Just how 'horribly hilly' are these hundreds?
After climbing 10,700 feet along the course, one racer said, "It's destined to become legendary around the Midwest. It's going to attract a lot of insane people."
by Sam Huntington  We're not known for our hills here in the Midwest. Road cyclists looking to test their climbing skills have long been forced to pack up their gear and head to the nearest mountain state. Rides like Colorado's Triple Bypass and the epic Assault on Mount Mitchell in the Blue Ridge Mountains have always attracted a fair share of
mountain-hungry road cyclists from the country's flatter midsection.
Last year Karl Heil, the park ranger at Blue Mounds State Park, changed all that.
Heil and a small group of rider organizers introduced the Horribly Hilly Hundred, a grueling 119-mile bike ride characterized by 38 brutal hill climbs and enough rolling terrain to total 10,250 feet of climbing.
With that, road cycling in Wisconsin earned a new reputation.
After subjecting 400 riders to what was advertised last year as the "Midwest's Toughest Century," the newly named Horribly Hilly Hundred's challenge ride is scheduled for June 12 in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Judging by the overwhelming response from last year's ride, they are expecting many more riders to show up next month.
How did this all begin? Ever since Heil rode North Carolina's famous Bridge to Bridge Incredible Century Cycling Challenge a few years ago,
he wondered if he could string together enough of the short, steep climbs in this unglaciated part of the state to get a one-day ride worthy of mention with other famous challenge rides.
Working with mapping guru Greg Krystek and riding buddy Stuart Rudolph, Heil plotted and tweaked possible routes for weeks in order to develop a course that was scenic, easy for riders to follow and offered convenient places to set up rest stops. Above all, though, they
wanted the course to include 10,000 feet of climbing. Two vertical miles of hills, they agreed, would get people's attention and separate their ride from other centuries.
Although the longest sustained climb is well under 1,000 feet, riders beware: these hills are killers. Not the long, 6 percent grades in the Rocky Mountains and the French Alps, but backbreaking, this-is-a-wall-not-a-road, 300-500 feet ascents where the gradients can
rise above 14 percent for short stretches. And most hills are followed by a sharp descent before you guessed it another climb looms into view. Finish in seven hours if you're fast, 12 if you're not.
Like most centuries, the HHH offers a shorter ride option, although the organizers are quick to point out that the 66-mile route still features nearly 6,000 feet of climbing and finishes on the same homestretch as the long ride: a gut-busting 900-foot ascent to the top of Blue Mounds
State Park, the highest point in southwestern Wisconsin.
This event is definitely not a place to ride your first century, Rudolph warns. He suggests area riders unsure of their fitness levels test their mettle on another event, such as Bombay Bicycle Club's annual fall ride, the Wright Stuff Century. Although the Wright Stuff loops through some of the same parts of western Dane and Iowa Counties as the HHH, the route traverses more valleys than steep hills.
Scheduling the ride in June, when many cyclists are still building their base of easy miles, also adds to the level of difficulty. The organizers think they are better able to get riders' attention with an early summer ride than if they dropped the HHH into the crowded schedule of fall centuries.
And, of course, calling the ride the "Midwest's Toughest Century" raises eyebrows. More than a few of last year's riders, however, pointed out
that 119 miles was significantly more than a century. "We heard that a lot," Heil conceded.
This year the organizers have lengthened the long ride to cover an even 200 kilometers and changed the name to the Horribly Hilly Hundreds to reflect the length in kilometers. The short option will remain about 100 kilometers. Both routes have retained the difficulty level of the inaugural event, with only a few deviations from last year's course.
Although Rudolph stresses the HHH is not a conventional bike race, a big clock sits on the finish line and times will again be published on the ride's Web site "for bragging rights."
Despite the organizers' warnings about the difficulty of the course, it became clear to them as soon as last year's ride began that many people were in over their heads. Rudolph estimates that 40 percent of last year's field either did not finish or shortened the course considerably in
order to get home.
No problem, says Rudolph. "The whole concept of the HHH was to design a challenge ride. We wanted to make it difficult enough (so) that not everybody finishes it the first time they attempt it."
That they did, even with a field containing many extremely fit riders. A significant number of the entrants were training for September's Ironman Wisconsin triathlon. Many of the these experienced triathletes weren't
prepared for the number and degree of difficulty of the hill climbs.
Although the bike portion of the Ironman shares a few of the same roads as the HHH, the triathlon course has about half the climbing and doesn't include the hardest climbs of the HHH.
