Name Your Hill.

[10ch]

You know the one... on bad days you dread it (or avoid it if you can), on good days you take it ON! It potentially divides your ride... Part 1: Pre-Hill, Part 2: Post-Hill. Maybe you have more than one... maybe your "hill" is a pot-holed road with no shoulder or a hard left turn. Name it!

Here are my "hills":

"Dead Man's Hill" a massive climb located in Maple Wood cemetery.

"The Last Hoorah" another challenging hill just a couple blocks from my house.

"The Tightrope" a stretch of road where there's no shoulder, the road is crap and the cars are plentiful.

"The @#$%^ you ALL turn!" a left turn on a very busy road that I have to cross over to get to. Sometimes I go through a bad neighborhood w/an annoying hill just to avoid the $%^&* you ALL turn.

[mimitabby]

Well, Beacon Hill is where I live, and every single street that accesses it is a hill.
The one in particular that kind of gloats at me when i ride by it (avoiding it) is Graham street's hill.
Then there's HOLGATE...

[alpinerabbit]

The "you can kiss my @rse" inroad where I admittedly take the sidewalk to get past the traffic jam.

the bitçh - a local pass that is just close enough to do it on an afternoon but 10 km long and pretty steep

the ramp of Wetzwil (a hamlet) where a local pro race passes 5x and I used to struggle and will still only do it once

Etzel, a biker's worst enemy with a 17% grade and the rest is 10-12%.

the time trap - 3 switchbacks that nearly killed me the first time and they look identical so I thought I was in a time trap.

[Kimmyt]

from my commute:

-the 'you're not there yet' hill, a long hill on a busy highway followed by a slight break where you think you're done, followed by a steep climb, followed by a slight break where you AGAIN think you're done, followed by an insanely steep section that leaves huffing and puffing at the gates to get into my workplace (no doubt the laughing stock of all drivers and security people)

from my normal rides:

-Mt. Misery, a mile-long hill of long slooooow climbing that leaves you wondering why on earth you ever took up cycling, and if it's possible that you could WALK up the hill faster

-Mt. Joy, a steep and switchback-y hill that, surprisingly, compared to Mt. Misery, IS a joy!... also followed by a screaming descent on a road with no opposing traffic and lots of fun but scary turns looking over the spread of Valley Forge park

-the Wind Tunnel, not actually a hill, but instead a deceptively flat section of bike trail that runs along the highway and sometimes feels like a hill, when you're headed home on it (west-bound on the Schuylkill trail) and you break out into this section from the shaded and tree-lined part of the trail it can feel like someone punched you, the headwind is that strong. For some reason it's always more windy in this section, only about a half mile long, but it's usually at the end of a ride so it's the last thing you need...

K.

[Geonz]

Snork.

The "Hey! This could almost be called a hill!!!" coming out of Prospect that I can actually get out of breath on. Then the "Hey! It must hve been a hill because I'm going down it now!" hill where I try to hit 25 mph if the school traffic permits.

Welcome to the prairie :-)

[MomOnBike]

Going to work it's called The Commute. One grind uphill 'til I get to a screaming downhill (up to 30mph in 2 blocks) that is interrupted by the busiest street in town. "But Mommy! I don't wanna brake!" screams my inner 2-yo.

Going home there is a block-long hill that some days I'd swear is vertical. I've logged as low as 3.2 mph on that section. When done with that, its downhill rollers all the way home. Wheeee! I haven't named the hill, but it has my number.

[nicolezoie]

I wish I knew the grade percent of the hills I commute on daily. My guess is they're between 5-8%, but they're fairly short - no more than a mile or two.

I haven't given names to the hills, but my weekday commute includes a hill that just goes on and on. At times when I was in better shape, I could make it up the first part of the hill at a steady 8mph+, but these days I'm lucky if I can keep it between 6-8mph. That same hill, going downhill, I don't dare look down at my speedo only because I'm going 45mph+ and the cars don't care that I'm going as fast as they are. The hill has two parts - the first part is the 6-8mph part, and the second part winds thru a neighborhood but steadily climbs higher and higher until I'm at the top of one of the highest hills in town. It's quite a spectacular view from up there.

