We are pleased to announce the First Annual Phoenix challenge. After long last, it’s time to get back out on the open road and do some epic riding!! The challenge is as simple as it is evil – a double-century ride from Front Royal, VA to Waynesboro, VA. And back again the next day.
The adventure happens on Skyline Drive. If you live on the East Coast, you’ve likely heard of it. If you live in the DC / Virginia area, you’ve actually probably ridden on it. It is a fantastic stretch of road and a National Park. You actually have to go through a toll to get on the road, which you will be doing as part of the event.
And that means the roads are quiet. We’re going and riding Friday on the way out Saturday on the way back. You have the opportunity to stay overnight or to bail out at halfway and take a bus back. That’s up to you, depending on your fitness and your adventure level, but we’ve got it set up. So it’s really well-organized but also simultaneously self-directed.
Day One
We’ve organized discounts for you at local hotels. We’ve organized a place for us to meet up on the other side of Waynesboro, outdoors, to have some food and beverages and connect. We’ve got some great swag for you as well. You’re literally going to roll up and we’re going to meet outside to check in and drop off your dry clothes bag. We’ll enter the parking groups and then go off for the ride.
You’re on your own. Just like any other regular outdoor ride. The exception being that there are multiple places to stop that we’ve designated for you along the route. Skyline is well-populated with rest stops in three places, each direction, for you to stop. In addition, we will have professional support on the road should you need mechanical help, etc.
Day Two
We’re expecting you to be self-sufficient. You should be able to handle it. The 100 plus miles and the 10,000 plus feet of climbing. You should be able to average minimum of 15 to 16 miles per hour across the course of that day.
So if we do the 15 miles an hour average, and we say it’s 105 miles. We’ll just call that seven hours plus stops about an eight-hour day. If you start at eight o’clock in the morning, you’ll be done at 4:00 PM in the afternoon, which means plenty of time to get to the hotel at the other side, recover, enjoy some food and fluids, and then start stressing about Day Two.
And this is the perfect course. We get a chance to do Epic, but we get to do it in a contained manner. That’s really well set up. There are no turns you just stay on the road.
You can bring a map if you want to, but you’re not really going to need it. 🤣 And we’ve got the support that we need and the experience in the area as well.
This will be our 12th event in the region, although there are some firsts:
This is our first time on Skyline Drive. It’s a beautiful section of road and certainly challenging. When we start out on day one, we will begin with a five-mile climb, which is legit. So consider the price of entry to get in.
This is also our first “adventure” event where we support you as you do your epic. Given the challenges of COVID, we can’t have a traditional event so if you jump on this opportunity, we support you in earning your phoenix finish!
It’s not a race. It’s more, just a challenge against yourself. You’re welcome to go ahead and ride as fast as you safely can. Whenever you get to the other side is fine by us. You’ll simply just check-in online, make sure that we’re all set and we’ll return back and do it the next day. This is not our typical camp where we will do meetings before and meetings after and get together and do lots of social stuff simply due to the pandemic and doing our best to be safe and walking that fine line.
Registration: We are opening this early to our former campers. We’ve got a list of 85 people. They’re getting an email today about this opportunity to register early, and then we’re also releasing it to some of our athletes as well, who will have until next Monday.
Which is hope, please. Cause I’m terrible at dates, the 29th to get their early registration in, before we go public. At that time, we will open up to everyone else. We only have 100 slots available for this opportunity. We realize that we have to be deliberate about how we approach this. We want to be able to have.
Enough folks that are well distributed on the road. So we’re not a hazard to any of them. The other people there’ll be other people riding, other people, driving other people, camping, motorcycling, adventure, it’s a national park. And so it’s going to be a ton of fun. I hope you consider joining us if this ride doesn’t fit your fitness level right now.
If this ride doesn’t fit your profile and you think someone else or your club or someone else might be interested, please pass it on. Send them to www.mile18inc.com where they can learn more about the Phoenix Double Century Challenge. You’ll get some really awesome swag, build some memories and some great fitness to kick off the season, whether you’re racing later on or not, you’re going to be rejuvenated.
We are excited to get back to being outside, and doing it in the most epic way possible.
Let’s Go‼️ #ride2rise200
~ Team Endurance Nation
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