Brentani’s Cycling Blog

I had a little time to take the cross bike over to Bowen to try out the new section. As the title indicates, it didn’t go so well. I need to fix my mountain shoes, so I tried it today with road shoes, which might have exacerbated some of the problems I had…

First attempt. Rode up the bottom part from Main to Benefit taking it quite easy, and started in the 26 to avoid any messy shifts from the big to little chainring. On the cobbles, I decided to try going on the cobbles all the way to the top. The ground was definitely more firm than last time I tried it, but I was also already thinking about the final section to come, so I didn’t want to go too hard in the really steep section, and as a result I lost momentum, spun out, and had to unclip.

Second attempt. Rather than try the top section again after stopping, I just looped back down to Main to do the whole thing, this time transitioning to the sidewalk at the normal spot, before the 30% insanity. Everything was fine up to Pratt. It was then that I noticed that the transition from sidewalk to road on Pratt is anything but easy. There’s about a 3-foot hole, making it impossible to ride straight across Pratt, so instead, I turned left on the sidewalk and hopped onto the road a few feet north of Bowen, and then turned back to go up the steep road section from Pratt headed up towards Congdon. This section is incredibly steep. It probably isn’t quite as bad as the final section before you hit Pratt, but it’s not much better either, except you’re on good pavement. It’s short enough that you could easily sprint through it and hardly notice it, but sprinting is unlikely after finishing the bottom part, plus you need something for the dirt section, so I opted to put it in a low gear and spin it as much as possible. (I was probably riding the 26-26 at this point.) The transition to the dirt is a little scary…total bottleneck, and at 25% gradient, you need good control to make sure your line is good going down from a standard sized road to a 3-foot (or so) path. The path stays at 20% for the fist 10 meters or so, and is pretty rocky – rockier than I remember it from walking it – I managed to get through most of that, but eventually lost my line and unclipped. I tried several times to re-clip in and get going, but without much success. I was able to get back on the bike just before the low-hanging branch and verified that a rider of my size (gewilli would probably have problems) can duck under it, but if I were out of the saddle I probably would have clocked myself. From there I rode to the top, popped out on Congdon and continued the gradual climb on Bowen up to Prospect.

Third and fourth attempts. Figuring what I really needed to do was practice getting a good line and mastering the terrain, I then rode down Jenckes to Pratt, so that I could just try the last section again. This time I made it slightly farther before unclipping but still not far enough. Walked it to the top, and looped back for another try. This time I barely got going on the path before I lost my line, so I just turned around and rode home.

Verdicts. So, I think it should be possible, but it’s going to require a lot of practice. (It certainly requires strength, but I think the real issue is technique, mostly handling the rocky section.) I won’t say it’s not possible on a road bike, but I don’t think I could do it. And as for how it compares to the Koppenberg? It doesn’t. Bowen to Congdon is in another league. In terms of elevation gain and distance the profiles, as I noted yesterday, are quite similar. But the Koppenberg has nothing approaching 30%, and a capable rider should be able to clear the Koppenberg in one try without special gears and skinny tires. Bowen not so much. (For one thing, no one would ever think to make a race go up Bowen, it would be a complete clusterf**k on the dirt section.) Anyway, I look forward to mastering this f-er.

Just when I think I know every hill in the city of Providence, I’m thrown a little surprise. And given that Bowen was the hill that inspired this blog, I think this qualifies as a major surprise. I just happened to be driving down Prospect today and turned onto Bowen headed down to Congdon where it deadends into Prospect Park. I noticed something I hadn’t before, namely a series of cement posts and what looked like a small path going into a thicket of trees separating Prospect Park from the neighboring house.

So I drove around to Pratt to see what it looked like from the bottom, and remembered that there was, in fact a small section of paved road (still called “Bowen”) that continues from Pratt, where I customarily stop. But what I noticed this time was what looked like a small path to the right of the bit of chain link fence.

I went home, grabbed my camera and got the Strava app ready on my new tablet toy and headed back. Not time to try biking it today, but I figured it was worth a stop and walk-up, which would tell me most of what I needed to know about whether it was suitable for biking anyway. There is indeed a path, and it is fairly bikeable, I think. The surface is probably a little rocky for a road bike, but if you were willing to risk a flat, you might even be able to do it with skinny tires. Cross would be better. The biggest problem, in fact, is a branch that runs across the path, but at worst, I think it might call for a quick dismount, or you might be able to just duck under it.

