My regular training ride was cancelled due to rain this weekend, but I wasn't too broken up about it since it had too many back cranking steep climbs (which I've been considering "overkill" given that I'm only training to do the STP...). Did a fairly flat 50 to Lowell, followed the river to the centennial trail to lake Cassidy and back home. There is one nasty climb to get out of the valley which, sadly, hasn't gotten any easier. There was a guy standing there watching me going inchy, inchy, inchy up a segment of the hill which I have been told has a 14% grade, and he was laughing, so I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of seeing me bail and walk, even though I was starting to see stars. I chided him for laughing at my suffering, which made him laugh even harder. The last 10 miles home were an agonizing crawl after that.