Ride Across Indiana - Training Evaluation

I felt that I was well prepared for RAIN this year, and I think my time bears that out. It is no easy task to average 21 mph over 165 miles. True, I did get help from drafting, but so did everyone else out there. The event was tough, but I was trained for it. What follows is a list of the high points of my training and an evaluation of what I did.

Total Amount of Miles
I had 3250 miles before leaving for Indiana for the year. A big part of the preparation for these sorts of events is that you need a large bulk of miles, and I had that. In these 3200 miles, I had a well established endurance base. When I got up around 1800 miles for the year, I could feel my speed increase, telling me that my legs had accumulated enough miles so I could work on strength and power, and not just endurance. One of the things about these rides is that there is no substitute for time in the saddle, and I had this. It is hard for me to say I could have done more miles, as 3200 in half a year is a significant amount.

Long Rides
To do an event that is a long ride you need to train by doing long rides. It would seem natural that if you have 3200 miles in half a year, this is the case. In my case, it was. Before RAIN, I had completed 6 rides of 100 or more miles. And I wasn't just hitting the century mark and calling it quits. 4 of those rides were over 127 miles and another was 109 miles. Further, I had two rides that just missed the century mark, a 97.5 and 95 miler. So I didn't just have a lot of time on the bike, I was accustomed to being on the bike for a full day at a time. If I had only been doing 75 or even 100 mile rides, doing 165 in a day is quite a jump. But I had been used to doing 130+, so RAIN wasn't a big jump for me.

Finally, on these long rides, I varied my routes quite a bit. I rode to Madison. I was in the Navarino area a lot, but all of these routes were different in some way. One went to Waupaca. One went to Tigerton. One of the rides was the GLR 200 km brevet. So I got accustomed to doing long rides on different routes, which is also important.

Weather
When an event is your main goal for a season, you have to be prepared to ride no matter what the weather. Normally we associate this to getting some riding in while it is rainy (no pun intended), and I did that. Not many, but enough that I still knew all my equipment worked and I kept my familiarity up with wet conditions.

As it turned out, it was a blistering hot and humid day. But I had done similar training rides. The ride to Madison was a hot humid day. So was the ride on July 4th. And both of those were rides over 100 miles. So yes, the heat and humidity was hard during RAIN, but I'd been there before. On those training rides, I had probably not hydrated enough, so I was prepared to hydrate adequately on the day of my event. This is always important. On event day, I had no problem because I had seen similar conditions in training. And any mistakes I had made in training, I had corrected by event day.

Taper
Two weeks before RAIN, I started to taper so I could peak for the event. The first week of tapering, I still did 174 miles (down from 266 the previous week). I was still feeling a little tired though. Part of this was due to all the miles from previous weeks and still a lot in the taper week. Part was probably due to the heat and humidity we had that week. The week directly in front of RAIN I did just 62 miles before heading down to Terre Haute. As it turned out, this was perfect. I was rested and ready to go the day of the event. So a two week taper realy seemed to work out well.

Other
I have done only a couple group rides this year. Part of it is my schedule, part of it is lack of interest in riding with a group, part of it is a hard time finding others with similar goals. The downside of this is that riding in the pack at RAIN, I didn't have a lot of recent experience riding in the peleton. But I've done enough of this before to get by. The upside though, was I was used to being out front all by myself. So getting into a pack, things were much easier because now I had people to draft off of. I didn't have any cheap miles in my training where I sucked wheels all day. Just the reverse. I was used to doing all the work, so getting some help in the pack was a refreshing change.

A lot of the roads I train on in Wisconsin are very rural roads. These have what one would call slow pavement. It is rough, hard to go fast on and takes a lot of energy. Much of RAIN is on US Highway 40, a road with a smooth asphalt surface. So once again, my training on bad roads helped me, because in this way, my training conditions were harder than the event conditions.

What Could I Have Done Better?
It is hard to improve on a 21+ mph average, but one can always improve. First, a little more speed work in terms of intervals would have been nice when riding with the pack. The pack tends to accelerate and decelerate quite a bit. Not supposed to be this way, but it happens. I could always close gaps down, but I was more like a diesel engine doing it. Some speed work would have helped my be a little more nimble for those quick burst of acceleration one needs.