Once you hit Congdon at the top, you can continue on Bowen for one more block of easy climbing. The addition of these two sections increases both the overall length (obviously) and the section from Pratt to Congdon is the steepest part of the whole hill, continuing at almost the same grade as the final 30% section of the cobbled part below Pratt. The whole thing also compares quite favorably with the Koppenberg in terms of average gradient and steepness. The dirt section is probably difficult enough to make me give it the nod as the harder of the two hills, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I get over there with my cross bike.

Also of interest, the top of the cobbled section is now covered with a nice (but not too tall) layer of crabgrass that makes the ground much more firm than it was when I tried to ride the cobbles all the way to the top (I tried this just after I got the cross bike, but couldn’t maintain enough momentum to not have to dismount in the 30% section), so I think I may now be able to ride the cobbles all the way to Pratt (or just before it).

I haven’t been riding much, because I’m in full-on dissertation mode. I did ride up Marin Ave about a week ago, and will shortly post some thoughts on that. In the mean time, I had this little project sitting around and thought I’d post some of it. Before I became a full-time musicologist, as a composer I wrote a few radio-documentaries (or German Hörspiel) and have always had it in the back of my head to do something on the idea of climbing. In particular, there are some nice parallels between an “idea of up” and Glenn Gould’s “Idea of North,” which is, in a way, my touchstone for the genre.

So what follows in a draft of the introduction I would read for such a radio piece. The rest would be composed primarily of interviews. I have some people in mind for that, and will probably start contacting them soon (Doug?!?), but I don’t expect to actually start working on this until after my dissertation defense. Enjoy!

On July 27, 1998, the cycling world was treated to an exceptional feat at that year’s Tour de France. After an opening week marred by the disqualification of the entire Festina team for systematic doping, the defending champion Jan Ullrich seemed poised to consolidate a second victory in as many years. The script for winning a Tour de France seemed all but inevitable. After five years of Miguel Indurain’s victories, one by the Dane Bjarne Riis (where Ullrich also finished second and scored a brutal stage victory in the final time trial), and the previous year by Ullrich were all accomplished in much the same way. In each of those years, the winner would gain massive amounts of time during the time trials, while keeping challengers on a short leash in the mountains.

Those mountains, the very monuments that were treated with such reverence by aficionados of the tour, had become almost irrelevant to the final outcome of the race.

At the time trial on Stage 7 at the 1998 tour, Ullrich had followed the script to perfection. He won by a minute over Tyler Hamilton and his closest competitors for the climbs lost over three. While the Italian Marco Pantani had escaped to win on Plateau de Beille, Ullrich seemed in command of the race when the peloton reached the Alpes, and Stage 15 to Le Deux Alpes. After allowing a few inconsequential riders to escape on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Fer, an elite group of riders assembled in the torrential rainstorm on the Col de Galibier. A Frenchman, Luc Leblanc, sitting four minutes down on Ullrich attacked twice, each time Ullrich responded with a viciousness that left audiences wondering whether anything could be done to break his hold on the race. Words like “superman” and “unbeatable” had been used frequently in the preceding week.

Shortly after catching Leblanc for the last time, all that changed. Marco Pantani, having waited patiently through the attacks by Leblanc, accelerated from the group leaving Ullrich isolated and bewildered. The effortlessness of Pantani’s attack changed all assumptions about Ullrich’s presumed dominance in the space of seconds. Leblanc made another attempt bridge the gap to Pantani, but cracked before he could catch his wheel. Pantani, meanwhile, flew up the mountain, catching all of the day’s previous breakaways. By the time he crested the Galibier he had regained almost his entire three-minute deficit to Ullrich. On the day’s final climb to Les Deux Alpes, Pantani dropped all of the remaining riders and finished the day over nine minutes ahead of Ullrich. He took the yellow jersey by almost four minutes over the next closest rival, a lead he maintained to Paris. This provided confirmation that the Tour de France could be won in the mountains, a fact that would be validated several times over the next decade.

But for all of the drama of Pantani’s ride, a drama in which the climbs themselves played no small part, Pantani claimed to dislike climbing. When asked why he climbed so quickly, he retorted that he only did it because he wanted the climb to be over. It is difficult to gauge how seriously to take such a statement. Pantani would be suspected of doping several times over the subsequent years and was ultimately found dead of a drug overdose in 2004, leaving more questions than answers about his motivations and mental state. What does seem clear, however, is that Pantani was more of a racer than he was a climber, in spite of the mythologies promoted by his fans. For Pantani, going uphill was incidental; he was a climber because he excelled at it.

