Visiting the Six Kings...

I ate pretty good yesterday. I had one slip, I ate a 60 calorie Popsicle. This morning I was up at 7:30 am and it was already 17 C and sunny. I decided to relax, drink some coffee, carbo load on some pancakes and got on the road by 9 am.

Once I got on the road it took me a little time to figure out which route to take. I really wanted to keep my pace above 30 kph for ego's sake, but I also want to get good at climbing and that would reduce my average speed to under 30 kph. I finally decided to put my ego aside and went for the hills. 

There is 6 major hills where I ride and the average grade is between 10 - 15%. I decided to name each of the hills "Kings" and decided to ride all the Kings today. It was pretty windy at 26 kph and on the way a bug flew into my mouth, it was the first time this year. For the rest of the ride I had at least another 3 - 4 bugs hit my face and helmet, I lost count. 

I tried to time all of the hills and it turned out that the cumulative time that I spent climbing the Kings was around 30 minutes. About 2 hours into the ride I saw Carlos and Hans and stopped to say hello. They were parked and getting there bikes ready for a 5 hour ride. Carlos asked me if earlier I stopped at the foot of Sixth line hill. I said I did because I had to fix my chain. He didn't know it was me when he passed me in his car and though I was some loser who couldn't climb the hill without stopping. He then told me he looked in his rear view mirror and saw the same guy flying down the road behind him at over 40 kph and realized he misread the guys abilities. 

The last King hill I did was Rattle Snake point. This hill probably has a 15 - 17% grade at points. It's a ridiculous hill and winds from side to side. A few years ago they had the world junior cycling championships in our area and the cyclist would climb Rattle Snake point as part of their training. The Europeans said that Rattle Snake Point is as difficult as any mountain they have in Europe.

On the way up I saw another cyclist in front of me walking his bike up the Rattle Snake hill. I was able to pull the camera out of my jersey, ride with one hand and take a picture. Also, for the first time ever, I was able to ride that hill without getting out of my saddle. In the end I was really happy with the ride. I did all six King hills and I was still able to average 29 kph and finish by noon. 

Long Bike - 3:09:40 / 92.03 Km/ 29.0 kph