2nd Annual Gooseberry 100K

I can’t believe it has been one year since I posted about the Inaugural Gooseberry 100k.

For 2009 the 100k will take place on January 31st. For all the folks headed down to Old Pueblo two weeks later this should be a great training ride/race.

Last year nobody finished the full 100k although Kenny Jones and Kris Holley gave it a good run. This year the course will be slightly different.

We will camp Friday night on the North rim by the windmill and the ride/race will start at 9:30 a.m. We will NOT be descending the North rim like last year as it proved a bit dangerous but will instead be doing the Gooseberry Mesa loop first and in a counter clockwise direction.

I will post a gpx file with the route within the next month and everyone will be on their own for route finding and support. I highly recommend you get a mapping GPS or have a ride partner that has one and knows how to use it and doesn’t care that you you are tagging along.

The following map is just a preliminary idea of what we are doing. It does not include the section through Apple Valley to the JEM Trail and has the North rim drop that we will NOT be doing.

The basic route is pretty straight forward. After doing Gooseberry counter clockwise the route will travel through Apple Valley and then cross the highway and hook into Goulds, Jem, Rim trail which will also be done counter clockwise with the Jem descent being done twice, yahoo!

The route will then head towards Rockville and eventually across Bridge Road and up the nasty climb back onto Gooseberry finishing at the windmill.

I think it should be close to 100k and 6-8 hours of ride time. Of course, I could be totally wrong which will make for a great adventure.

Any questions?