"A lot of Ironmen were walking up hills," Heil said. Part of the reason, he explained, was that many rode bikes with larger, closely spaced gears better suited for flat terrain.
Most bikes designed specifically for triathlons as well as many road racing bikes have a low gear of 42/23 or 39/21, which is woefully inadequate for the gradients found on some sections of the steeper roads, such as Barlow and Pinnacle. One rider reported simply tipping over on a climb when her shoes wouldn't unclip from the pedals.
Rudolph suggests cyclists have at least a 27-tooth rear cassette for the ride, if not a triple-front chainring. "We saw a lot of people with
11-23-tooth rear cassettes who were really suffering," he says.
One triathlete who planned ahead was Madison's Tim Valley. He swapped out his standard 11-21 rear cluster in favor of a more forgiving 12-25 and rode to the best time of the day, 7:05:13. Valley says the course was "a lot harder than the Ironman loop the hills were unrelenting," he said.
But the experience toughened him up so two weeks later the
34-year-old could record a PR of 9:54 in 16th place out of a field of nearly 1,600 at the Ironman Coeur d'Alene. His finish qualified him for Kona for the third time.
It wasn't just the triathletes who were humbled by the ride's difficulty. Ben Neff, a USCF Category 2 racer who rides for Madison's Brazen Dropouts, admitted that the HHH was "the hardest day of cycling I've ever done." Neff says hills are his specialty, and the last hill on the ride
was the first time he has ever been forced to put a foot down on a climb.
"It was epic," he said.
Neff's teammate Stephen Balsley was also amazed at the difficulty of the course. "I have never done any physical effort this hard in my life," he says. He thinks that the HHH is "destined to become legendary around the Midwest. It's going to attract a lot of insane people."
Dave Balfour might qualify as one of those insane people. The Iowa
cyclist is a member of the Big Dogs, an endurance cycling group. He had already ridden 43 centuries in the first half of 2002 before taking on the HHH. The 52-year-old veteran cyclist set a steady pace and crossed the finish line in 9:41.
Another high-mileage rider from the Big Dogs club, John Thier, said it was one of the toughest one-day rides he's ever ridden. "Five thousand feet of climbing is a very tough century. Ten thousand is unreal."
When perusing the post-ride questionnaires, Heil and Rudolph noted that although most riders were surprised by the course's difficulty, no one suggested making it easier for this year.
They know, however, that the harder the ride is, the more support is needed.
"Besides a beautiful and challenging ride, we really want to focus on customer service and giving people what they need and being there for them," Rudolph said.
In many cases, "being there for them," means hauling exhausted riders to the finish. Rudolph says that about 10 percent of last year's field needed to be SAG'd back to their cars. He estimates another 5 to 10 percent used cell phones from the side of the road to call a friend or relative to pick them up.
Whether the ride takes its place among the country's most popular challenge rides remains to be seen. But at least one rider said in terms of difficulty, the HHH has arrived.
Nolan Culberson, a transplanted West Virginian now living in Mount Horeb, has conquered a number of popular one-day climbing centuries, including the Assault of Mount Mitchell four times.
"Unlike Mount Mitchell, you have no chance to establish a rhythm. The steepness of the grades and the sheer number of hills in the HHH make it a much more difficult ride. No question about it."
Although the hills are a great challenge, Thier, the endurance cyclist from
Iowa, thinks the best part of the ride is the scenery. "I was truly amazed at the beauty of this part of Wisconsin."
A beautiful course can add to the enjoyment of any ride, but prospective HHH riders would be wise to train hard for this one and still expect to suffer. As one rider put it, "scenery becomes secondary when you can't feel your legs."
The Horribly Hilly Hundreds challenge bike ride is scheduled for June 12 in Mount Horeb. More information is at www.horriblyhilly.com. Registration is $35 for entries received before May 24; $45 thereafter. The ride is fully supported with rest stops and SAG wagons, and mechanics will be on hand at the starting line. The event benefits the Mount Horeb Chamber of Commerce. Please note that as of 5-4-04 we are almost full and anticipate their will be no opportunity to walk-on the day of the event. Please sign up very soon to get in!
Sam Huntington is a road cyclist living in Madison, Wisconsin. Having finished the 2003 HHH in a little over eight hours, he is now accepting suggestions at shunting@ameritech.net for excuses he can use to avoid putting himself through this ordeal again.
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