The first Mingo is just over 1 week away.
Mingo, the Milan San Remo of Pittsburgh. The first road race of many area cyclists. The location of the “Mike Friedman memorial corner.” The bringer of late March snow storms.
Below is a turn by turn description and a map of the course from Bikely.com.
The course starts with a quick climb and right turn from Valley View up to Sugar Run. Race winning attacks have gotten away here on later laps. The second turn, onto Sundust is an acute hairpin and should be taken slowly by anybody unfamiliar with the turn. As shown on the bikely pofile, there are only 500 feet of climbing per lap, most of which is on Sundust Rd. The climb is followed by a descent to the hairpin onto Gilkeson Rd. Gilkeson is a LONG downhill where dropped riders tend to catch back on, or breakaway attempts are reeled back in. There is a small kicker of a climb onto Patterson. Patterson is a relatively flat road which is sometimes wind swept. Another right puts racers onto Valley View. Riders unfamiliar with the course should pay attention the first few laps as to how long the run in to the finish is. It is a really really long run in, even at 35+ mph. Be patient the final lap for the finish.
Link to map with elevation profile
Here is another link to the Trek of PGH site with directions to the venue and parking
Bring water, food and TP as there are very few amenities near. The start/finish is a mile or so from the parking lot.
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1 Response to “The first Mingo is just over 1 week away.”.
[...] conjured up some excellent spring racing on Sunday and lots of people turned out for “the Milan San Remo of Pittsburgh“. The 4/5 field, like last week, was maxed out again. Jason Zimmerman (Freddie Fu) took the [...]
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