Living in Wisconsin has it's pros and cons. Especially in the Madison area. There are many more pros than there are cons. An uber-friendly bike community, a great downtown area (without being super busy or over-run or expensive like some cities), a friendly atmosphere and, oh yea, lots and lots of great biking just outside the city itself.
One thing I enjoy so much is how directly accessible all of those great biking is. You can ride directly to them and/or drive there depending on what your plans are. For me, on this particular ride, I wanted all hills, all the time. I could have spent the first 15 miles or so going through some rollers and around the city to get to the hills, but I wanted to spend all of my time working up and down. Boy did I get it.
About a 30 minute drive from my place on the Southeast side of Madison is the town and State Park of Blue Mound. One of the tallest areas in the whole state. It definitely has some of the most difficult hills within any given distance while still in WI.
I decided it was a good day to take the bike out and test some of those hills. So I was up early (5am) and out the door in search of hills to try to break my spirit. And boy did I find them.
Above is my car in the parking lot at Blue Mound State Park.
I finally got on the bike and going around 7am in the cool morning air. It was about 50 degrees when I started, so I headed out with a base layer, knee warmers and shoe covers as well as a thin pair of gloves. All of which I kept on for the next 4 hours of riding. It did warm up a bit, but with a cool breeze and all the time I was going to spend descending, I kept everything on.
So out on the road I went, coasting down out of the park and warming up my legs just lightly spinning through the first couple miles and ensuring I knew where I was going on my Garmin Edge 800. I had locked in my route the night before and figured I'd have 4-5 really tough climbs, with countless smaller, but still tough climbs in between.
I got to the first descent and let it rip. A good half mile down into the valley in all clear view, ripping it over 50mph and letting the cool morning air wake me up even more than the coffee on the drive out did. I carried that momentum for the next couple miles until I hit the first big hill. A category 4 climb that had a few levels of steep to flat climbing up and away from the park. I hadn't checked my route in terms of where the category climbs would be, but I knew I would find them.
I hit this first one pretty hard, getting a KOM (kind of the mountain) on Strava for the first time. Albeit on a smaller, less-traveled hill, I'll still take it! From then on, though, I made myself dial it back a bit on the hills as I still had over half a century of riding left (that's 50miles).
The rest of the ride was spent climbing and descending over and over and over. There was really no flat spots anywhere to be found. A few placed I could hold a steady cadence down in the valley, but even then it was still rolling along some small creeks and farms.
Elevation chart above from the ride
As you can see, there really was no rest when it came to climbing and descending. Some of the descending was nearly as hard as the ascending. The hills wound through the forest and farms of the area, often leading into blind turns and some having gravel sprayed across the road. A few times I could feel my back end slide out from under me a bit under braking. I'm proud to say I was able to keep my bike upright all day.
I finished the day with the longest climb of the day. A 4 mile climb up towards the top of the park. A climb which had I started the day with it would have been not quite so difficult, but after logging in nearly 4,000 feet of climbing before this point, it just drained me. I reluctantly switched into my granny gear a couple times on the way up.
What 4,700' of climbing makes me feel like
The thought had crossed my mind to drop down into the valley again and hit the steepest and toughest hill in the area that leads up to the entrance of the park. But as I made the climb up to the entrance where I could go right to go down the big hill or straight to finish my ride, my legs ached in the slow grade up so I went with my brain and not my gut to head back to the car.
I grinded my way back up through the entrance of the park, another short but very steep hill and spent a couple minutes riding around the lot to get my legs back under me. Once I finally got off the bike I could feel my legs scream with relief after what they just went through, and all I wanted was to lay down and eat food.
So I packed up, ate some recovery food and headed home after a solid 100k of riding and 4,700' of climbing. Maybe next time I'll crush it and get up and over 5,000' of ascending. For now, I live to fight another day.
-Dave
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