This documentary is not about riders like him. No, there is another sort of rider—one to which I proudly number myself—for whom the competition, that is the racing, is incidental; we climb for the love of climbing. What draws us to spend weekends seeking out a new hill with a particularly severe gradient profile? What, moreover, draws us to subject ourselves to the inevitable torture of attempting such hills, even when our level of fitness dictates we’ll suffer more than someone like Pantani ever would? This documentary gathers together several cyclists who are all suited, in their own way, to provide insights into precisely these questions.

Well, yesterday was one hell of a smack down. I’m not quite sure why I showed up, except that I seem to be the one in charge of announcing and leading the ride. It’s been a rough month. About 3 weeks ago I got some sort of horrible virus or potentially strep (though the test came back negative). My doctor put me on amoxicillin. About 5 days later I was covered in red spots from head to toe. And after missing the smack down that week I decided to try the next one, even though I hadn’t really been off the couch/out of bed in about a week. I got to the meetup and rode with the group until Greenville Ave and didn’t even try to keep up when the pace picked up. Took a scenic route home.

Next week, I skipped altogether and went for an easy bike path ride. Still on a one-ride-per-week schedule, I stopped with the cross bike on the way home from CT Monday to do some hill repeats on Case Mountain. And by repeats I mean one. total distance for the ride was probably 4 miles. Nice steep hill, on dirt, but still. That one climb, likely because of the difference of climbing on dirt, etc, and using new muscles, had my legs killing me all day yesterday. But I went out for the Smack Down, without high hopes. The legs actually improved a bit with riding.

I lasted a bit longer. I got popped off just after Greenville Ave, but reconnected in time for Austin, but never had a chance to hold on going up Austin. A new (and quite strong) rider Melissa was also otb at that point, so we took a short cut so that we could ride with the group a bit at the end. Pretty much took it easy for that part of the ride, but some of the short steep hills hurt like hell. I just didn’t have any power. The group caught us again on Winsor, and we were able to hold on pretty well until back to the bike path.

Came home, had dinner. Puked dinner. Still feel like crap this morning. Something’s clearly not quite right and I’m pretty sure I’m still recovering from whatever that virus was, because there’s no reason for that ride to have been that tough. Sure the pace was hard, but I actually took it pretty easy for a majority of the ride. Maybe next week?

I just announced that the Mark Nicholson Smack Down begins again tomorrow night (5:00 from Casters, 5:15 from De Pasquale Square) so I’m now awaiting the inevitable flood of questions about whether this ride is appropriate for a particular skill level. I never know how to answer these questions, but I think I’ve had an epiphany tonight. Sadly, the answer to the question “should I come on this ride?” is probably “no.”

I really don’t know what the pace will be like tomorrow. It depends on who shows up, what kind of mood everyone is in, how tired people are from yesterday’s race and a whole host of other mitigating factors. Hell, I don’t even know whether I’ll be able to hold the pace. As much as we try to sell people on the pace of this and similar rides, the pace is not the issue here. Fabian Cancellara could announce a group ride tomorrow, saying that he’s going to go all out for 3 hours, and I might show up. Not that I could hang on very long, but I know that I can fend for myself once the inevitable happens.

The point is, if you have to ask “should I come on this ride?” then you probably shouldn’t. If riding home on your own (navigating unfamiliar roads, changing tires, tubes, etc, or worst case scenario, calling for help), in the event that you’re dropped, holds any terror for you, then you probably are not an experienced enough rider for this sort of ride, and you should probably wait for the next “no-drop” ride. And if you’re an experienced enough rider to get yourself home, then you also wouldn’t have needed to ask me if you should come.

And now, a few other pointers on how to ride one of these rides:

1. No one cares if you join in the pacemaking. Really. If you’re feeling under pressure, just hang out at the back and when people come off the pace line, let them go in front of you. If you do this, and then win every sprint, well, then you’re just a dick.

2. “What do I do if I get in a breakaway and don’t know the directions?” No shit, someone asked this at the beginning of a Smack Down one year. Answer: Oh, I don’t know, go ride by yourself and find your way home. These kinds of hammer-fest rides inevitably mimmic breakaway and breakaway riding to some extent, especially leading up to and coming out of sprints, but the point isn’t really to have a bunch of people riding by themselves. In general, if you think the pace is too low, don’t try to go off the front, ride at the front and lift the pace. The people behind will get the point that you’re strong (so you can placate your ego), and you’ll get the workout you need. Win-win.

