Ride On

Its been awhile since I updated, mainly because things have been pretty busy around the Miller household lately. Preparing for the baby, visiting family, and just living life in general sometimes takes precedent over riding/training.

However, while I am not on the bike as much as I was during the race season, I still get out for some long rides and the weekly Thursday Throwdowns. Recently on one of the Throwdown rides we chose a different route on a whim and I discovered my new, very-most favorite climb in the area. Fifteen miles into the hill country of Washington county near Warner, OH lies 2.5 miles of uphill bliss. As I write this I realize that some of you will be scoffing or rolling your eyes at my love for climbing. Thats fine. I realize that not everyone likes hills and in fact many people hate them. My love affair with climbing has simply grown because I realized I was good at it. Let me translate that: I just hurt LESS on climbs than some other people. I cant explain why or how this came about really, I just like to climb. Even on group rides I am mocked because I am fairly drooling when I see the road rising upward in the distance. The group parts, lets me take the front, and hangs on for dear life as I chase the "high" of full force effort on rising gradients. I regularly emerge alone at the top, not even realizing I had shed my companions at some point in the past few miles. Sometimes I will wait at the top, reminiscing over the climb but other times I coast back down and ride back to the top with the group (although I dont do this too much on the Throwdown rides for fear of being cursed at as others suffer up the pitch...). I like climbing, and I LOVE the State Rt.530 climb out of Warner, OH. The route we took was a bomber hill down through Bonn which leads you into Salem and then you go through a few rollers before you get to Warner. From Warner you make a sweeping left hand turn onto Rt.530 where the road goes up...and up and up and up. The first half mile or so is the toughest with the average grade hovering around 10%. At the first of three switchback turns the grade jumps to somewhere in the mid-teens and then flattens out to a maintained 6-7% for the final 1.5 miles.

The climb went something like this: I sat in and recovered on the rollers into Warner. In Warner everyone's pace slowed and the group bunched up in anticipation of the climb. We hit the first pitch of the climb and I exploded out of the saddle until the first switchback. Alone, I rolled through the switchback and found a comfortable spinning gear. I maintained a high cadence through the remainder of the climb and enjoyed the scenery (there are some nice vistas on the way up) until I topped out. I waited for several minutes and then the group came back together in ones and twos. I told them how awesome the climb was and how much I enjoyed it. They shook their heads and told me how much they hated me. We rode on.

My penance for enjoying climbing was then getting pounded in the flats. It seems as if when the road flattens out, its like a rule that any guy over six feet tall moves up to the front of the group and spins his giant tree trunk legs until I want to puke. For all the power I have on climbs, I cant seem to make any sort of move stick on the flats. I can chase back on to breakaways and hold my own through flat sections, but as far as putting anyone into difficulty when the gradient is 0%...I pretty much am useless. So as I giggled through the hills and reveled in my opportunistic power, my companions took the opportunity to trample me into the dirt on the flat return home. We arrived back at the parking lot and everyone talked of how awesome the ride was, especially the last section. I shake my head and tell them how much I hate them. We laugh, part ways, and plan on returning next week because as always: We ride on.