Bethany1
06-23-2011, 04:37 PM
Woo Hoo! I made it up the 5 mile hill today! Yes, that's what hills are like in my area.
I was evil and traded in my Hardrock MTB and bought a Trek Madone 4.7 two days ago. I had ridden one of the 5 or 6 series bike in a store to see what a TOL bike felt like and fell in love with the Madone bikes. I had tried out another company, but went back to the Madone.
Of course I had to take her for a true test ride and she handled that hill with ease and it took me about a half hour to 45 minutes to get up. The view from the top is amazing. I didn't think to take pictures though. I've been wanting to do this since I started cycling as I wanted the rush of going down.
I had also purchased a Node 1 computer (The Madone has a cut-out for this) and used the cadence feature. I kept it about 70 going up (11-12 miles I think) changing gears as needed. I still don't get the whole cadence/spinning thing, but keeping it at that pace really helped from overdoing it.
On the way down I hit 30mph and realized this was pretty dangerous on a highway. Between the wind and the semi trucks I was starting to become unstable and nearly got blown off the bike/off the road as well. I slowed it down to 20 the rest of the way down.
I need a much better saddle. My girl parts really hurt despite changing positions for 10+ miles.
DON'T give up on hills. The rush of going down is worth it.
I was evil and traded in my Hardrock MTB and bought a Trek Madone 4.7 two days ago. I had ridden one of the 5 or 6 series bike in a store to see what a TOL bike felt like and fell in love with the Madone bikes. I had tried out another company, but went back to the Madone.
Of course I had to take her for a true test ride and she handled that hill with ease and it took me about a half hour to 45 minutes to get up. The view from the top is amazing. I didn't think to take pictures though. I've been wanting to do this since I started cycling as I wanted the rush of going down.
I had also purchased a Node 1 computer (The Madone has a cut-out for this) and used the cadence feature. I kept it about 70 going up (11-12 miles I think) changing gears as needed. I still don't get the whole cadence/spinning thing, but keeping it at that pace really helped from overdoing it.
On the way down I hit 30mph and realized this was pretty dangerous on a highway. Between the wind and the semi trucks I was starting to become unstable and nearly got blown off the bike/off the road as well. I slowed it down to 20 the rest of the way down.
I need a much better saddle. My girl parts really hurt despite changing positions for 10+ miles.
DON'T give up on hills. The rush of going down is worth it.