Ronde Ohop Kermesse

This past weekend I took advantage of my travel to the Seattle area and entered the Ronde Ohop Kermesse race near Eatonville, WA. This unique event was a combination paved/dirt/rock race that was based from the Nisqually-Mashel State Park (in the shadow of Mt Rainier National Park).

The Ronde Ohop is a Washington Cup event. Based on the website description, the race is meant to “evoke the Belgian tradition of short, fast and hard races .... the race runs on good county roads with 13 total miles of dirt road”. Most riders were on road bikes (including me). The number of flats and damaged wheels was impressive (think Hilly Billy Roubaix) with lots of DNF’s.

Since I rarely have a bike (as well as good weather) in the Seattle area, I couldn’t resist riding spectacular HC climbs (each with 3K+ ft of vertical) on each of the two days prior to this race. One of these rides was up to Sunrise (on the east side of Mt. Rainier) while the other was a climb to the Paradise Inn (on the south side of the mountain).

While these rides were great with amazing views of Rainier, they left my legs in a “less than fresh” condition for Sunday’s race. Subsequently, I ended up getting dropped far too early on the initial 14 mile road section. Thankfully, we then entered the final 2.2 mile loop section which included 1.3 miles of dirt trails with an abundance of fairly large, imbedded rocks. The race called for us to complete 10 laps of this loop which gave me the chance to catch quite a few of the roadies who were struggling with the trails.

While I would have liked to put in a better ride, I ended up finishing in 5th place in the Masters Men 50+, CAT 1/2/3/4/5 category with an average speed of 16.8 miles/hour.

This event was fairly well organized but it truly made me appreciate the great organizers we have on the West Pennsylginia race scene (where we have Port-a-Johns at races !).

On the positive side, the officials did have a nifty wireless camera set-up with a big domed tent (it rains alot here ...).

All things considered, I’m glad that I entered this race and it was great fun to have a chance to compete in the Pacific northwest.

Also, a big thanks to Len Throop (the owner of Eatonville Outdoor) who encouraged me to enter this race and loaned me his pump. Make sure you visit Len if you are ever in Eatonville !