Black Hills o PAIN

This was one of the first rides I did in the black hills on a road bike. It was back in the fall of '05 with Doug and Fred (mean age: 61.5). At the beginning, I thought '50-60 miles with a couple of old dudes, no problem!' (well, not no problem, but I should be in too much trouble). Anyway, turns out those old dudes really put the hurt on me. I was fine until around mile 45 when we climbed up Mount Rushmore. Its about a mile and a half with an average grade of 9.5%. I was in my littlest gear pushing 60 rpms. When we got to the top I had some cereal at the snack bar (while Fred had the biggest bowl of ice cream you'd ever seen), but I still couldn't recover enough. They kicked butt while I dragged by ass the 10 miles back to the car. Its a great route though, Iron Mountain Road is my favorite.



MapMyRide puts the total climbing at 4500 feet.