Michael Larsen

A couple of us went out to recon the dirt sections this morning. Here is my reply to a question that someone posted in the comment section of Strava about what tires to run.

28mm are more than enough. I rode 23's today and was fine but at the higher speeds during the race you'll be taking big risk of flatting. Sisemore is rolling great. The only area that will really cause an issue on Sisemore is the fast left turn over the dam. You come in hot and the outside is pretty loose, so ride the corner from outside to inside. There is a short but hard enough climb right after the dam that will cause splits, especially if riders jack up the turn 200-300m before the start of the climb. I would recommend being in good position coming into this section.

There are two short loose sections that you'll want to be in good position coming into them because it's loose and you're coming in fast. Both of these sections caused a split in our group to rider mistake.

The first section is the (L) off Sisemore on to Ponderosa. This is a very short section but enough hazards and looseness that riders will have issuse. The toughest section is also the loosest. This Section starts after turning left onto Peterson Ridge. This section is 0.8 miles of really fine deep dirt. Michael ran into Hans here and had to put a foot down and couldn't get started up again because of how deep the dirt was. This section is also slightly uphill and will for sure be a spot that strong technical riders will pull away and others will be crashing and possibly running. 28s at 90PSI and you'll cruise through this section nicely, just be careful of others. I predict that some riders will end up running part of this section. Don't be over-geared as I was trying to mash a big gear for stabilization and got slowed down a couple times because of the deep dirt and almost came to a standstill.

Right after the loose section you get a long fast flat to slightly DH section. Due to the speeds I believe there will be a number of flats. We all found the right side of the road had the smoothest lines and the least amount of jagged rocks sticking up. Due to time constraints we turned onto Three Creeks, so we weren't able to do the last section of dirt that circles around Sisters. From what I could see it look similar to Peterson Ridge.

The last section of long dirt (Tetherow Crossing) was smoother than most of the paved roads in the area and will be extremely fast and fun. We didn't ride the first part of this road and I heard there was a fast "gravely" section that is "technical"

Strava link https://www.strava.com/activities/1016646693

Hope this helps little insight helps you racers out a bit.

Good luck, have fun and be safe.