This week I took a week off of my high point quest to do some training for Bike Virginia. I told Laura I wanted to do something stupid hilly. Translation over 5000 ft of climbing. I decided to go to Merrill Creek and do this route and invite a few people to join me. This is my normal Merrill Creek Ride from my NJ book but instead of a nice flat start along the river I headed up ridge after about a mile and a half. The first few hills weren't too bad and we kept a good pace. But the hills kept coming both up and down.
At 10 miles in I was already getting complaints about the amount of climbing we were doing even though this ride was advertised as a "Hilly" training ride. The heat and humidity added to the pain of climbing but there was some good scenery along the way including the windmill in Holland.
Around mile 20 was suppose to be our rest stop in Stewardville but the general store was not just closed but totally abandon. Laura pulled out her phone and found a shopping center a couple of miles away on Rt 22. We ended up stopping in a pizza place before heading back to the tackle the real hills of the ride.
To get to Merrill Creek you have to climb up over 600 ft. There are a couple of different ways up but our favorite is going up Montanna Rd. Its a 620 ft climb in about 2 miles. Its got a few bumps in the 8-10% range but it is a mostly constants 6% grade climb. As long as find a gear you can grind with out your heart rate getting too high and don't cramp it is a manageable climb. The first few times I climbed this hill I had to stop and let my heart slow down half way up. This year I made it with out stopping and felt better at that top than I even had before.
We stopped at the Merrill Creek visitor center to recharge and get some water. There were still two tough climbs ahead. But first we headed down my second favorite hill Millbrook which is 600 feet of curving downhill fun.
It was getting hot and some of us where feeling the strain of the climbing but we continued on. The last tough climb was up Tunnel Rd out of Bloomsbury and is another 600 ft climb but is not as steep as Montanna. The payoff is that the last 7 miles of the ride is a constant down hill which starts with a 3+ mile decent down Sweet Hollow which is, in my opinion the best downhill in NJ. Then a a few turns later you are on Javes Rd another gentle scenic downhill that brings you in to Milford.
A year ago I read a great book about perception and decision making by Daniel Kahneman. I learned a lot about the decisions bias that trick the mind into making the same bad decisions over and over again. One of the interesting things I learned is that what the mind remembers can be much difference than what the experience actually was. There was a study done about people going through a colonoscopy. They found is what mattered is the pain at the end of the procedure. The patients that had no pain at the end of the procedure were much happier than people who had pain at the end of the procedure even if the procedure was more painful overall. You can see the TED talk Kahnerman gave on this HERE
So I always try to end a ride with a good down hill so people think the ride was better than it actually was. I'm sure if someone didn't manage to make it to the last few downhills they would have a lot different opinion of the ride and how painfully it really was.
Next week we will head to some flatter terrain as I want to do some distance training.
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