Horribly Hilly

I spent a lot of time on the bike in 2023, riding around 6800 miles, which is over 2000 more than I have ever ridden before. I completed 250 rides, climbed over 400,000 feet, and spent about 400 hours on the bike. One of the reasons for this big increase is that this was my first full year having a bike trainer, and I rode a significant number of rides indoors on Zwift. Compared to infrequent rides on rollers in previous years, this helped maintain my fitness through the winter, leaving me much better prepared for the early riding season, including BCETS and the Dairy Roubaix.

This was my third year of participating in the Horribly Hilly Hundreds, a long, very hilly ride in the driftless area west of Madison. The fide begins in the villiage of Blue Mounds and ends in Blue Mound State Park and is a fund raiser for the park. In order to get ready for this ride, I started riding in March; Saturdays with Bombay Bicycle Club and weekdays on my own. There are three different distances, 100K, 150K and 200K. The weather was perfect, so I decided to ride the 200K.