Death by (avoiding) hills

A week ago was Team Seagal's Death by Hills ride.  I'm don't consider myself a very good climber, but with where I live, it's really difficult to go on any kind of lengthy bike ride without encountering a few of them.  This ride was going right through my neck of the woods, and it was designed to hit the steepest of the steep around me.  What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, right?  The forecast for Sunday was sunny, windy, and 60°, so a little after 8:00, I hopped on my bike and headed over to The Wolf Public House, formerly Lone Wolf, to hop on the ride. 

The last couple years it's been reported that 50-60 people have started this ride, but this ride continues to gain notoriety and there must've been close to 100 people milling around the lot at go time.  A little after 9:00, the group took off down Clayton Road with me somewhere in the middle of the pack.  I'm pretty sure most of the people I was riding with were part of the local racing scene (why else would you subject yourself to this?), so I wasn't sure how long it would be before I was spit out the back of the pack.  Even though I was in the first group when we got split up by the light at Clayton and Clarkson, by the time we crested the hills on Clayton and Westglen Farms, I'm pretty sure I was at the back of the pack.  At this point I knew that I was going to have to skip some of the out and back climbs to avoid being horribly dropped.  What I didn't realize was that by skipping the first two I would put myself at the front of everyone. 

I was with a sizable group across from the start of the John's Cabin loop, but for some reason, when we went back down Old State, a lot of them stopped at the bottom of the hill and I was with one other person who continued down to Alt Road and we then waited for a group at the top of that hill by the entrance to Hidden Valley.  At that point, the talk was mostly on whether or not to skip the loop south of Allenton.  I thought there were going to be several who avoided it, but I must've been mistaken, because when I headed over to the gas station across from Six Flags, there was no one around, and it seemed like it was a good 10 or 15 minutes before anyone else rode past. 

After seeing a couple people skip the gas station, I decided to head out and start climbing Allenton hill towards Greensfelder Park.  While I briefly hung on to a group going down Allenton, they were too much for me and I decided I was probably on my own by now. 

Where do these people think they are?  West Virginia?

As I headed down Manchester towards my next descent into the Meramec valley, I saw this and had to stop to take a picture.  Then after coasting through Rockwoods Reservation, I headed up Melrose back to Hwy. 100 where it time to decide whether or not to continue on or call it a day.  This is the downside of the rides I do close to home.  When the route passes close by my house it tends to become too much of a beacon that will draw me in almost regardless of how much I've ridden or what might be left in the tank.  It happens every year on Trailnet's Tour of Wildwood, and was especially bad the year I rode it the day after my son was born (20 miles, oh that's PLENTY!).

I also thought that maybe I'd take the kids to the park with it being as nice as it was for late February.  As it turns out, at some point I told my wife the planned route was nearly 100 miles, so she thought it'd be late when I got home.  They were long gone when I arrived back at the house.  I should've kept riding, because they didn't show up for at least a couple more hours.  Oh well, I got 40 miles in and that was enough to hit my road mileage goal for February.