Beautiful weather today. I felt absolutely great on the bike and decided to push it hard on a familiar route that I did in the reverse direction to hit up some classic climbs in the Birmingham area. I’ve created a topocreator.com topographic map of the route annotated with the climbs labeled. My favorite part of the ride is Double Oak Way which climbs for 3.1 miles from a starting elevation of about 800 feet and finishes at over 1400 feet. The road is potholed and sections are filled in with gravel, but the road is paved all the way to the top. The most unique part of the climb is the roller coaster section near the top where you crest one of the ridges at 1411ft drop down 93ft with a gradient of -18% bottom out and immediately climb a 20% climb back up to 1433ft. Then you turn around and go back down the 20% gradient and nearly 3/4 of the way up the 18% gradient just coasting! Top speeds are approach 50mph on both short descents because of the steepness. Today I was just shy of 52mph – what a rush!
Click for a large version of this topocreator.com map – Double Oak Climbing
Click for a larger version of the annotated heartrate/power data for this ride
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