Originally Posted by
wipekitty
Thanks for the tips, everyone! It looks like I misspoke: the ride is "only" 225 miles.
Yes...it is
Part of what sold me on this ride is that it literally starts a mile from my house. It's also incredibly flat once it gets out of the Driftless (~4300' elevation...less than most local centuries.) A few guys did it last year averaging 20.5 MPH into a headwind; while I will not be riding with that group, I suspect that a fast but not too fast group could make pretty good time!
The start of the ride is where you are doing most of the climbing (near Dubuque) - so don't get carried away on it or you will burn all your matches for the rest of the ride. After the half way point the state starts to flatten out. Depends on how well you do climbing, weight and all, but I would recommend an 11/28 cassette just to make that first part of the route easier. The RWGPS route is completely full of it for max grades - as I remember there were a few good 8% grades at the front, and about 50% more elevation gained than the route indicated. I just checked Strava and I had over 8000 feet of ascent at the end and that was on a 175 mile version. TSS was 490, 6400 calories burned, average speed with stops was 16.5. I struggled a bit at the end due to getting carried away with the climbs at the front because it was sooo much fun.
You should have a blast with it. You get to ride with a bunch of the Trek racing team riders, get your picture taken with Jens (if he shows up) at the start if you want. I got my mug signed by him at the finish too. The rest stops are really well stocked. One dairy farmer that supported the ride had chocolate milk for everyone! I have never seen the level of support on a ride like this before, it is really top shelf - you will feel like you are a pro on the tour.
On Edit : I see it's not starting at Dubuque anymore, but i'm guessing the state is still hillier on the West side than East so the climbing tip still applies, and I still wouldn't believe the predicted climbing - its been off by a factor of 2 on most rides I have done this long.