what to bring to Almanzo Help with selection ?

Hello All,  I am a long time rider from the east coast.  Have done many centuries and double centuries, however I am mostly a MTB guy, that signed up for the adventure to meet friends at Almanzo 163 because apparently 100 miles of gravel is not enough for them..  Anyway trying to decide on which rig  I should use or can I adapt a seldom used geared road bike I have.

My options are my Masi CXSS steel  with 42x20 or 42x17  have both freewheels set up and could flip flop based on what conditions are? I normally use with 45 tires for singletrack fast runs but would mount up 40's or 38's ? I am comfortable on this but have never done more than 40 miles on it.

My big concern is not being able to use the downhills to carry speed, so I am asking ,  do you think if I pick up a set of 650 wheels will they allow me to fit and run tires big enough for Almanzo im my old 2006 Rocky Mountain Solo 50 road bike that I almost never ride.  ( addicted to my Langster )    I tried to fit 35 tires on the 700 wheelset and was a no go ..  

Does anyone have experience fiting 650's into a RM Solo ?   I know I would have to pick up a pair of long reach brakes, but I guess I could do that if things fit nice.

Or maybe, I should suck it up and grab a Niner RLT9 for about a grand used 2016 aluminum,  I am tempted because I love tearing it up on the MASI but the Brakes are horid and moving to the disks is tempting.   I know it a lot I am throwing out there ,  just anxious and looking forward to May..

The single speed would obviously work if you can ride that far on it and make all the hills on it. There are definitely cases where it’s nice to build some speed on the downhills, but I would be more worried about making it up steep climbs or about keeping a a good pace with a strong tailwind. \n \nFor your regular road bike, 30mm tires, especially f they are tubeless, will probably work fine, morst of the course pretty hard packed, except for any section of fresh gravel. \n \nThat said, a geared bike with big tires wil of course be the easiest.

Thanks for the input..  I appreciate it

Volsung wrote:

I've only done the 100, but most of the 7k feet of climbing is slow rolling hills.  There's only 2 or 3 big climbs (by MN standards).  I had to walk one (Oriole road I think) because I couldn't maintain traction standing and it's around mile 85 so I was pretty well spent anyway.  I'm not sure if it's in the Royal.

 

For me, spinning out on downhills isn't an issue because I'm lazy and I'll just coast down any for a break.

i've rode Almanzo 3 times and i've walked Oriole every time!