Riding in Escarpment country

another alternative is to drive the extra 45min. north to Collingwood and ride the Centurion 100 route.

160km and 5600ft of climbing.   http://ridewithgps.com/users/80049/routes

You could do this loop about 10 times:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/86930429

~700ft of climb per loop.

I did get passed by some people on Tri-bikes when I did three loops a couple of weekends ago.  The Appleby climb is a pain.

And there is also the Halton Hilly Hundred:

http://www.cyclecanada.com/HHH.html

I threw some decent climbs into creating this ride and came up with only half the elevation you were looking for!  I'm also 10 miles short.  I think the terrain around the escarpment is going to be very different than IMWI.  these are short steep climbs, vs what I undertsand to be a lot of rollers  - over and over again - at the IM.

I also wouldn't fully trust the total elevation that you've found online.  I found a link referencing the elevation you have, but it also shows Florida with 2200' of climbing which is tough to believe.

For what it's worth, here you go.  Starts in the Metro/Starbucks parking lot so you have somewhere to leave the car and starts off flat to get you going.  The last part of the ride is notably easier because you're on an overall elevation descent after riding 6th line.

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/114727887

Thanks!

I've heard elevation gains between 6,000 and 7,300 for Wisconsin. I've ridden the course a few times on the computrainer - they are pretty steep and some are pretty long.  (the worst is between 5 and 10% grade for 1-1.5 km and you have to do that one twice.  There are some shorter but steeper hills as well.  I think the max grade is around 14%.  I have friends that thought training on the escarpment more than prepared them for Wisconsin, but they were also training with Sheri Fraser and she has camps down that way a couple of times over the summer (Grimsby and St. Catharines).

okay, so the IMWI course is saying 3000 feet of climbing

www.ironmanwisconsin.com/course/bike.  It is weird how there are so many different numbers floating around.  at 3000 feet of climing, this proposed route would be perfect.  I can tack on an extra 16 km at the end to bring it up to the right distance.

got in 132 km with 3300 feet of climbing.  Mostly did the route suggested by gofastertri with a couple of changes

1) rode along sideroad 15 to guelph line and then back to 4th line - needed to hit up the convenience store to refill my bottles.

2) went back down south on guelph line to derry to appleby near the end instead of riding appleby from campbellville road to derry.  It wasn't that I didn't want to climb the hill again (well, maybe a little bit ).  I was terrified coming down the escarpment on Appleby near Rattlesnake point.  That is one scary decent.  I didn't want to do that again.  Considered going up and then back down steeles, but that would have messed up how to make the route 130 km.

3) how to make it 130.  On brittania coming back into town, I turned down Bell School Line again to side road 2 to appleby to derry to tremaine to brittania.  Added the perfect amount of distance (but I had already added 2 km above). 

General comments

1) Bell school line hill is HARD.  I had to get off the bike and walk.  so demoralizing.  I did make it up steeles though which is the one that was making me nervous before hand.

2) Nowhere to stop for water between around 40 km (campbellville)  and 85 km (with my detour, if not detouring, it would have been around km 92 or 93 at campbellvile road and guelph line).  I ran out of water around km 70 and had to ride a while without liquid in the head which kind of sucked.

3) 4th line and side road 10 were ROUGH.  not nice riding.

As an aside if people are going up this way sideroad 15 has recently be tarred and chipped from somewhere east of 6th line to 5th line.  the 6th line hill has been paved very recently and was very nice pavement.

I should add - didn't completely run out of liquids, I had a mostly full bottle of eload on my frame but it was concentrated so tried not to drink too much of it as it would cause tummy problems.  (and the first 90 km of the ride took WAY longer than my 100 km ride last weekend due to all the climbing.)  I have enough room for 110 km assuming that it is easier terraine and I am going to be done at 110 km.

Can someone tell me how to start a new thread? Can't seem to find the button.

Also, just a quick note, Bell school road in Burlington has fresh gravel down. Messy ride. They will be taring but they didn't give me an answer when it would be done. They are also putting a biking lane in.