From the RUSA website, Permanents page:
"Free-Route Permanents - A Free-Route Permanent is like a normal Permanent except that only the total creditable distance, the start and finish locations, and a number of intermediate controls are pre-defined; the exact route to be taken between controls is by agreement between the rider and organizer. Go to the Free-Route Permanents regulations to see how they are run."
The Free-Route regulations seem to be getting longer and longer, but ... .
To me, the key sentence in the regulations is this one:
"Riding Route Variants - The rider may plan out a route variant in advance, or "wing it" as he/she goes along, or vary from a pre-planned route at will."
When I morphed Bahama Beach into a 'Free-Route,' I filed a few variants via a RWGPS map to prove that there were logical alternatives, but I have since re-purposed that RWGPS map.
Lately, I've been thinking about reasonable (and maybe not-so-reasonable) variants that I might like to ride instead of doing the standard course every time (I did the standard course 20-times in 2012, and twice did it reversed -- I've done the course 7-times so far this year; five times on the standard-course and twice with some "winging-it."
The following is a chart of some the mostly-reasonable variants. The links embedded in the chart are to appropriate RWGPS maps; on each map, the red-line(s) indicate where the course follows the standard route and the green-line(s) indicate where the variant diverges from the standard route. The "RWGPS" column indicates the climbing (in feet) that RWGPS reports; the "ft/m" column is the average RWGPS feet-climbed per mile.
| Route Name | start location | miles | RWGPS | ft/m |
| Bahama Beach | Bay Leaf, NC | 64.6 | 3,587 | 55.5 |
| Bahama Beach - "Wave at Bernie" | Bay Leaf, NC | 68.0 | 3,771 | 55.5 |
| Bahama Beach - "Taste of Johnson Mill Rd" | Bay Leaf, NC | 71.1 | 4,215 | 59.3 |
| Bahama Beach - "Hall Rd" | Bay Leaf, NC | 65.1 | 3,583 | 55.0 |
| Bahama Beach - "Mt. Tabor / Hampton Rd" | Bay Leaf, NC | 66.1 | 3,644 | 55.1 |
| Bahama Beach - "3 Hayes" | Bay Leaf, NC | 65.9 | 3,690 | 56.0 |
| Bahama Beach - "Mangum Dairy" | Bay Leaf, NC | 69.8 | 4,017 | 57.6 |
| Bahama Beach - "Bold Run + Mangum Dairy" | Bay Leaf, NC | 72.2 | 4,205 | 58.2 |
| Bahama Beach - JM + 3 + MD | Bay Leaf, NC | 77.6 | 4,748 | 61.2 |
| Bahama Beach - JM + 3 + BRMD | Bay Leaf, NC | 80.0 | 4,936 | 61.7 |
- According to RWGPS climbing estimates, the Bahama Beach standard route is already the hilliest permanent-populaire in the Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill area (aka, the Triangle); essentially tied with the Howling Grits route -- Jerry clearly "low-balled" that HG climbing estimate when he filed -- not complaining as I low-balled the BB estimate when I originally filed it.
- Every variant indicated above (except "Hall Rd" and "Hampton Rd") results in sufficient additional climbing that the variants are at least as "hilly" per mile, or more so, than the standard route.
- Here in central North Carolina (the Triangle, anyway), when we want to do some hill-work without driving to the mountains (or to Siler City for the Siler City Express), we do the L-L-L perm. Now, if someone were to ask me about doing a hilly route, but they didn't have the time available to do Triple-L, I would suggest Bahama Beach with the "Taste of JM" and/or also "Mangum Dairy" variants tacked on. That wouldn't be as much climbing per mile as Triple-L, but it also wouldn't take as long.
- The "Wave at Bernie" variant may warrant an additional comment. It strays significantly from the standard route at the start to go through Butner and then proceed past the Federal Prison. One of the incarcerated is none other than Bernie Madoff. Thus "Wave at Bernie."
- It is my opinion that each of the variants above will make for a nice and / or interesting ride. (Although I've ridden all the roads involved, except for a couple short segments, I've never ridden any of the combinations indicated above.)
- I look forward to doing each variant listed above -- and some others.
Today, March 6th, 2017, reference to the standard route RWGPS map indicates that RWGPS now recognized ~ 2920 feet of climbing instead of the 3587 shown in the body of the above post.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the other ~ 660 feet of climbing? The only thing that makes sense to me is that RWGPS changed their algorithm to estimate climbing.
Interestingly, reports from friends equipped with Garmin or other GPS devices are typically in the 3300 to 3900 range for estimated climbing.
Today, August 11, 2020, I stumbled across this post and the above comment from 2017. I decided to check what RWGPS indicates for climbing on the standard "BB" route (and then decided to check on some of the variants). I may round to the nearest ten in the figures reported below.
DeleteStandard route -- 2920 ft of gross climbing -- same as three years ago.
Wave at Bernie -- 3080 ft.
Hall Road -- 2920 ft.
Hampton Road -- 2980.
3 Hayes - 2990.
I don't use a GPS device of any sort, so I cannot personally check what Garmin or Strava or whatever come up with.
I still think that when RWGPS changed their algorithm they shorted the climbing on rolling hills types of routes. I recall that friends have indicated that the algorithm change impacted the estimates of actual mountain rides very little.
Perhaps people in charge at RWGPS think repeated climbing of rollers where the incline percentage changes every few yards is not the equal of climbing true mountains. It's not -- they are very different. I recall comments from some Californians (used to stable incline percentages riding up western mountains) inquiring after completing the 2014 Taste of Carolina 1200 or 1000, "how do you ride these rollers?" The almost continuous change in the incline percentage had worn them out.
I reckon that it might not be the amount of climbing nor the type of climbing that is important, but what one is used to is important.