3. “Should I wait at the tops of hills/after sprints?” is a slightly different version of the same question. You don’t really need to, if you know where you’re going, but why not? I mean, things string out at sprints and climbs unless everyone is really evenly matched, and the next hill/sprint is considerably less fun for everyone if you end up with 5 groups of 3 riders each. Let it regroup a bit (and no, I’m not talking about waiting around for someone who completely blew up), so that people can recover and have a reasonable size group when you get to the next sprint point. Otherwise the people behind spend all their energy chasing and even if they catch up, they’re toast when they get to the next sprint, so it’s not really a fair fight. Especially when the terrain is mixed. If a big guy gets dropped on a climb, and then you win the next flat sprint because you didn’t regroup a bit, that’s not really the classiest way to out-sprint the big rider, now is it?

I rode the Mark Nicholson Smack Down Route today and had some thoughts on routing and sprint points, which I here submit for general discussion and voting. First, the route…I suggest the following change to the route. When you get back to Tourtellot Hill Road, take a right instead of a left. (this is how Mark G. and I originally marked the route, but Mark N. originally intended the route to turn left on Tourtellot Hill Road and go back to Snake Hill Road.) This change only adds a couple miles to the route, but keeps more to back roads. And then, instead of taking Elmdale all the way back to Snake Hill, I propose we cut over to 116 on Pole Bridge Road, followed by a quick jog onto Winsor Ave, which is a much nicer way back than Smith Ave and Greenville Ave.

Now, on to sprints:

Sprint 1: This one is about a mile after you get to the top of Austin on Mapleville Road, marked by a rock on the side of the road painted to look like a Whale. I don’t particularly like this sprint. If I’m feeling good, I’ll launch my sprint from just after the top of Austin, and try to solo to the line. If that doesn’t work, however, I generally sit out, because I find that sprint scary as hell. Here’s why: The run up to the line is mostly flat, but just before you get there, you veer slightly to the left, crest a tiny little bump and descend for about 10 meters before you hit the line. It’s wicked fast, and completely blind. We’re pretty militant about enforcing the yellow line rule on the whole ride, but if someone ignores it here, and there happens to be a car coming……Instead, I’d propose to move the sprint point forward by at least 50 meters. There aren’t any landmarks as nice as the whale, but we could make the spint to one of the side streets. Or, closer to the top of Austin, there’s a Water tower thingy, or we could move it back to the intersection with Mapleville, which then makes the sprint more of a KOM. I kind of liked that this was a hard hill to figure out tactically, because the sprint was so far from the top of the hill, but close enough that it would pose difficulties for pure sprinters.

Sprint 2: no problems there. still love that one.

Sprint 3: This one has always been a bit confusing. When Mark G. and I selected it, we didn’t really have it in mind to be a climb, so we consciously chose a spot that wasn’t the top of a hill. But unfortunately the spot we picked is the second to last crest before the top of the East side of Douglas Hook. It just seems counterintuitive to sprint for that point, only to have the steepest and hardest part of the climb immediately following. I’d propose moving the sprint to the top, and make this one a KOM too.

Sprint 4: Tourtellot Hill. no problems here either.

Then, I think it would be nice to add one more sprint, something more tailored for big riders/sprinters. There aren’t so many great options, but here are 2 that might work:

1. Chepatchet. There’s always been sort of an informal competition to be the first one to the intersection of Douglas Hook and Rt. 44. We generally hang out in the parking lot here waiting for stragglers. The descent down Douglas Hook is very fast, so a sprint point at the parking lot would definitely favor the bigger riders, but only if they make it to the Sprint 3 in decent shape and not too far off the back. Someone like Greve or Gewilli could make up serious ground on the descent and be in contention for the win. And someone like me, even if I have 100 meters at the top of Douglas Hook, will find it almost impossible to hold the lead all the way to Chepatchet.

2. Intersection of Elmdale and Harmony Road. This would be after the top of Tourtellot Hill Road. Generally the last part of the ride after the hill is a little disorganized because there’s no real sprint points to keep people together. Some people hammer, others just let it go. If we added one more sprint in this area, it’d probably keep things a little more interesting. Plus the big riders will be out for blood after Tourtellot. At the spot I picked, there’s a road (Harmony) coming in from the left, with a big blue sign for “Harmony Farms.” Should be easy to spot. the road is pretty open, not too trafficky. There are quite a few curves in the road on the lead in, but not in a bad way. Seems like it’d be a fun sprint.

