What's better than riding hills?

Riding hills on my new bike with Danielle on a cool, sunny day! Yay!

I had a fabulous route planned today, but only Danielle could make it. I love riding with a group, but riding with just Danielle is so easy - because we ride so similarly, I just RIDE. I don't think about pace or worry about keeping up with her or her keeping up with me. We just go, and we rarely stop.

I chose today's route for one primary reason: I wanted to ride a particular hill (it's only a 450' gain over two miles, but it FEELS huge). The hill is near where I live, but anywhere you can get to by climbing it can be gotten to in much easier ways. So for that reason, I'd never even driven 15 miles or so of the route.

But Danielle was up for an adventure, and here's what we got:

-- The big hill right at the beginning. Way to warm up first thing in the morning!
-- A decent but busy road with an adequate bike lane leading to...
-- An INCREDIBLE trail. Gorgeous, smooth pavement, not too many people (mostly runners or dog-walkers). Flat for the first half, hilly for the second
-- A kind of scary part on a four-lane busy highway that the bike map said had a shoulder - but the bike map lied! Obviously we were fine
-- Rolling hills over country roads - some of which the bike map said didn't have a shoulder, but all of which did (I think this is due to new housing developments out that way - the developers had to improve the roads, which also improved them for cyclists!)
-- A delicious stop at the Black Diamond Bakery - yum chocolate-filled crossaint
-- 10 miles of largely downhill riding, with only one scary incident (I was going 37 mph downhill, in the aero bars, and a cross-wind hit me and moved me A LOT. I was able to get out of the aeros quickly and get on the brakes, which stabilized me and I didn't fall)
-- One final massive hill back near home - 727 feet gained over 1.5 miles. (Note: Danielle said this hill felt easier than Somerset - 500 feet over 1.2 miles from last weekend. Ha! Wrong! This was WAY harder for me)

So, yay! Now I am certain I don't need to change my crankset to easier gearing. If I can do this stuff this early in the season, I'm only going to get stronger on this bike. So I'm all about doing the work to improve (and I think I'm starting from a solid place anyway).

Up the final big hill, for the last five minutes or so I admit I was close to tears. I was going 4.1 miles per hour and I just wasn't sure I could keep moving my legs. My chest ached, my lower back was screaming regardless of whether I was in the saddle or out, and my quads were very, very angry. But Danielle was ahead of me, and I was not going to give up. I really don't want to ride that hill again - it took at least five minutes after reaching the top to even feel good about having done it, I was in too much pain to celebrate - but man. If I can do that, what can't I do?