My weekend commute includes a hill that starts out in a false flat, but then I hit the true climb. Usually I'm able to do that climb at 7-8 mph, then it flattens out into a brief false flat, then the final portion of the climb I'm able to do around 8 mph. The other hill in my weekend commute is probably one of the steepest climbs in town, but it's less than 1/4 mile long and hardly worth mentioning because of how short it is. The downhill portion of that climb is fast enough that I leave my lighting rig on my bike year around so cars don't decide to pull out of the residential street near the bottom.

[Bron]

Not a hill, but the railway bridge is a pain - I can´t avoid it as I live on one side and work on the other. It´s windy on the top and there is always a traffic jam of r-e-a-l-l-y--s-l-o-w people on the cycle path.

[Jolt]

Not on a commuting or errand route, but on a ride I did this past Sunday and will probably do again: a large part of the ride was on a road called Brigham Hill Road, which has a long climb followed by a long descent (the fun part!). The climb is pretty tough, especially coming back home. I've decided to start calling that road Brutal Hill Road!

[Blueberry]

which hills these are?? As a fellow bull city resident, inquiring minds want to know....

My current 2 nemeses are:

751 from Erwin Rd. up to Kerley road - not that steep, but a b!tch

Couch Mountain Climb on Cornwallis - Double UGH!

CA

[spokewench]

I like hills so I don't have any I really hate except one! It is a hill on our bike trail system in town. It really is not all that bad, short, but pretty steep. It is just right in the beginning of my commute to work, never warmed up, don't want to ride that hard that early in my ride to work, cold as h*$# in the winter, and don't really like to ride hard on a commute ride - so it is just a pain!

[Trekhawk]

the time trap - 3 switchbacks that nearly killed me the first time and they look identical so I thought I was in a time trap.

LOL - sorry rabbit that can't be fun but it nearly made me snort my tea.

[singletrackmind]

What my husband refers to as the Seven Hills Of The Apocalypse. Twenty miles with a succession of seven of the nastiest hills we can get. UGH! Thank goodness a MO hill can only go up for so long, too bad they don't seem to have heard of a switchback around here so straight up is how it goes.

Then again, it's always kind of cool to realize - as you're throwing your weight at the pedal in the tiniest gear cause it's the only possible way to move forward - that you don't weigh near enough. More chocolate, please.

There are several hills that rival these, but not all in a row like 'em.

[10ch]

which hills these are?? As a fellow bull city resident, inquiring minds want to know....

Fellow Bull Citizen, eh? Awesome!

"Dead Man's Hill" is in Maple Wood cemetery (go in main entrance off Duke University Rd.), bear left at the circle you come to, go down a hill, take first "road" on left and then take any hill option you see to get out of the cemetery... the one I usually take is the shorter, but steeper one on the far left.

"The Last Hoorah" is off of Mossdale Ave, which is off of University Dr. There are two ways to do it. The hard way is to take Victor on the down hill, which puts you right at the bottom of the climb on Sherbon. The easy way is to go all the way down Mossdale til you get to Sherbon. Bomb down the hill and use that as momentum to climb the other side. The down side is that Victor lets out at the bottom of the hill, so you have to make sure no cars are coming b/c you'll have a lot of speed coming down the hill.

"The Tightrope" is the short stretch of road from turning onto Chapel Hill Street from University Dr. until you reach that church that I'm blanking on the name of... it's where I vote. Anyway, it's before the road widens a bit and before you reach Cornwallis.

"The @#$%^ you ALL turn!" is on University Drive. I have to cross over to turn left onto Mossdale Ave. Crossing over traffic on University isn't bad at all in the mornings, but it's a #$%^ in afternoon/evening.

Are you doing the ride of silence tonight?

[stacie]

Embrace your hills. Hill work here consists of riding back and forth over a bridge. I know every shard of glass, pebble and crack by the end of hill day. s