Having contracted a horrible strain of cold virus, or rather 2 of them in the last month, and because the weather is less than ideal, I haven’t been riding much. I spent some of Jude’s nap today, however, browsing google maps and found something interesting.

Nothing seems to excite cyclists more than arguing about what hill is the steepest. And usually, the discussions are pretty meaningless because people are comparing different types of hills, and/or confusing average gradient with maximum gradient. The recent (or now only semi-recent) bicycling magazine article by Summerson listed the steepest hills by length in the country. So he tabulates the steepest 0.1-, 0.5-, 1-, 5, and 10-mile stretches of road.

Leading the pack, at 0.1 miles is Canton Ave. in Pittsburgh. I haven’t personally tried that hill, and google elevation data (and brentacol) does not support his claim that it is 35% average (w/ a maximum of 37%). If, as he claims, he measured it himself, I should probably believe him. But based on experience, 35% average and 37% max seems rather unlikely. Almost nothing is that consistent. If we’re to believe that the hill is 35% gradient from top-to-bottom, and that it only gets as steep as 37% at the steepest point, that also means it would never dip below about 30%, which I find a little hard to believe. But who knows, the videos of the thing make it look pretty darn consistent. But another consideration. This thing isn’t .10 miles, as Summerson claims. The climb itself, or at least the part considered steep (in the videos, this is just past the end of the cobbles where it clearly becomes easy and the riders are, in essence, “done”), is only 75 meters, or about .05 miles. Keep that in mind.

For arguments sake, Fargo, in Los Angeles is a FULL .10 miles, and clocks in at 30.4% average with a maximum gradient of 38%.

For the steepest 1/2 mile, Summerson names the first 1/2 mile of  Kinglsey Hill Road. I rode that one this summer and blogged about it here. Summerson claims 19.2% for that half mile. BRENTACOL says 16%, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. (If you measure from about 30 meters after the start to about 30 meters after the .5 mile mark, you might get close to 19% with google data.)

Steepest mile is the last mile of Lincoln Gap at 16% (BRENTACOL agrees). Elevation gain for that last mile is 876 feet.

Ok, now let me present to you Deer Run Ridge Road, in Georgia.

To answer a few of your questions: 1. yes, this is a paved road, you can clearly tell in satellite mode. There are also many houses along the road. 2. no, I can’t verify that the elevation data is accurate since I’ve never ridden it, but look at the map in terrain view, and you’ll see that the road sure as hell looks steep. Exporting to kml and viewing in google earth also corroborates the steepness. 3. No, I don’t know if this is a public road. From what I’ve been able to gather, it’s within the huge Big Canoe gated community. I don’t know whether cyclists are allowed in there for recreational riding, or how difficult it would be to sneak in, etc. Some would say that this disqualifies it from consideration. Not me. I’d say if you can ride it one way or another (even if that means you have to rent a condo for a week), the hill is “do-able” . After all, Mount Washington isn’t a “public road” either (and a couple days rental off-season is probably not much more than the entry fee for Washington anyway). By complete coincidence, a cousin of mine lives in Big Canoe, so if I ever get to Georgia, I’ll have no trouble checking this out. And I’ve also sent her an email to see if she knows anything more about this hill.

Now, on to comparisons:

Deer Run Ridge v. Canton Ave (steepest >.1 mile):

Canton Ave is 75 meters long, or 246 feet, and an average gradient (if Summerson is to be believed) of 35%. Using Google Earth, I calculate a 245 foot section, starting just before the .7 mile point on Deer Run Ridge, to be 35.5%, with what appears to be a sustained section (about 85 feet) that averages 50%! Score one for Deer Run.

Deer Run v. Fargo (steepest .1 mile)

Fargo is much longer than Canton at 542 feet, but still averages a whopping 30.4%. Starting at the same point (just before .70 miles) and continuing on 543 feet, the average gradient on Deer Run is 32.2%. Another point for Deer Run.

Deer Run v. Kingsley Hill (Steepest .5 mile)

No real question here. Deer Run is 21.5% for its full .78 miles. And to make it even more obvious, Deer Run gains more elevation in those .78 miles than the whole of Kinglsey Hill does in 1.25 miles. Another point for Deer Run.

