Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Midnight Century On The Brain - #2

Navigationally speaking, things are totally different for me this year than last. Then, I went all crazy with pre-riding all the sections of the course, sometimes twice or more. And printing out all these high-detail sections on paper and marking them up with indelible ink in case I got caught in a monsoon. I tried a GPS app for my iphone, but the complexity of the task wore me down and the power requirements wore the battery down even worse, so I tossed in the towel on that and went old school.

Now, I have a Garmin (that I bought to save me from prematurely dying in the CDANF), to which I've added the perfect complement, which is Tom McFadden's cue sheet. Do yourself a huge favor and print a copy and stick it in your pocket. Tom does "quick training laps" of the MC course after work, and will probably go sub-6 hours this year, while still finding time to stop and make pine cone smiley faces in the road to amuse everyone he's smoking.

His cue sheet is dead-nuts accurate and filled with all kinds of helpful tips. Highly useful to those who know what they're doing and essential to the dopey types that show up thinking they can just "follow the pack".

Many will label me a major dork, I know, but I'm comforted by the fact that I have no doubt where I'm going. Thanks Garmin, thanks Tom.

4 comments:

Jason Gilman said...

I rode the Peaceful Valley portion of the route this morning on the way into work (first time in that direction actually) and it all came together for me. Regardless of where we meet, that portion of the course makes perfect sense to me now.

John Speare said...

That cheat sheet is rad. I ran into Tom today and he said he created the cheat sheet based on the 2008 map. By 2011 we should have all maps, cue sheets, and sites all in sync.

I agree with jason: regardless of if the ride starts at Elk or PV -- as long as it starts at midnight, it's good. If I were riding it, I'd start at the Elk. but I'll be in Kettle Falls.

Pat S said...

midnightcentury.com is my master - I'm starting at the elk

mechBgon said...

Glad you guys like the cue sheet :) I noticed one mileage inaccuracy, it shows too short a distance between the turn onto Highway 27 and the turn onto Dishman-Mica. Not a biggie, since Dishman-Mica is hard to mistake for anything else, but I'm going to upload a revised cue sheet later today.

I'll also add a note at the beginning that says to meet at the Elk at 11:59PM for the rollout, so people aren't confused about where we're setting out from.