We did our 3200 feet of climbing local ride, 32 miles. I am exhausted! The gorgeous weather extended to up here in New England for once. An absolutely perfect day. We left our friend's house in Acton at 11:00 and rode the 6 miles to Oak Hill. I was very conservative in climbing, since I knew what was to come. This is a 4-5 mile climb, that actually flattens out in a couple of places. Saw a few racers doing intervals up and down the hill and thought about when my son used to do this 8 times in a row. We stopped on the town green in Harvard center for about 15 minutes and then turned to climb into Bolton. There is a sneaky 1-2 mile climb at the beginning of this part of the ride. At this point, my husband was riding with me, as he had done the first climb very quickly and was tired. When this part of the ride is over, we start the real climb, crossing Rt. 117 and up to a street on a ridge. Lots of farms. After about a mile we turn up Old Bay Rd., which is about 3/4 a mile or a mile of almost continuous climbing, about 18% at one point. There's one point where you go around a bend and you think it's over, but there's more! That's when I looked down and saw I was going 5.5! At the top we stopped, leaned our bikes against the wall of a house used for migrant workers in the fall and eat on the side of the road, surrounded by apple orchards. Very few cars come by here. We sat and ate our sandwiches and left, feeling a little stiff. There's a steep downhill, but there's 2 stop signs, so it's a little hairy. After that, there's about 5-7 miles of beautiful farm country, cows, flat and pretty. When we get to the end of that part of the ride, it's about 12 miles back to the start, mostly on familiar local roads. There are a couple of minor climbs left, that usually don't bother me, but my legs were toast.
When we got back, we sat and talked on our friend's porch for 3 hours. Getting ready to go out to dinner.