So the Hilly Hundred is my favorite bike ride of the year… every year!
It’s a hundred miles of hills all around Brown County in Southern Indiana.
The weather is generally perfect for the weekend, and this one was no exception!

After doing rides like this for so many years, we’re “perfected” our riding style.
Many people like to pedal hard and fly through the route. We on the other hand
prefer to take our time and really see the route. Stop. Enjoy. Take pictures. Relax.
Sure there’s a hundred miles. Sure there’s thousands of feet going up. Whatever!

We’ve often joked that “the best part of biking is stopping.”
Because there’s always good snacks to have… and you feel like you “deserve it”
because you’ve already worked up the appetite & worked off the calories!
And the first rest stop of the ride on Saturday was no disappointment…

But then you get back on your bike and pedal some more.
Rolling through the countryside. Cruising through the Morgan-Monroe State Park.
Stopping at every little kid’s lemonade stand. Loving the scenery. Loving the colors.
And every once in awhile, you roll past “the perfect barn” like this… and stop again for photos!

And looking forward to the next rest stop… good food, live music… and hundreds of bikers!
With lines for food… lines for water… lines for apple cider… lines for portas… you know…

So it’s two days of fun riding through the countryside. Fifty miles on Saturday, 50 miles
on Sunday. What better way to spend a beautiful fall weekend, pedaling with my friend Chris.

But then there’s these moments… when the universe aligns and I find a bit of humor!
Like the irony of a well-placed “SLOW” sign at the top of a hill – too steep for many riders
who ended up walking up the hill and past the sign. Mocking them along the way!

Another funny moment every year is when we roll downhill into the town of Stinesville
of the last rest stop of the tour. The downhill is steep enough, with tight turns, that some riders
lose control of their bikes. And the residents have decided to build a buffer of hale bales.

Looked like a Kodak Moment to us! We’ve ridden past the hale bales for years… and finally
decided that it was time to stop and “play” for a few minutes. Pretending that Chris lost control.

By the end of Sunday afternoon, we’ve covered over 100 mils of hills, with close to 9,000 feet
of vertical elevation gain. That’s a lot of hills! Some are fun. Some are rolling. Some are killers!
And still… to this day, there’s one that is my nemesis!

It’s the shortest & steepest hill on the tour. It starts out at about a 20% grade. Then half way
up, it increases to about 24%. So by that time you’re already struggling and moving very
slowly. People walking up the hill on the right, bikers passing on the left, toes clipped into
the pedals… and an occasional car that decides to drove down the hill as hundreds of bikers
are struggling up. And if that weren’t enough, when you think you’ve made it to the top,
the road makes a very tight 90-degree turn to the right – and continues to go up! Try doing
that with no momentum and no energy! Being a larger guy, I find myself struggling to get
up, standing in my pedals, pumping so hard that my front tire starts lifting off the ground!
And that right had turn at the top… impossible. No momentum… no possibility!! My nemesis…

Okay, so I realize that I have some pretty big leg muscles. Larger calves than most. Defined.
But I always thought most guys who bike had calves?! Never knew mine were anything
special. But for some reason, I seem to get comments about my calves while I’m riding?!
Overheard on The Hilly ride… as I was pedaling along and some guy passed on my left…
“Man, you’ve got some pistons there, dude.”