Quote Originally Posted by aicabsolut View Post
I haven't tried the north end of RCPark, so your route sounds fine. Only I'd love to do the "loop" backwards (as I posted before), not only because I need more hill practice but once you get to Beach from there you can really hammer as it's flat to downhill in that direction. Also, when you get to the end of the loop that way, the stop sign there in the blocked off area is a good place to stop and regroup. (You'd be on-road the other direction and facing left turns potentially with traffic). I'd also prefer to do the loop at least a couple of times for practice on climbing and descending. From the north, that'd mean doing the flat part before the hill, the hill being the way home. So if after a couple repeats no one wants to do the hill that way, we could regroup at the stop, turn around, and go home as mapped via Beach. Slightly less climbing that way.
I usually think of the hill loop as "clockwise" vs. "counterclockwise". I think you're saying you do it clockwise, yes? I prefer the counterclockwise route because it's easier <<cough, cough>> and if I get a good start off Joyce, I can do the entire thing in the big ring. At the bottom of Ridge, after the switchback, we usually hop onto the sidewalk and not deal with the street to cut back over to Beach. Yeah, you got the long slog back uphill (gradual) to the ranger station. I'd be up for either way. I just spent an hour and a half mapping out a route from The Bicycle Place as a center start point, and Routeslip.com crapped out (again) and wouldn't save the file! Grrrrr... I even had the ranger station as a regroup spot if folks wanted to do hill repeats. Sigh.

Oh...good luck with finals. Will you be done by the 17th?