De Pere Hill Route

Just east of De Pere, there is a ridge that sits above the valley. Quite a few rural roads go up the ridge, so I put together a route where I can climb up one road, descend another and then climb up the ridge again. Since we don't have any real big climbs in the area, this is what one has to do in order to get some vertical in. The other option is just to do hill repeats, but it is a little more interesting to go up and down different roads.

Depere Hill Route

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I started the route in West De Pere from my employer. After crossing the river, I hopped on the bike trail to get down to Rockland Road. From there, I took Rockland out to County PP. County PP does not have a shoulder and there is a little bit of fast traffic on it, so in the future I might use Ryan Road to get down to Old Martin first.

The first climb is up County Road W. At first is just a grinding climb. You are going up gradually. Then at the end, it ramps up for probably an eighth of a mile. All told, it is about 250 feet of elevation gain.

Turning left onto Ledge Crest Drive, you pedal on the top of the ridge for a while. This section of the ride is beautiful. The roads are very quiet and forested on either side. You are only a few miles from Green Bay, but it feels like you are in Door County.

You drop down through more forested terrain onto Sportman's Drive. When you get to County X, you turn right and start climbing again. This is another climb totaling about 250 feet. It really has three main sections where it ramps up, then flattens out, and then ramps up again. After getting to the top of the ridge, you take a left on Morrison and ride past an active quarry to get to Scray's hill.

You actually start on top of Scray's hill, and need to get over to Chicago street first. After descending, you turn left at the Golf Course to start coming back up Scray's Hill Road. There is about 200 feet of total climbing here, though it comes in about 0.8 miles. The first part of the climb is a grind that will send you into your small chain ring. But it is the last part, as the road turns to the left that is the killer. The grade really kicks up here, probably 12% or so. You better already be in the easiest gear you have. The steep section isn't that long, maybe 100-150 meters, but it seems to take forever when you are only going 5 mph.

Once back on top of Scray's, a left hand turn will take you back to Chicago street and descending back towards De Pere again. After passing the golf course on my way down again, I took the next left onto Oak Cliff Circle. There are a number of very well to do homes in this area, and most of the lots are wooded. There is also a little roll to the road, so another hill or too. Nothing like the three above, but you will know these are there. This road is also nice because it gets you back into De Pere with much less traffic than Chicago Street.

According to bikely.com, I got about 1200 feet of climbing in today. Not bad for this area. This is really a cool route too because a lot of it is on very quiet country roads that are very scenic. Maybe in the future I can even find a couple more hills to add to it.