The indieVelo "Flat Eight" Route-7.7km (4.7 mi), elevation 73m (239 ft)-a flat route 94 percent of the time, but that 6 percent has 15%!
Route Description
One of the eighteen original Beta routes rolled out on The Island in 2023, the Flat Eight route is, as its title suggests, a flat route most of the time. 94% of the time, exactly. Three leg-searing pitches share the other 6%.
The route winds through most of the northeast portion of the Island and includes a 3.3km lead-in with one of the three difficulties of the route, starting at km 1.9 for 500m at a 4.5% average gradient, with spikes up to 10%.
The second climb begins at km 4.9 and is 200m long at an 8% average gradient, with pitches to 15%. You read correctly: FIFTEEN PERCENT. The last is a tiny bump of 150m at 4%, starting at km 10.2 and less than one km before the banner.
The route is 7.7km long from the second lap, including only the last two leg snappers, starting at km 1.6 and 6.9, respectively.
The hills spread across the route, so if you had the wrong idea to breakaway in one of them, the flats in between are usually long enough to allow bigger packs to swallow back fugitives.
There is a 1.8km flat segment between the first and the second hill and a 4.5km flat segment between the second and the third hill. Multi-laps events in Flat Eights quickly become torture, where some people drop and die in each of them.
In conclusion, whoever had the genius idea to call the route Flat Eight is definitely:
1) an utterly optimistic person, seeing the half-full glass by default and forgetting about those three climbs.
2) someone who was up to prank all of us, misleading the unwitting crowd into an alleged flat still highly lactic productive route.
Not to point fingers, but that person’s name starts with a G and finishes with an E.
Thanks Luciano!
Courtesy of Beta-tester Roman Edelhelfer!
Route Profile
Route details and description courtesy of Beta-tester Andras Beck!
Check out the indieVelo-Route Descriptions page for more useful recon information.
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