The other area I could improve on is core strength. This is always a weakness of mine that I never seem to get motivated to work on. There were a couple times my back was a little sore. That happens on a long ride. But some better core strength would help this.

Overall though, I have to say I am pleased. I trained a lot, and that training paid off. I think my time proves that what I did in training was effective. Could you do RAIN by riding less miles. Sure. You wouldn't go as fast, but you could. But part of training is to make sure you are prepared for whatever comes at you on the day of the event, and in this way, I felt like my training had prepared me in every way.

Ride Across Indiana 2010

On Saturday, July 17, I completed Ride Across Indiana. This is an event put on annually by the Bloomington Bike Club and does just what the name implies--cross the state of Indiana. The ride starts on the western border just outside Terre Haute and finished on the easter border in Richmond. This year, the official distance was 160 miles.


The route is straightforward. For most of its distance, it follows US Highway 40 west to east. The only exception is going through Indianapolis, they skirt around some of the city by using smaller roads. Since most traffic takes I-70 these days, US 40 is a good road to ride on. It is a 4 lane divided highway. The road surface is well maintained and smooth. Other than the section around Indianapolis, there are not many turns and twists on this ride. Just follow US 40 and keep going.

I made the decision to ride from my hotel in Terre Haute to the start line. Many other riders do the same. My reasoning was this was easier than getting my wife and two year old daughter up at 6:00 AM to drive me to the start. So at 6:15 AM, I started off west to the start line over at the Illinois border. This added 8.1 miles to my total for the day, but oh well.

Even though it was still fairly dark at 6:15 AM, it was hot and muggy. The night before, you could feel the heat radiating up from the asphalt, and not much had dissipated over the night. A bank sign said 73, but the humidity was very high. This would be a sign of how the whole day would be. National weather Service recorded high temps into the 90's throughout Indiana on Saturday. But the killer was that high humidity. Plus, on a road bike, you are out on the pavement all day, so you really feel that heat from the ground come back up at you. A couple miles in, my jersey was soaked with sweat. It would stay that way all day.

The official start time is 7:00 AM. I lined up with 1550 other riders at the state line. Even though they go to great lengths to stress this is a ride and not a race, it is basically a race from the opening gun. The first few miles are pretty dangerous with people jockeying for position. I actually had another rider bump me while he was passing me in Terre Haute. Really stupid to put everyone's safety at risk like this, but people do it. It seems like you get more than 3 cyclists together and everything has to become a race.

I settled into the B group on the road outside of Terre Haute. The pace was very fast, 24-28 mph most of the time. Smetimes it would drop down to 21 or 22. These were actually the most dangerous times, when someone in the front slowed down for an unknown reason and sent everyone reaching for their brakes. I did not witness any crashes, but you had to be very alert.

We were quickly at the first rest stop at mile 42. On a hot day like this, it is so important to stay hydrated, so I stopped. Almost all of the B group continued. What I discovered is that on RAIN, most people bring personal support vehicles, so they have friends and family standing on the side of the road handing them water and food. Unfortunately, this contributes to too many riders thinking they are in the ProTour and makes this more like a circus/race. But whatever, I am doing my ride, so I did a minimal stop, got gatorade and a banana and continued on. I will say, the rest stops are well organized. They have a lot of food and they do keep all the fluids cold. So important on a hot day like today.

On the road, I was able to quickly come into another group of 4 riders, and then a group of about 20 riders. I guess you would call this the C group. Once again, we made very good time, 24-26 mph for a lot of it, and were sweeping up remnants of the B group I was with earlier. I think some of these folks maybe didn't have support vehicles, but were so swept up in going fast, they decided to skip the first stop. But on a hot day like this day, this was a huge mistake and these riders were now paying the price.

Rest stop 2 was at 65 miles, and once again I stopped while a large part of the group went on. I was really going through the fluids now, and I knew the order of the day was hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. So once again, a minimal stop and back on the road. I got in a group of 15-20 riders, and we kept making good time, though now more at a 20-23 mph. Some of this was due to having less firepower for sure. But also, some fatigue was probably setting in for everyone and more importantly, the heat was starting to take a toll. On this section, it really seemed liek the heat and humidity jumped up at us. Finally, this was a section through the outskirts of Indy, so a lot more turns and stops and such. Still, we were making good time.

