MWARBH

What Hillclimb are you most excited about?

frogman

You have it backwards. I get excited on the downhill not the climb.

delbiker1 

Great answer!

burnthesheep

wipekitty

We did something like this locally (though with only three hills). Three of the steepest hills around (all +/- 500ft) with a point system, and a friendly group ride in between hills. It was a lot of fun, even though the skinny racers kicked my butt!

I've also noticed that the A rides usually only have like one hill and some rollers.

JohnnyCyclist

Any climb when the temperature is below freezing. Cuts way back on wind chill! Gives a chance to warm up!

Being a skinny and (relatively speaking - TdF material I'm not!) fast cyclist does have its drawbacks...

fietsbob

In the 80' I participated in a Stinson beach to the top of Mt Tam Road Climb event.

livedarklions

Any hill with a good lunch place at the top.

indyfabz

Hoping to do this again this spring. Did it in 2017 fully loaded:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/23254899?beta=false

Same for this:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/18149964?beta=false

The descent from the first pass has double digit grades. The second pass is 3 miles of dirt/gravel up and 3 miles of dirt/gravel down. The final 3 miles of the third pass are mean after coming all that way.

79pmooney

I'm signed up to ride the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder with its 30,000 of climbing in 5 days (if I am strong enough to stay in the elite class). To warm up, I'm going to do the RondePDX, an informal ride of Portland's West HIlls, 7000' in 50 miles with none of the climbs longer than a mile or two. I'm hoping Cycle Oregon will return to Crater Lake as it didn't happen two years ago because if fire. I'm in if they do. I really want to climb the North Entrance.

Yesterday I climbed the local Bald Mountain in the fog. I went down at <25 mph because I could see very little. It was all about going up.

Ben

fietsbob

Always bring a Picnic lunch..

nomadmax 

I hopeful that I'll get back out to Mt Evans and Pike's Peak this year. I'm also hopeful that they didn't get steeper

livedarklions

Feh. If I'm riding 100 miles, I want a hot meal someone else cooked.

fietsbob

Then 65 mikes out, you stop at a cafe.. ..

livedarklions

Exactly, and if it is at the top of the hill, then that is my favorite climb of the day.

mstateglfr 

The last one of every ride because it means there arent any more hills.

livedarklions

I prefer the first one because I still have enough speed at that point to maintain delusions of grandeur. Last one of the weekend is usually me saying to myself "I'm old, and I need dinner and a bed."

mstateglfr 

ha, true enough.

mrodgers

Since you mentioned the Dirty Dozen and in the summers when it's not raining, I and my small group that ride are in Pittsburgh usually, the one I'm looking forward to is Canton Avenue, unofficially the steepest street in the world.

For the last 2 years my buddy and I have been wanting to hit all the Dirty Dozen hills a couple at a time. Thus far we were sitting at an intersection 2 years ago and our buddy from the city pointed and said, "that's Rialto, one of the dirty dozen." I said, "See ya at the top" and took off. It's the 4th steepest of the 13 hills.

My buddy did Berry Hill when I wasn't with him. Other than that, it's been pretty much either kids or rain and I haven't ridden much other than our week long rides the past 2 years.


First time I learned of the Dirty Dozen I was driving around car shopping and ended up getting into Pittsburgh. I looked and realized I was driving past Fallowfield Ave in the Beechview neighborhood. I started out on Fallowfield Ave until after 2nd grade so I headed up the hill to check out the old homestead. My poor worn out Honda Civic barely made it up the hill. Upon returning home, I flipped on the TV and on PBS, a documentary on the Dirty Dozen was on and there they were a bunch of bicycles climbing up Fallowfield to get to Canton. My car barely made it up the hill and these guys were climbing it just to get to one of the steep ones like it was nothing. This was before I was riding and realizing that there's no such thing as a flat road in western PA.

Koyote

I rode the Dirty Dozen this past November. It's a classic, though it's a long day, since each group has to re-group at the top of each hill. This time, it also didn't help that it was in the low-40s and raining most of the day. And yeah, Canton Avenue is a real *****.

My big climbing event in 2019 will be the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, which I have done a couple times before. Always a blast, and Durango is a great place to visit.

I don't imagine I'll ever do it again, but the Mt. Evans Hill Climb is probably the classic climbing event in the Western US.

eja_ bottecchia

NoWhammies

Years ago a group of us rode up Mt. Baker. The whole climb one of the guys in our group was just craving a burger at the top. So of course when we arrived at the top and there was NOTHING to eat, he was less than impressed. I on the other hand found it quite humorous.

livedarklions

Yelp review--2 stars. Great climb but 3 stars off for no burger.

Reminds me of this exchange:

BlazingPedals

I've never met a hill I couldn't walk.

sirkaos

That's a good one. Takes me about an hour. Pro's do it in 30 minutes. Great view from the top of the ocean.