very annoying to me. A few of the roads were freshly graveled which also made for a very unpleasant stretch. High pressure tires and gravel roads don’t mix well. Obviously the planners have no control over when which roads get resurfaced, nevertheless it was still not a fun few miles of road.
Overall it was still a really fun ride, I plan to do it again next year and would never recommend against it. Hopefully weather will be a little more cooperative.