The Challenge Series is a pre-planned group of rides that represent the best of what RMCC has to offer in 100 or less miles! These rides are designed to challenge you, to show you roads you may not have ridden, and to foster the development of a community built around endurance riding. The series is a mix of road, gravel, and mixed surface rides.
Below are the rides for 2024. Full Details for each ride will be posted on our Meetup calendar as they become available.
2024 Rides:
Saturday April 27: Golden Gate/Eldora Figure 8 (road). Details...
Saturday May 18: Wellington/Red Feather Lakes Gravel Loop (gravel) Details...
Saturday June 22: Copper Triangle w/ Turquoise Lake (road). Details...
Saturday July 27: Mt. Blue Sky Challenge - Golden to Mt. Blue Sky Summit (road) Details...
Saturday August 24: Idaho Springs Climbfest - Guanella Pass/Loveland Pass/St. Mary's (road). Details...
September TBD: TBD
Notes:
All rides are subject to being rescheduled or canceled due to weather or other reasons.
Ride Culture:
These are drop rides—that’s just the nature of things when they get long and hard. On the road the rides will break up into multiple groups. The front group will often push the pace; other groups will not. What group you ride with is up to you. These are not races and there is no award for finishing first.
A primary goal of the series is to have fun and make the kind of friends you can only make on a hard ride. Occasionally waiting a minute or two for others to catch up goes a long way toward making this happen! We also have designated regroup points at stores on each ride.
We do look out for each other if someone has a mechanical or other issue on the ride. But we also expect that you’ll come out with a bike that is ready for a big ride.
Rules:
As these are club rides, there aren’t really any rules beyond basic common sense:
-Sign our insurance company’s waiver at the start
-Wear a helmet
-Follow the rules of the road
-Error on the side of safety
-Always have fun!
Cost:
These are unsupported club rides and therefore have no cost beyond your club membership.
Unexpected conditions:
All rides are subject to being rescheduled or canceled due to weather or road conditions. Additionally, on any ride the weather can turn bad or a road on the planned route may turn out to be unsafe for riding. Always prioritize safe riding. This can involve changing the route on the fly.
Who Was Charlie Henderson?
Charlie Henderson was one of the founders of RMCC back in 1993 and was our club President for many years before passing away in 2017. His goal was to have a club that provided a year-round series of rides that helped people develop their cycling fitness. His countless hours of work were the driving force behind building our cycling community. Charlie was always up for a challenge and was always encouraging others to try something just a little bit harder than they had done before. While the structure of this series of rides is new, it is intended to be in the spirit of what Charlie built. For those of us who knew Charlie, we still miss him but his spirit lives on with us in this series.