Lunch was at mile 91. I didn't really want to eat, but on long rides like this, you must, so I ate a sandwich. I also had 3 tall glasses of lemonade. This was good because I needed the fluids, it was cold, and it was not gatorade. There was only one topic of conversation at lunch, and that was the heat.

Some of the folks I was riding with were staying at lunch waiting for another rider, so I set out from lunch with a different group of about 20 riders. We were making great progress, 22-24 mph so stretches, and then I hit a stretch of bad pavement and my water bottle flew out. I retrieved it, but was now about 30 seconds behind the group. In an event like this, unless you bring your own group, no one is waiting. I didn't think I would catch them, but then crossing some railroad tracks, my water bottle came out again. So now I was not going to catch them for sure. So I just rode my own pace, which was about 20 mph. In some ways it was nice to be out of a group, because all the groups were so nervous and jumpy. Now I could just ride.

The stretch between lunch and rest stop 3 (at mile 132) is very long and probably the hardest. It is not the terrain, as the whole ride is flat. It is just long, and you are out in the heat of the day. I did hook up with two other riders about mile 110 and we worked together to share the load almost the whole way into the rest area. But it was still hard and the heat just would not go down. The last couple miles into rest area 3, I just could not get cooled off. I still had fluids, but they were hot, so while wet, not much relief there. And the sun kept beating own and the humidity would not go away. Plus, you have rode 130+ (in my case 138+) fast miles, and you don't have the same legs you did at the start.

I would say Rest Area 3 came at the right time, but I would have really preferred it getting there about 5 miles sooner. I saw several riders taking extended breaks now. I took a little longer break, probably 15 minutes here. I downed some water and a whole bottle of cold gatorade, plus had a freezie while I was there. That really helped me to cool off and feel normal again. I sat down for about10 minutes. You don't want to sit down too long and have your body start to shut down, but I needed to sit a little so could stop expending energy and let my body recover a little bit. So by the time I left, I was feeling normal again. And of course you feel good because you are on the last stretch, a mere 30 miles to go to the finish.

I rode most of the last 30 miles alone. There were not many people to hook up wth, and everyone is riding their own pace at this point. You go through a couple of interesting small towns as you get close to Richmond. They have some really cool buildings and downtown's which are unfortunately in disrepair as these town's die. US 40 was once the main street of America. But no more. Plus, America is more about cities now and not small town's. So it is a little sad to see these town's formed in the 1820's and 1830's slowly disappear.

The finish was at Earlham College in Richmond, a Quaker college. Beautiful campus, full of trees and old buildings. You come up the main road, make a right turn and in 100 meters you are done. They call out your number to record your time, a photographer takes your picture and the hand you your key chain. A few families and friends are on hand to cheer, but not too many. From here, they have a final rest area set up to get something cold to drink and lots of places under shady trees. And that is it.

I finished at 3:26 PM according to my cell phone. So 8 hours, 26 minutes of ride time. Including my 8.1 miles from the hotel to the start line, I had 165.6 miles on my computer, so the RAIN distance I had was around 157 miles. Not sure who was off three miles. My average speed, including the time from the hotel was 21.0 mph, so I would have been a little faster on the actual course because I did not push it from the hotel. So I met all my goals. I finished, I rode fast and I rode far.



I'll have more to say in the next few days.

109 Miles for the 4th

With two weeks to go before Indiana, today was going to be my last long ride in preparation. Unfortunately, the weather has not really wanted to cooperate. Both days this weekend, we have had a lot of wind, and that was true today. And it was very hot and humid. At the same time though, you can't always just train when the wind is at your back and the temp is 72. So I needed to get a long ride in, so out I went.

My route would take me back to Iola. I have been there before when I did my big Waupaca loop of 130 miles. But today's ride would be a simple out and back with Iola as the turn around. This would get me a little bit over a century. The reason for the out and back is that storms were forecast to roll in during the afternoon. With an out and back, if it starts to look real nasty, you can turn at any point. Finally, this would take me through Manawa, and I'd been around that area but never through, so a little something new.

New London-Manawa-Iola Out Route

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I started off about 8:45 AM this morning. It was already a muggy, humid day. I could tell this one was going to be a real sticky ride right from the beginning. Its bad when there isn't much difference between the dewpoint and the temp, and that was today. I think the humidity was about 65-70%. Right from the start, my bike jersey was soaked, and I remind you, these are fabrics that are designed to wick the sweat away and keep you dry.

