Tuesday, July 10, 2012

RB's Hill Route

Today I did a different-than-normal Tuesday ride; instead of riding with the Harpeth Bike Club and doing the Cool Springs Route, I rode with the RB's Cyclery group and did the Hills of Hell Route. I met Catherine at the shop, and we rode with Todd and Matt for most of the route. Catherine pulled me up the first hill, on South Berrys Chapel, and it hurt to stay with her. But it felt great, too, to work that hard! I climbed Lynnwood at my own pace (the first red line in the graph below), and then descended fast to start the short, steep climb up North Berrys Chapel in front. The next climb was Manley, and this is not quite as steep but a little longer, and there is a sprint sign at the top of the hill. Catherine and I started this fast, and I tried to not let up at all. This meant that I went up the whole thing in my big ring, and thankfully the descent came immediately because I needed the rest! North Berrys Chapel from the other direction was just as hard as Lynnwood (the second red line, surrounded by orange, in the graph below), and then we did the opposite side of South Berrys Chapel. Finally, we went up Country Lane. Todd was out for a sprint ride, so I decided to push the pace starting this short climb (all these climbs are fairly short, but some are shorter than others, and this was one of the shorter ones, but it was steep and I didn't know how far it went). I went for as long as I could and then basically started going backward up the hill. Maybe after a few weeks of this I'll be able to ride fast up all these hills!


It took about 1:15 to do this entire route, so pace wise it was pretty slow, but we climbed over 2200 feet in those 17 miles, so I'd say it was successful.

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