Sunday Hill Town Ride

With Firmman being post-poned 2 weeks and a beautiful Sunday on hand, I headed for the hill towns with Kara, Al, John Hill, Andy and Gail. The idea was to tackle some climbs with Biketoberfest only being 3 weeks away. Biketoberfest is a 100 miler that Jimmy puts on from his house that includes over 10,000 feet of climbing. Kara, Al, and I plan on giving it a try this year, so with that in mind we began the climbs.

Our first big climb today came about 9 miles into the ride as we ascended 3 miles up Montgomery road. Montgomery Road is a pretty good climb averaging around 8 or 9 % with the max gradient around 11 or 12%. It felt great today as I decided to climb it in my big ring as some of the stronger riders in my club have done on past rides. I managed to get to the top without feeling too tired and waited to regroup in what you may call the center of Montgomery?

Apparently Montgomery had some festive parties to finish off the summer. As everyone got to the top of the climb Kara mentioned that she was finally feeling good on the hills again which was a huge relief because she says she hasn't been able to climb well the past 2 weeks. A few drinks from the bottles and away we went back down Montgomery Rd to the Huntington General Store.

As we pulled into the store Al realizes he has a slow leak and immediately John Hill changes it for him. The surprising thing was that Al said he felt great on the first climb and that was with a partial flat! With a tire full of air and stomachs full of Apple Wrapples and coffee (the Huntington General Store has the BEST apple wrapples) we headed for more hills.

Al looked even stronger than before, and with everyone else feeling good we ascended up Rte 20 and into Chester and eventually Blandford. Below is a pic at the base of one of the many climbs of the day.

That was the second to last big climb of the day with the final climb coming shortly thereafter. As we picked up 23 in Blanford we were rewarded for all of our climbing with a great desent down 23 and an even better, more technical desent down General Knox Rd that dumped us into our back yard. All in all a great ride that was just under 50 miles with 4934 feet of climbing and some pretty serious winds at times. I was fortunate to have a great training ride today as opposed to racing in Rhode Island with some serious wind and waves. We will most likely continue to climb these upcoming weeks to prep for Biketoberfest and the end of a great season.