The other factor apparent from the start was the wind. It was coming out of the Southwest at 15 mph. Going west was hard, but after the first few miles, my legs loosened up and I was able to make OK progress into it. It still took a lot of energy though. There were times the wind seemed to be coming more from the south rather than the Southwest, but still just as strong. I did get a bit of an assist from it on the way back, until I had to go due south. See, the wind had been actually picking up all day, so when I got back to Appleton, it was blowing at 25 gusting to 32 mph. Just insane.

As for the rest of the ride. The route to New London is nothing special. I took Rock road out which is always nice and a little roll. Once getting to New London, I took County Road X out of town to the west. This is nice because you go along the banks of the river for a few miles. A lot of folks out fishing today. County X heads more south at the Little Wolf River, but this is where I turned off on Ostrander Road to keep going west. Nice area in here. Good views of the river. Very rural.

From there, you get on 54 real quick and then onto County B to head up to Manawa. This is real nice in here. The little Wolf River is off to your left, mostly hidden by a tree line but occasionally peaking through. In Manawa, I stopped to refuel, then continued west. You go through Ogdensburg, which has no services (well, a couple bars, but I'm never brave enough to go in those in cycling wear. I'd have to be real desperate). Then it is onto Iola. There starts to be more roll to the terrain the closer to Iola you get. These are the Rib Mountains. Not really mountains, but hills from a rock formation. Nothing serious to climb, but you know it isn't flat either.

In Iola, I stopped at the Cenex, which is nice because it has a covered place to eat. But I didn't stay out there, just got my Gatorade and headed back. It was clouding up good, and I wanted to keep moving. This weekend, they were having the old time car show in Iola, so it would have been cool to have some more time, but not today. I did get to see a number of the old cars on the road as they passed me though.

A lot of good river scenery today. I saw a lot of folks enjoying the 4th tubing down the river, fishing, whatever. And it was hot enough today that there were times where that seemed a lot more attractive than what I was doing.

Friends of yours?

Wolf River just West of New London. This area is an
important spawning area for sturgeon.

Little Wolf River off Ostrander Road.

Coming into Manawa (notice water tower in the background).
Water towers are important to cyclists in the Midwest
because it lets you know you are getting close to town.

Little Wolf River in Little Wolf. A nice way to spend
the 4th, floating down the river.

136 Miles in Rural Wisconsin

I am planning to do Ride Across Indiana in three weeks, so I wanted to get a long training ride in today in preparation. RAIN is about 157 miles, so I wanted to do around 130-135 or so. This would build on last weekends ride of 100 miles. I'll do one more week of hard training and then start my taper.

Today's ride draws heavily from the routes I've been doing in the Navarino area. Part of the reason is I just like the area. And part of the reason was that the wind was supposed to be out of the north today. So heading north seemed like a good move. So I would go out my normal way to Embarrass, but instead of looping back, I would do an additional loop through Caroline, Tigerton and Marion. Here is a map of the route.

Appleton - Tigerton 135

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This turned out to be a difficult ride. It was not especially hot (high of 79, but it was humid), so that made it tough. The north wind never materialized. Instead a stiff breeze blew most of the day out of the east. So after turning around in Tigerton, it was a tough slog back to Appleton. And as usual, I seem good at finding some of the worst pavement in the state to ride on.

In two sections, I actually wasn't on pavement at all. First, out of Tigerton, I didn't want to be on Highway 45 due to the fast traffic. So I jumped over on the Wiowash State Trail for about 3 miles. The surface is crushed limestone, but my 700x23 tires handles it no problem. My speed was decent too, 17+ most the time I was on it.

Then, east of Embarrass, I took a new route back to cross the Wolf River. I was on Hunters lane, where the pavement was terrible. Totally gone in places. And then it was totally gone, as in I was on a dirt road for about 2-3 miles. It was OK, not as good as the Wiowash trail because the dirt road is intended more for cars than bikes, but I was able to make it through. The good part was though the whole road was enclosed in tall trees, so it was very scenic.

