I Did It! I Conquered The HILL

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.

Yay!!! :D

congrats on the bike and the hill! Both significant achievements.

How nice on both accounts, hill and bike!

You must feel pretty awesome and proud right about now - it's well deserved for a major accomplishment like that hill. Congratulations.

Hurrah for conquering a nemesis hill on a new bike! :D

Yay for you! It's a great feeling to conquer something like a hill, isn't it.

Five miles? Holy crap. I thought ours were pretty rough (I have avoided climbing the mountain so far, and I think that's just a mile). My hat is off to you!