Didn't Mind The Hills Today

Two lessons I learned all on my own: Always start riding into the wind and always start riding upstream.

I was able to get away today for a longish bike ride. Since I'm spending the summer at home with the kids, I just can't get away for these rides, which were my staple last summer.

I had two hours or so, and so I went out and did a quick and dirty 20-miler on mixed trail and road surfaces on my road bike. I wanted to ride up on a bike path that follows a creek and tackle a few hills without having to contend with traffic.

I hate hills. This is mostly because I'm a clydesdale, or to be honest I'm fat. It takes a lot of effort to get my ass up those hills. And since I'm being honest, let me say that they freak me out. It's not so much that I'm worried that the effort will make me pass out from burning through too much sugar (I'm diabetic) or the cardiovascular effort, but that's part of it.

No, I'm still getting used to clipless pedals. I worry that I'm going to end up going so slow I'll fall over before I can clip out. This actually happened to me once when foot traffic caused me to come to a stop on a hill on the bike path. It didn't hurt. It was more like sitting down hard, but still, I don't care to repeat the experience.

Anyway, I've learned two things about riding. The first is that you should always start out in the direction of the wind. Of course the weather always seems to change when I get to my turn-around point and I end up doing the whole ride into the teeth of a gale, but it's a good strategy nonetheless.

The other thing I've learned is to head upstream on these bike trails. Upstream means uphill, and that means you can practically coast all the way home. That's an exaggeration, but you can take it easy on the way back.

In any case, this particular trail veers off the stream for a bit at what is usually my turnaround point, which is to say eight to 12 miles from where I start. I engineered that part of the ride to hit one of these massive hills, which begins with a few rollers that require a short burst of effort. Then there's one massive hill to contend with, which I got through with no issues.

These hills are more severe than anything one encounters on the roads around here. I don't know the grade, but they are steep.

I didn't mind the hills today. Granted, it was 75 and low humidity, so there's not much that can ruin a day like that, but still...