Rando Roundup: Over to Dover 200K, Urbana 200K/Populaire

While I’ve been letting my knee heal, the rest of the D.C. Randonneurs have been out and about getting in some new rides and looking ahead to the ACP series starting in Urbana, Md. on March 28 with a standard 200K and a new, free (!) MarLuLu 100K Populaire.

On Saturday, RBA Bill Beck, Jan and Nick Bull, and George Winkert completed Crista Borras’ lastest permanent, the Over to Dover 200K from Frederick, Md. See Bills’ report below and check out photos at his Flickr page and GPS track at MotionBased.

Bill has also announced the details of the Urbana 200K and the MarLuLu populaire at the D.C. Randonneurs site. If you are going to ride the 200K, remember to pre-register to save $5. More Here.

MG and I are planning to start our ACP series at the second DCR 200K on April 18 to allow me to take as much time to get my knee in shape…fingers crossed. We still hope to ride the Last Chance 1200K in Boulder in September. Registration opened today!

Here’s Bill’s story of the Over To Dover Permanent:

Nick and Jan Bull (on tandem), George Winkert, and I did the inaugural ride of Crista’s new “Over to Dover” 200K permanent on Saturday. Crista thinks that this is the flattest (and therefore easiest) 200K permanent in the area, and it is certainly the flatest one that I have ridden. Both Nick and I measured about 5,400 feet of climbing, which is more than the 3,200 feet or so in the Tappahannock 200K, but about the lowest amount of climbing that you could expect in the piedmont of central Maryland and Pennsylvania (7,500 feet is more typical).

Nick and Jan, with George, Knocking Off Another Permanent (courtesy Bill Beck)

The route starts at a Roy Rogers in Frederick, Md., and heads northeast to Dover, Pa. We made good progress along the mostly quiet and scenic roads to the lunch stop and turn-around at the Rt. 74 restaurant in Dover, although we could feel an ominous tailwind building behind us as we approached Dover. The Rt. 74 restaurant is the kind of unassuming small place that I wouldn’t usually stop at unless Crista had already discovered it. In fact, I rode right past it on this trip, until backtracking to find it.

Our suspicions about the wind were verified with a vengeance on the return. A stiff 15 m.p.h. wind that was snapping flags straight out lowered our average speed WAY down. At one point I was pedaling downhill at 10 m.p.h. But George found a way of handling wind through the power of mental imagery and positive thinking. See a little video Here.

We finally finished a little after 6 p.m., having beaten the dark monster back to Frederick. “Over to Dover” is a very nice addition to the local stable of permanent routes, and a good choice if you want to have a pleasant and — if you can avoid the wind — fast ride.