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Sunday Hill Repeats

Although it’s fully six months away, there’s no time like the present to begin training for the BikeJournal Reunion. Especially after having read of the exploits of SuperNana and the Hypoxiettes.

It was forecast for the upper 30s, but Yellow Bike stayed home because I figured the roads would be wet with snowmelt. I was right. I was grateful for the Portland’s fenders.

The climb up from BeeBee Station.
After making yellow snow, I took this shot of the climb up from BeeBee Station.
Although I’d planned on hill repeats, I wanted to keep the difficulty high, so when I put on the the wheelset with the road tires, I kept the 12-23 “flatlander” cassette on it.

Under mostly sunny skies, at 34°F with calm winds, I headed west through the city then north to High Falls where I did three repeats of the climb from BeeBee Station to the top of the gorge. It’s the steepest of the climbs I’d planned, and I wanted to get it out of the way early.

Chapel Hill climb with the stupid roundabout right in the middle.
North side of the Chapel Hill climb with the stupid roundabout right in the middle. It’s okay heading south like this, but heading north on the descent, it’s a real pain. Plus there’s a manhole cover right in the middle of the perfect line.
Next it was off to the University of Rochester River Campus, south of the city, where I did five repeats of Chapel Hill.

Controversial student housing project across the river.
Controversial student housing project across the river. Among other things, the developers figured cyclists would forget that the Riverway continues through there after they closed that section during construction. You could hear the uproar in Syracuse when they announced it would be gated for security.
I cut through the campus and a hospital parking lot to Westfall Road where I’d planned to ride the rolling hills across town.

There's a little open water in the middle of the river.
There’s a little open water in the middle of the river.
Stopped at the light at Westfall and East Henrietta Road, a rider pulled up on my left. Kyle from Full Moon Vista was returning from his ride south of the city on his LeMond Poprad, first cousin to my Trek Portland.

We rode and chatted together east on Westfall, then north on Winton up to Hillside Drive, where I turned left and headed home.

I drifted down Hillside to Cobbs Hill Drive, where I hung a left, dropped down to the granny ring and spun up and over the hill. Then back, then over again. I had to pull off to the left to let a city snowplow pass. He was cleaning up along the curb.

View from the top
View of downtown from the top of Cobbs Hill, the highest point within the city limits.
At the bottom again on the south side, I did another U-turn and went back over, this time waving to a dad carrying his toddler son. They’d been watching me the whole time. I turned around at the north side once more, waved to the dad and kid again, and cleared the hill one last time.

View from the top with my big head blocking the view.
And again, only with me in the way. Jersey of the Day: Great Lakes Region from BikeForums.net
I turned right and headed for Cobbs Hill Park. The park was packed with runners, walkers, dog walkers and sledders, along with a procession of cars all wanting to get to the top. Darned cars putzing along at 10 MPH and less! Three repeats was frustration enough with the traffic, even though I’d stopped in one lap of the reservoir to take some pictures.

Finally, it was down, down, down all the way home where I recorded 22.99 miles in 98 minutes (14.1 MPH average) and guestimated 1,600 to 2,000 feet of climbing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm UTC and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Sunday Hill Repeats”

  1. Keith Says:
    March 3rd, 2008 at 9:21 pm UTC

    Bruce, if you are looking for hills – try this ride:
    http://www.routeslip.com/routes/9341
    The website is pretty good at tracking elevation of rides if you put a point at all of the peaks and valleys along the way.

  2. brucew Says:
    March 3rd, 2008 at 10:10 pm UTC

    Hey, Keith!

    I’m originally a west side boy, so I don’t know those back streets very well. You offering to guide me?

    I’m working my way around in that direction anyway. I did Rich’s Dugway and North Landing to Browncroft and back to Blossom today.

    What I’m really looking forward to are the Wednesday night RBC rides out of Mendon Ponds Park. They don’t start until May though.