So you like to climb the hills on your bike? There are days when I do, too.
Of course, I don't have a choice. My neighborhood sits at about the 300-foot elevation mark above the lakeside bicycle route that brings me home. It can be a grind at the end of a bike ride, but it helps me gauge how fit I am or ensures that I get a good workout if I've been loafing.
Mind you, I don't go out looking for hills. I don't have to around here in the Pacific NW. They're everywhere. (Not like where I used to live in the Central Valley of California; freeway overpasses posed the only vertical challenges.)
Some cyclists do search out the hills. Here's some stuff I've run across recently from Pittsburgh, Austin, and Seattle.
Pittsburgh
Today marks the 23rd annual Dirty Dozen bike ride (picture above), when cyclists ride their bikes over the 13 nastiest hills in town. Organizers expected about 40 riders to participate.
The baddest of the bad is the 37 percent grade on Canton Avenue in Beechview. Here's a map of the route.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the bike race was started by brothers Danny and Tom Chew back in 1983. Danny has twice won the Race Across America in eight days — with just three hours sleep a night — so you know where he's coming from.
Danny tells the newspaper:
“I don't give out prizes. If you win, you get the prestige of being the best hill climber in Pittsburgh.”
Seattle
There's a cyclist, Eric Gunnerson, in Seattle who must like to climb. He's created a website entitled simply Bicycle Climbs of Seattle. Why? According to the website: “Because pain is the sign of weakness leaving your body.”
The website lists more than 60 climbs between Golden Gardens (.3 miles long, 231 elevation gain, 16% gradient with a max of 25%) in the west to Snoqualmie Falls (1.2 mile long, 312 foot elevation gain, 8% gradient with a max of 12%) in the east.
The webmaster combined Google Maps with Topo USA to come up with the map and info. He'll even do your favorite hill as long as you live in the Seattle area and can give him some coordinates. Eventually, he plans to move to another website that can generate the info dynamically, allow users to enter their own climbs, rate the climbs and discuss climbs.
I'd say the future is looking up.
Austin
Most of Texas is flat as a tortilla, but Austin is in Hill Country so it has some interesting terrain for cycling. Just ask Lance Armstrong.
The Austin American Statesman (free registration) recently published a list of 13 climbs in the area. I remember one of them, the 3% to 15% Comanche Trail, being an optional detour on a previous Ride for the Roses. It was just about a deal breaker for me.
The hills on the list are relatively short, but the steepest, coming up from the lakes, are 19% or so. A major downer are the caveats about speeding, reckless or drunken motorists that frequent these roads as well.
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