My coach had instructions for my long bike ride today; he said “Choose a Hilly Route”.  Challenge accepted!

Fortunately, Western Pennsylvania is not flat.  We don’t have mountains, but the topography is such, that finding hills to climb on the bike, is quite easy.  Big, long hills are hard to find, but there are literally hundreds of smaller hills to chose from.

So as I left home this morning, I already knew of a couple of areas, with good hills, to go to.  The only part of my planned route that was new to me, was a long country road that connected these two areas.  That road turned out to be a perfect choice, as you will find out below.

The first part of my ride took me to Moraine State Park, where I stopped for a quick snack (homemade rice cakes) and where I took the photo above.  This is the lake where I do my open water swimming.  This ride to the State Park, was mostly quite flat, but a few hills towards the end, gave me almost 2,000 feet of elevation gain, in the 27 miles I had covered.

I left the park, and after back tracking for a few miles, started on the new and unknown part of my ride.  I quickly discovered that I had made a good choice.  There were plenty of ups and downs and the road surface was excellent.  I will definitely ride these roads again.

The other really good part of this new route, was the discovery of a really challenging climb.  I later discovered that the Strava segment covering this climb is called “The Wall”.  It is a good description. The climb was only about a third of a mile long, but it was really steep.  The overall, average grade was almost 13%, but the grade in middle section, was a challenging 20+%. The steepest part was 23.6%.  I was out of the saddle to climb this one!

I eventually made it to a small village called Renfrew, where I knew of several other good climbs, and stopped by the river for another quick snack (more rice cakes).  I had now completed 47 miles, and my total elevation gain was now close to 4,000 feet. 

The final part of my ride was about 15 miles long and included another 1,200 feet of climbing.  I rode past Butler Regional Airport and took a very familiar route home. 

My total ride today was just over 62 miles long, and included almost 5,200 feet of climbing.  I think I might have successfully… “Chosen A Hilly Route”!