When you get out west of Embarrass, the ground does get hillier. These are the Rib mountains, not mountains in the sense of Colorado, but more roll to the terrain. Farms seem to be smaller here, with most of the hilltops covered with pine forests. Scenic area. Lots of interesting rock outcroppings too. County M into Tigerton and County SS coming back were both especially good.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest.

Horses north of Shiocton


Small farm near Caroline. Hard to see in the photo, but there are hills


Tree with interesting wildflowers


Rural Wisconsin has lots of interesting old churches


Entering Tigerton


You wish all the roads were like this


This works too

Navarino Area 100

One of my favorite areas to ride in the Appleton area in the Navarino area. It can roughly be described as the area east of the wolf river, west of Highway 47, north of Highway 54 out of Shiocton and south of Highway 29 south of Shawano. Much of the area is home to a nature preserve, so it is wooded. This adds a lot more interest than row after row of corn. I also like this area because it is possible to ride there from Appleton. No need to get in a car and drive two hours.

On Sunday, I rode out of Appleton via Rock Road, and then up to Shiocton. North on Highway 187, crossing the Wolf River on Highway 156. Up to Embarrass where I took my first stop. Then Cloverleaf Lake Road past the lakes and back East of the Wolf River, crossing on County CCC. This time, I wound around County T to get to Sunrise, Valley and Wildlife roads to eventually end up on Lower Navarino. I think I like taking McDonald road better. A better quality surface, and more scenic. Back down past Deer View Road and into Black Creek for another stop, and then back to Appleton. Of the 100 miles I did, probably a good 50+ were in wooded areas.

The area is very low traffic too. Once you get off of Rock Road, you see very few cars. The area around Cloverleaf Lakes is built up, but it is OK. And some of the road is very scenic.

I took a few pictures, so I will let them tell the rest of the story.

Rolling West on Highway 156


Wolf River from the Boat Landing on Highway 156


Don't even want to know how they came up with the name.


Typical Wisconsin Dairy Farm


Crossing the Wolf River again on County CCC

Appleton to Madison

I've toyed with this idea for a while. What if I rode from Appleton to Madison? A one way ride? Just to say I did it? My wife could drive down separately and bring a change of clothes and meet me at the hotel. Me, I'd get in a full day of riding, a long day (130 miles) of riding, and a true randonneur experience. If all went well, I could event submit the route to RUSA to be a permanent. It is an idea that has been swimming around in my head since last fall.

On Saturday, I finally made that idea a reality. I had booked a hotel and packed the car with all bag for a change of clothes in Madison. I'd finalized my route and printed up my cue sheet. So at 7:15 AM Saturday morning when I rolled out of my driveway, there would be no coming back. This was a one way trip.

I used the fairly conventional route to get out of Appleton--Prospect Avenue to American Drive to Shady Lane. Then Clayton Road to Larson Road to County G and on and on into Winneconne. I've been on these roads lots of times before, so this was all very familiar. What I could tell, even early in the morning, was that today was going to be hot and muggy. So I was trying to make sure I consumed enough fluids, even early on in the ride. I did a minimalist stop in Winneconne at the Kwik Trip, refilling on Gatorade. And then back on the bike.

From Winneconne, you are on Highway 116 for a brief bit, then Quigley road and O'Reilly Road. O'Reilly Road is really nice for about a mile. Tall trees on each side form a virtual canopy. I was thinking to myself it would be nice to ride on roads like this all day. Quickly though, you are out of that and down to Edgewater Road. The surface on Edwater Road is pretty tore up. It is what one of my friends would call slow pavement and you need to watch out for the rougher spots. But you are up on a ridge, so you get a nice view of the valleys to the south and east. Lots of green fields and trees below.

After Edgewater Road, it is County Road E, through Eureka and into Ripon. About the only thing notable on County E is that in most places, the pavement is in good shape. Then it is into Ripon. I stopped at the BP, refilled fluids and had an energy bar and was off again. I tried to keep my stops short today.

I have been to Ripon before on the bike, but after Ripon, this was all new. And seeing as Ripon was at the 51 mile mark, it truly was the point of no return. I saw another rider in Ripon coming back from his ride, so we chatted for a couple minutes until he turned off and I continued on. I was pretty much heading due south now on County Road A and then County Road N. County Road N was some more of that slow, rough pavement. I hate that stuff. But it is also what we ride on a lot in our brevets, so it is suitable training. On County N, there are 3 or 4 good rolling hills, probably about 150-200 feet in elevation each. The last one comes just east or Markeson. It isn't overly difficult, but you get to look at it for a while before you go up it, so it plays on your mind a little.

