Quote Originally Posted by Rumblefish View Post
At the end of the ride right near the parking lot where his car was there's this big hill, monstrous in my opinion It's about 3/10 of a mile long and moderately steep. I don't know the grade of the hill unfortunately. He's been egging me on to try going up it for a few weeks now and I've been declining until last night. I figured why not it can only make me stronger, right? and it will help me get ready for a metric century we're planning to do in September in Lancaster, PA (I just hope their idea of "rolling hills" as it was described are A LOT smaller than this thing I attempted last night!
Topozone has a searchable interface to the US Geologic Survey's topographic maps. Warning: for the Pennsylvania maps, the elevation lines do not appear to be standardized. I discovered that on the Dauphin county maps, at least some of them have 18 foot distances between elevations. Look for 2 elevation lines with height specified and use 'em to figure out what distance the map is using.

Most of Lancaster County is pretty flat farmland. I don't think you're likely to hit a lot of grades past 10%, but you can check the century route and see.

I'm using a flat bar bike, so I don't have a ton of different hand positions. My hands get numb if I'm grabbing the bar too hard or don't wriggle them around. I've found a few positions which are comfy for long periods, so I swap 'em around frequently. Don't want to aggravate the chances of carpel tunnel (or develop other new and exciting problems). If you've got drop bars, you'll have more options.