Thursday, July 19, 2007

Tour of Eastside Hills

Today's ride, the tour of eastside hills, will feature some great climbs, roughly 90 miles of hilly Northwest roads - the steepest being Tolt Hill Road out in Carnation - a 10% grade for a mile! This will be about the 10th time I'll do that climb, and I can't say it ever gets any easier. Well maybe the 2nd time it was a little easier but since then it's been about the same - really hard.. 43rd Ave (out in Issaquah) is tough too, and you can tell the traffic isn't used to riders on that road, they buzz pretty close.

Towns/suburbs I'll pass through: Seattle, Renton, Issaquah, Fall City, Carnation, Redmond, Woodinville, Bothell, and then back to Seattle. From looking at the elevation profile, it looks like there are 6 or 7 major climbs - each maxing out at 400 or 500 feet.

Check out what the route looks like in Google Earth:



According to my cyclo-computer I got back in May, I've done 1,620 miles! If I keep up this pace I could probably do 4-5k miles this year, maybe more. I can't wait to see it hit 2,000 miles, which should happen maybe even this month!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have to tell me how you get the altitude overlay on the Google Earth. That's cool.

I agree on Tolt not getting eaiser. Maybe if one does repeats up it...

matt said...

my mapping site generates KML (Google Earth output) for any saved route.

So if you click out a route and save it on veloroutes, you can view it in 3D!! (elevation data is there too if you zoom in on the route)

--

repeats up tolt!! the thought hadn't crossed my mind, i guess because it'd be so damn hard! that'd be great training for next year's Carnation Hills TT.