The weather is getting warming so I am itching to get out on the road again and start building up the miles. The weather has been mild this winter so I have been lucky and able to get out a couple of times each month. Although this has keep me riding though the cold months it hasn't allowed me to do some of the rides I really want to do.
Last year I spent the season looking for great rides in NJ for a book I was writing. This allowed me to discover a lot of new roads and have a lot of fun. Even though the book is done and in the publishers hands there are a lot of places I didn't get to explore last year that I want to try and get to this year.
I spent more time in north and western NJ, last year, where the roads are a little hillier. My regular road bike is mainly geared for flats and rolling hills. I can climb most hills in my area with this bike including some of the tougher ones in the Sourlands but this bike is not well suited for some of the tougher hills in north west NJ.
For rides that require some tough hill climbing I break out my old Miayta. It's got a triple that helps me grind my way up most hills. One thing I learn last year is that with the right gearing you can get up almost any hill with out having a heart attack. Although my old Miayta got me up almost every hill I threw at it last year there were a couple that had me wishing I had a lower gear. There was even one hill by Millbrook Village on the Delaware that was so steep that I had to stop a couple of times to get over it.
My adventures last year got me over my fear, that some bikers have, of finding a hill that they can't climb. Some bikers end up avoiding hill because of this fear but if they do that then they will miss a lot of beautiful roads and some good training. In order to be a good biker you have to learn to climb and even enjoy hills.
Although I may not do as much adventuring this year as I did last I still plan to seek out some new hills to conquer. In order to make sure that I don't run out of gears I have upgraded my old Miayta with a new 12-32 cassette. Between this cassette and my triple there should be no hill that I can't climb and even if I do find a hill too steep to climb I just have to walk because I'm not going to let a hill stand in the way of a really good ride.