Share how you came to love the hills

[mudmucker]

I've learned to love hills because I have so many around me and if I want to leave the car in the yard for the weekend and ride from the house, which is every weekend, then I must ride over them. I've learned to accept them because I can't avoid them, and so I make them into challenges. I condition myself to these hills and work on intervals to become stronger to make them even easier to get up as the season goes on. It's sort of a matter of biking survival. And before you know it, they are easier and the hills are actually fun, even when some are still hard. Not without a little pain in the beginning of the season though. Then sometimes when I bike in other areas to the east later in the season; Shirley, Lancaster, Westford, Bolton, Concord, Littleton, Groton, or in the valley to the west; Greenfield, Deerfield, Whately - these areas seem so insanely flat by comparison that these rides don't really seem like a lot of work at all (if it's not too windy) but they are very fun.

It's hard to talk about hills, just like when people talk about avg mph. Hills are hills and it's relative to what one is used to and what they have to deal with in their backyard. What is a hill to one person may not be a hill to another person.