Prepping to Ride My Delfast Top 3.0 In the 50th Annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic
I was raised riding bikes in Durango Colorado. I road in the citizen’s tour of Iron Horse for the first time when I was in 7th grade. By that time my hero father had already ridden in the race a couple of times. I can’t remember now home many times my two brothers; father and I have ridden in this event. It’s kind of a family tradition.
We race the Durango Silverton Narrow Gage train over 50 miles of exotic Colorado passes. The course has 5,700 feet of altitude gain and includes 2 10,000’ plus passes! Each mile along the way is loaded with good memories of my youth.
This year, after not riding in the event for more than a decade, I am going to do so again. I’ve been away from home for over 20 years now, serving in the military. Most of this time, I’ve lived at or near sea level. I am also not a spring chicken and I have a few health challenges.
Not to worry, I’ll be riding my new Delfast Top 3.0 eBike this time around in what I think is the first ever eBike set of the citizen’s tour. It starts at 7:15 AM on Saturday, 28 May. I plan to provide a live feed of my participation in this event via YouTube for anyone who cares to watch, for as much of the event as cell service and my GoPro batteries hold out. I hope you join me. I’ll also produce a ride video for my YouTube channel after the fact.
Now for the business at hand. Delfast holds the Guinness book of work records record for longest full throttle distance on an ebike’s charge at something over 230 miles. They say my bike has a range of 170 miles; however, I am sure that is on flat ground, going 10-15 miles an hour. The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic is anything but flat ground, and I don’t want to go 10-15 miles an hour. This bike can go 50 miles per hour in unlimited mode, and I have to confess, I have never really ridden it in any other mode. On rides where I average 40ish miles per hour, the bike gets close to 40-60 miles on a single charge.
Frankly, I’m a little worried that the bike will run out of juice while I am on my way up one of these passes, and I won’t be capable of pedaling the 160+ pound monster the rest of the way un-assisted.
Here is a chart I’ve cooked up to visualize what I am up against
I’ve been going back and forth about what my plan should be. The bike has pedal, throttle and pedal assist modes. It also has speed modes 1 (16 MPH), 2 (20 MPH), and unlimited. I’ve considered riding to the base of Molas in speed mode 2 and then making a call from there. I might also just go with unlimited put try to keep my speed under 30 all the way. I just can’t decide.
Anyone have any suggestions for me?