The next stop was Randolph, so after skirting Fox Lake, it was a quick couple miles into Randolph. I stopped at the Shell station in town. It would have been better to stop at the one south of town as it is larger and probably has more of a selection. But the Shell in town met all my needs. By now, it was about 12:30, and it was really getting hot. So more fluids were in order before setting off for Columbus.

Soutrh of Randolph, I got onto County Road G and then County road DG. I really liked County DG. Curvy so it had some visual interest, and a few small hills to climb too. The hills were not bad, but now I was feeling them. It was hot, and I had 85 miles in my legs. I got through the small town of Fall River (no services) and turned off to head into Columbus. I remember just south of town, there was this nice Creek, very pretty and all wooded. I especially enjoyed the shade. The temp was in the mid 80's by now, humid, and sunny skies, no clouds at all. The shade felt nice, and I kept hoping a cloud or two would roll in, but no luck on that all day.

At the north end of Columbus, they have a statue of who else but Christopher Columbus, so I stopped to snap a picture. Getting into town, I stopped at the Kwik Trip. This Kwik Trip is the same one that was one of our controls on the GLR 400 km brevet last year. And across the street, the same Burger King where we all chowed down dinner. No Burger King for me this time, but heading into the Kwik Trip, I did plan to stop a little longer and eat something more substantial. I did not have much of an appetite at this point because of the heat, but I knew I had to eat something. I did down a soda, have a Chicken-Monterey Jack Tornado (rolled Chicken and cheese thing) and a yogurt smoothie. It would have been good to eat more, but in such hot conditions, it is hard to eat more.

Leaving Columbus, I was now on my last leg into Madison, about 33 miles. This is when the ride got really tough. Up to Columbus, my average speed had been 18.2 mph. When I got to Madison, it was 17.7 mph. Maybe a little bit of that was due to stop and go in Madison, but some of that was I was just plain tired. The heat and distance were starting to take a toll on me. My legs didn't have the same zip. For whatever reason, the terrain just seemed more desolate too. Maybe because I was struggling for about 10 miles and it was hot. Just everwhere it seemed like I was in the middle of a cornfield. And, the wind had come up from the southeast, so I had a it of a headwind to go into.

At mile 117, I crested a small hill that had some trees at the top and stopped to take a 5 minute rest. This helped a lot. Sure, my legs were still tired, but I was able to catch my breath and regroup a little. What really helped too was that in about 6 more miles, I was on the outskirts of Madison. It was great. I was here. I was on this 4 line boulevard that had nice wide bike lanes on either side. Hooray, hooray. Sure, there would be Madison traffic, but a bike lane, I am happy. I worked my way over to Monona Road and started to head south to the hotel. No bike lane here, but cars seemed to be fine with me there. Madison is used to bikers after all. And sure enough, at mile 130.5, the hotel. I had made it.

I checked in, called my wife to let here know I was there (she was shopping at the mall) and got a drink to try to cool off. A shower felt good. So did some good Thai food. As did a swim in the pool later that night.

A ride of 130 miles is always a big effort. On a ride that long, you are going to have some rough spots. I did, between Columbus and Madison. What I think people also fail to realize is that you aren't just battling the distance on these. There is always something else that makes things hard. Often that something is the weather. Today it was heat and humidity. It wasn't Texas or Virginia hot, but it was up there. And after being in it all day, the heat will take the energy out of you. I did a good job of drinking and staying hydrated. Still though, I probably could have done even better. Having some water to douse on my head during the ride would have been nice too. Hate to devote a whole bottle to just water to douse on myself, but it may be something to figure out how to do.

The final stats were 130.5 miles, 17.7 mph avg speed, 8 hours, 30 minutes of total time, 6 hours 20 minutes of ride time. Overall, I think that is excellent. Some of those roads are pretty rough, so they really slow you down. Under 9 hours of total time is very good. I'll try to improve next time, but today, I am happy to say I have actually done it. I've rode from Appleton to Madison.

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.