Remington Rd. Hillclimb, Ithaca (video)

Remington Rd. Hill Climb, Ithaca NY from Armin Heurich on Vimeo.

For cyclists looking for a great hill climb in the finger lakes region, this is one of my favorites. This route takes you on a 600 ft. vertical ascent in just under 2 miles, with twisty, well-maintained low-traffic roads and great views of Cayuga lake. It's also the most stealth exit from Ithaca to surrounding towns of Lansing and Dryden, where cycling can't be beat. I shot the footage from a car, and slowed the video down to simulate cycling speeds.


I shot the video footage in the fall of '09, at the tail end of a great cycling season. It's taken me a while to finally edit this together, and I'm hoping that it serves as inspiration for you cyclists waiting for the road biking season to begin. 

Making Plans, Digging Deep

It's never too early to make plans for the cycling season, so I'm considering taking on five finger lakes this year. Don't hold me to it, but I'm certain that I'll circumnavigate at least Cayuga, Seneca and Owasco this year. Keuka and Canandaigua are the wildcards. I did the Keuka loop back in the late '80s, and really enjoyed that ride, especially the northern dual tip. It's definitely the coolest shape of all the lakes. I've also done Owasco once and Cayuga at least eight times.

The multicolored lines in this picture represent my finger lakes area rides from last season, and it's immediately apparent that I did lots of repeat treks, especially around Lansing, Dryden and Ellis Hollow. There's a certain comfort in repeating well-worn routes, and this also allows you to assess your performance from one day to another and focus on improving hill climbs. On the other hand, I think it's really helpful to get out of your comfort zone and face unpredictable elements, though thanks to online mapping sites like MapMyRide.com and Everytrail.com, you can preview your hillclimbs and be better prepared for the challenges. Still, factors like road conditions and weather are wildcards that alway make road biking exciting and unpredictable.

In the meantime, the winter drags on, and for the first time in many years, I am desperately looking forward to spring and clean, salt-free roads. After taking a few weeks off of the trainer, I grudgingly climbed on the trainer twice in a week. This morning I pushed really hard, and burned 660 calories in 35 minutes, averaging 160 bpm. My plan has been to stay in form so that there's hardly a transition to the road bike season, and I'm confident that I will succeed, after all, my first ride last season was March 20th! Yeah, it was an anomalous spring, but I'm hopeful that I'll get at least one or two rides in before April 1. I continue to study the accuweather 15 day projection tea leaves every day, looking for a sign.

Looking For A Sign

I've got the February blues, and I'm looking for a sign. The road bike sits in its basement bunker, waiting patiently for it's moment to attack the twisting roads up to Lansing, Dryden, McLean, Groton, Trumansburg, Ellis Hollow, Richford, Brooktondale, Spencer, Candor, and beyond. Yet these are desperate days for me, as I realize how I'm in complete withdrawal from road biking addiction. Sure, I see brave cyclists on the road in winter climbing up East State St. and elsewhere, but I have no intention of breaking out the road bike until the bulk of the road salt is washed away.


Every day I visit Accuweather and check out their 15-day forecast temperature graph, hopefully looking for signs of a warming spell, but today's graph offered no encouragement. The anticipated high temperature has essentially flatlined for the next two weeks, so I guess I just have to face the inevitable, and prepare for some more indoor riding with the trainer. It's so hard to get motivated for indoor cycling, but it will surely pay off.


Speaking of indoor training, my friend Joe sent me the link to a story that ran on the radio show Only A Game about an annual event called Bikes and Beer. This event sounds like a blast, and if I lived closer to Boston, I would definitely participate. Nearly 300 cyclists visit the Harpoon brewery for an indoor time trial, a stationary bike race that simulates an eight-mile course. Imagine all these riders riding on trainers that are all networked to an electronic scoreboard. The software is so sophisticated that it allows for drafting! Somehow an event like this appeals to me (in theory at least) much more than a spinning class, not just because you're using your own bike, and it's not just because of the beer reward afterwards. As one of the participants pointed out, if your a recreational cyclist participating in a race with Cat 1 riders, you'll only see them for a minute or two, and then they'll be out of sight for the rest of the race. In this even, however, you see them for the whole race, which might offer some inspiration and some performance tips. Here are some pictures of the event.

If you're starting to think of cycling events to participate in for the summer, I recently heard about an event called BikeIt! Here's a blurb from their web site:

Imagine 5,000 bicyclists riding into Detroit, the Motor City, to help bring about a different world. We see thousands of cyclists coming from every direction converging on the United States Social Forum next June, voting with their legs for a greener, cooler, fairer society. We’re taking that ride, and we invite you to join us.

The first U.S. Social Forum took place in Atlanta from June 27 to July 1, 2007. Like the annual World Social Forums, the Atlanta event brought together activists, organizers, people of color, working people, poor people, and indigenous people from across the United States. They built unity around the common goals of environmental and social justice, formed alliances to broaden the social justice movement, and had a blast while doing it. Now the second U.S. Social Forum is organizing. It will open in Detroit on June 22 and run until June 26, 2010. We are now looking for organizers to recruit squads of cyclists and biofuel-powered support wagons to ride from wherever they are to the Opening March.

Hopefully I'll be chatting with the organizer soon and providing more information about the event. Lots of rides are being organized around the country to head to Motor City and participate in what looks to be a really important event that will hopefully initiate grassroots activism on a range of environmental and social justice-related issues. If you're interested in joining the Finger Lakes BikeIt Ride, check out this link. This group will have a max of 50 riders from Ithaca, Syracuse, Binghamton, and smaller towns in Central NY. The ride will be about 500 miles, and here's the map of the route:

If I had the time, I'd love to participate. The Canadian section of this ride is spectacular. There's very little traffic for most of this stretch, and the views along the Lake Erie shoreline are spectacular.