Posted by Nadine & Mark in Pick A or B. Would you rather (a) bike into a 30km/hr headwind or (b) climb hills? Would you rather (a) bike in a steady stream of hail or (b) climb hills?. I never pick hills. Funny that. In fact, up until this year, I would have done anything to avoid them. Problematic behavior since I’ve signed up for a tour that’s described as hilly to very hilly.
We (read Mark) encouraged me (read forced me) to face my fears. Mark? Oh, he doesn’t have a problem with hills. He’s just being a good cycling buddy and helping me get over my issues.
Finding good quality hills in Ottawa is challenging. The Corkstown Rd (Bells Corners/Kanata) hill is decent enough if you climb it a few times, but to get some really good hills, you need to go over to Gatineau Park .
Determined, yet scared (me), we applied the brute force algorithm and steered our bikes across the Island Park bridge towards the hills. There’s nothing more daunting to a hill-hater than facing 34km of hills (to the top and back).
We followed the bike path up to the Visitor Centre at Lac-Des-Fees, it’s about 2 km from the park’s entrance. Fill up your water bottles here! From the Visitor Center, the park is beautiful, the road is in good shape and the absence of curbs gives you many exit strategies in case of emergencies. Traffic was very light the day we climbed, the five or six cars that passed us where very courteous giving us tons of room.
The first challenging hill was the one at Pink Lake . At first glance, I wasn’t sure I was up for it. I was tempted to turn my bike around, but I plugged away. I stopped a few times to rest the lungs and the legs to admire the flowers along side of the road (what?). Such pretty flowers. It seemed like everyone else was just zooming by me. I wished for a towrope on several occasions but it never materialized. I resisted the urge to turn the bike around, winning the first of many mental battles.
After conquering Pink Lake, there are a few little hills, but nothing that compare until you reach the hill that needs to be renamed to “The-hill-that-never-ends” (King Mountain, 345 meters). It climbs. And climbs. And climbs some more. After a few more flower gazing breaks and 90 minutes later I had finally reached the top, savoring the victory lap.
On the decent from the Champlain Lookout, there were some uphill sections (where did those come from?). The downhill sections were great – although, going close to 60km/hr was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. We were lucky that there was absolutely no traffic on the morning we climbed; however, do be careful, a deer crossed to road just a few meters from Mark, luckily he was able to avoid it.
My second climb to the Lookout was much smoother, shaving over 20 minutes off my time, with no stops! I’m actually looking forward to climbing it again a couple of more times before the Bay of Fundy bike tour. Apparently it’s true, the more you climb, the better you get at climbing. I still don’t like hills, but I hate them a little less now.
~n
Nadine, you are a trooper! Great training for your big Maritime ride!
[...] friend Nadine first turned me on to this ride at around the same time last year. After reading about her experience I was always curious – but [...]
[...] books they’re going down as absolutely nasty. I just checked with Mark, he agrees. Did the hill training help? Absolutely. Could I have done more training? [...]