here in the Texas Plains I don't get tons of hill riding and am forced to doing short fast repeats on the highway overpasses. That being said, I do get in a lot of alternate training in the constant headwinds and I usually plan the ride to take advantage of that resistance by going out in a slightly harder gear and coming home in a slightly easier gear. The difference, between the hill country ride last year and year before is that that last year I hardly ever used my ranny gear. We'll see what this year brings at the end of March and into April.