Arlington’s toughest hills list

[Dirt]

We’re riding the Kill Bill Century on Sunday at 0800. If you’re interested in joining in, please send me a Message. I can share the details.

In the last three weeks, I have ridden the Total200 (200 mile loop in Southern Maryland) and the Alpine Gran Fondo (93 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing west of Harrisonburg, VA). This ride is going to dwarf those two in degree of difficulty. It will be 100 miles and around 10,000 feet of climbing, all inside the Beltway in NoVa. The ride has close to 70 individual climbs. They’re short and steep and there is VERY LITTLE rest in between. The 60 mile version is brutal. While there’s a brief lull in the climbs as we traverse to the west side of Arlington, the rest is rewarded by some brutal climbs in the last 30 miles.

Plan 8+ hours for this ride. Plan to be walking funny on Monday morning. I’ve already got a massage scheduled for Monday… and Wednesday…. and maybe another on Friday.

I’m setting up this ride because I love my friends. I’m happy to share my love with y’all too.

Pete

[jabberwocky]

I’m in, as you know. This one is gonna hurt.

[americancyclo]

oh man, I REALLY want to go, but I dunno if I can make it. Will you at least post up the cuesheet, or link to the GPS map when you’re done?

[jabberwocky]

I mapped it over the weekend, based on Petes most up to date Kill Bill route and the bottom half we explored a few weeks ago. I’m guessing some tweaking will happen before the weekend (Pete was very disappointed with that 9600 elevation gain number and wanted to try and get another 400 feet ) but it should give you an idea of the route.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/745732

[skreaminquadz]

Hmmm…. very tempting. Considering I bagged the Alpine GF b/c I’m out of shape may mean this will be absolute torture if I attempt it.

[vvill]

Aww man I don’t know if I can. I’d love to but a) I may have family commitments and b) I’m sick right now

Reminds me of what I do on my commutes sometimes for “fun”, except a lot more hellish.

[JimF22003]

Uggh. I’ve only done a couple of 10K+ rides this year, and I’m way out of shape compared to when I did those. (I’m already adding the extra layer of fat for winter insulation apparently.)

I doubt I can do all 100 miles, but I can go part of it, assuming there’s a reasonable shortcut back to wherever we start. I’ll send you a PM, Dr. Evil.

[consularrider]

Looks like I’m in town this weekend after all. I up for at least getting started on this, don’t know if I’ll be able to finish.

[Dirt]

Cool! I’ll post details tonight or tomorrow. I still have to scope a few hills.

[Dirt]

On the ride announcement elsewhere, a friend replied “For the record, this is a really stupid idea.” when he confirmed his attendance. My reply was “What is even worse, that is the entire point of the ride.”

Talk to y’all soon.

Pete

[Dirt]

Kill Bill Century went off with hardly a hitch! With warm-up and warm-down, it ended up being a rather long day in the saddle.

Here’s the GPS plot of it: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/415512 Note: My actual top speed was only 42.3mph. I believe the 104 mile version came out to around 10,800 feet of climbing. That is an educated guess.

We started with a great group of people, some of whom planned on dropping off part way into the ride. It was awesome having Skreaminquadz, Jabberwocky, will, Consularrider, MarkBlacknell and TimKelley on the ride. Special thanks to Consularrider for being our cheering squad as we rolled past his house twice! It helped on the slog up to the top of Dominion Hills for the third time.

We started with 11 and slowly had people drop off. We had 2 join for the back half then they eventually dropped off too. In the end it came down to 2 of us that finished the ride in its entirety.

I’ve done a lot of stupid rides this year. This is top 5 for sure…. maybe top 3. We’ll see what next weekend is like.

The top of Quantico in Dominion Hills. This climb left a mark… especially coming at mile 70.

Jabberwocky on the last climb. There’s a reason this street is called Mount Daniel Dr.

We’ll do that ride again next year. Today is the first day to start training for it.

Have a great day.

Pete

[eminva]

Wow, congratulations to all who did even a part of this adventure! I’m dying to know, who was the other hearty soul who made it the whole way? How long did it take? At least you had a nice day for it.

I spent the day on a pool deck with a stop watch. If not for that, I could have done 10,800 feet of climbing. At least that’s my fantasy and I’m sticking to it.

Liz

[jabberwocky]

@eminva 8963 wrote:

I’m dying to know, who was the other hearty soul who made it the whole way? How long did it take? At least you had a nice day for it.

I was the one who made the whole thing with Pete. I rode from my place in Reston, finished with 130.5 miles for the day. As for how long it took… I left the house at 6:45am, got home at 7:15pm (left before sunrise, got home after sunset). Total time was 12:30, rolling time was 9:15 or so. Weather was definitely nice, but it was cold at 6:45 in the morning! I elected to dress light and was cold for the first hour or so until the sun was up. I got cold again at the tail end as the sun was setting.

I am teh hurty today. This loop is evil.

[Dirt]

Jabberwocky and I were the two who finished. Our friend Sean got close, but got foiled by the Tallwood Terrace climb in Barcroft. The day was perfect for it. It took about 9 1/2 hours for the whole ride. We did a 15 mile warm-up and warm down. The actual century was closer to 7hours of ride time.

[vvill]

Twas an awesome ride. Second longest ride I’ve done, certainly the most elevation (never had so much upper body soreness after a ride).

When I was a teenager riding around my ‘burbs on my MTB I would always find the steepest hills and design circuits around them. When I first signed up on facebook over 5 years ago, I listed one of my Activities/Interests as “cycling up steep hills in hot weather”. Earlier this year I’d been building similar loops on Google Maps in my spare time at work and emailing myself the maps but I never came up with a finished ride. So when I discovered Pete had already done this with the help of the Kill Bill template I was pretty excited. I couldn’t even sleep the night before the ride.

Many thanks to Pete and Chris for scoping out and leading the ride. Pete, I can’t believe you have almost the whole thing memorized! Amazing group of riders too (nice to meet you all) – there’s no way I could’ve dragged myself over so many hills by myself. Sorry I had to drop out without saying bye properly. I waited at a red light on Old Dominion and Williamsburg for the last one in our group and by the time I reached my turn-off everyone was long gone down Williamsburg. Got home in time to do a family’s worth of laundry, and we have our niece staying with us for the long weekend as well so it was good to not be completely dead today.

I accidentally reset my bike computer at some random interval and I don’t have a bike GPS (I shove my car one in my pocket sometimes), so I just estimated based on the Kill Bill v8a ride. About 68miles, 7000+ ft of climbing.

My favourite parts:
– riding up 41st (near Chain Bridge) with a group
– Tim and Chris racing each other up one of the climbs
– going up the winding paved singletrack near Marymount (been down it before, but never thought to go up)

[Author]

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