Deer Run v. Lincoln Gap (steepest mile)

Ok, well Deer Run doesn’t last a mile, so it can’t really win this one. But, after leveling off a bit at the top, there appears to be a left turn that keeps climbing a bit, right up to the 1-mile point. The total elevation gain to that point is 929. Divide that by 5280 and you get 17.6% and I’m ready to throw “Steepest Mile in the Country” to Deer Run Ridge Road.

The only hill in America that can compete with this one is the similarly obscure Waipio Valley Road. Using the same methods on Google Earth, I can find sections of .05 and .1 that are steeper on Waipio, but I’m also much less confident about the actual track. And given the chances of me getting to Hawaii are pretty slim, the chances of me getting to verify the information is less likely than it is with Deer Run.

So, if there are any Georgia residents who would like to chime in…let me know…I’d love to know if anyone has actually ridden this thing.

Sorry about this flurry of blog posts. Last Friday I drove out with Jude to Manchester, CT, so that he could spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and go to the Bristol Clock Museum. (Go figure…) After Dropping him off, I headed back to Case Mountain to see if the Carriage Road up to the top was suitable for cross tires. It starts out paved, and very, very steep. Every time I looked at the Garmin it was registering in the 20s. Before long, the pavement becomes smooth gravel. Pretty nice really, and potentially even doable with road tires, though knobs were definitely welcome. The hardest part for road tires might be navigating the 5 (or so) 4×4 steps that run across the path. It’s pretty east to lift the front wheel and just ride over them, since they’re buried pretty deep. After about .3 miles, the grade eases slightly, but there are still some steep spikes in the last half of the climb, made considerably more difficult by the dirt road.

The best part, if you’re riding a cross bike, is that the carriage road (white blazes) continues down the back side (a much gentler climb) and pops out on Birch Mountain Road. That means you can use the road as a cut-through, and don’t have to just turn around at the top. Descending the steep side would be a little scary, in any case.

Now for something a little less inflammatory. The rest of the ride mentioned in the previous post was quite nice. I parked at the base of Mount Tom, and switched out the cross tires for road tires on the cross bike. I was a little afraid, looking over the bridge, that Mount Tom might have become inaccessible. There was a big fancy gate and new fencing everywhere. They seem to be doing a lot of work on the old Mountain Park site (maybe a new park is coming??) But once I got over the bridge, the old road to the right is still just the same, so I figured I’d be fine. From there, I turned around and rode down Rt 5 to the Mount Tom reservation. The access road in there is really a pretty decent hill.

Around 6% average for just over a mile, but the section between .10 miles and .75 miles is probably closer to 10%. Not bad for a warmup. From the top, I rode out the access road to the lookout at Nonotuck Mountain. Nice view, and a pretty steep final ramp, but not much else to speak of. The road is pretty beat up. I took a quick detour to check out the little access road up Goat Peak, but it wasn’t really appropriate for road tires, so I turned back. Perhaps another time if I bring cross tires. (Here’s a brentacol map, which I’d say indicates it’s worth further study. It’s marginally paved, but the pavement frequently disappears and there were too many leaves to want to attempt it with road tires.)

Turned around and headed back to Mount Tom (with the aforementioned encounter with the crazy lady.) When I got back on Rt 5, I realized I had a flat. Not sure how long. There was some pressure in there, maybe 25 pounds or so, so it was a somewhat slow leak. I pumped it back up as much as I could with my hand pump and rode the couple miles back to my car. There, I swapped tubes and pumped it up to full. Time for Mount Tom. It went pretty well, since “pretty well,” for me, means I didn’t have to stop. My assessment now is that Mount Tom is definitively harder than both Bolton Notch AND Kinglsey Hill Road. The two things that make it harder than Kingsley Hill are: 1. I’m pretty sure the steep section is actually longer than the section on Kingsley, 2. the overall gradient is more inconsistent with small sections that exceed anything on Kingsley, and 3. There is more steep later in the hill. For Kingsley, once you get through the 20% stuff, it eases up (admittedly to only about 12% or so), but Mount Tom makes you climb gradients over 20% all the way to the top. I saw several spikes over 30% on the Garmin as well. After riding, I went back to the hill with my mother-in-law’s camera equipped with a wide-angle lens to see if that would help capture the true feel of the hill. I’ll post those once I download them.