Escarpment climbing in Stoney Creek/Grimsby

This past Saturday I headed out with a group of cyclists cobbled together via a series of emails Friday. There were riders of varied ability, and the goal was to head out at a social pace to Grimsby and climb the escarpment a few times, then head back at a similarly relaxed pace. Some folks are heading to South Carolina in a few weeks and wanted to prepare their legs. Myself, I just wanted to get the km in my legs and do some hard efforts on the hills. 3 of us headed out from Niagara Falls around 8:15 to meet the rest of the group in St. Catharines at 9.

After some discussion about what route to take, we departed and rolled through Jordan and Vineland, fighting the strong west wind the whole way. Our first ascent to the top of the escarpment came at Mountain Rd in Beamsville - a gentle climb for 3 km averaging 3.3%, with the steepest part at 12%. Manageable, and one of my favourites in the area. I pulled away from the group, not intentionally, but just wanting to climb the whole thing a bit above threshold. I expected Dan to give chase, but it was Shawn who started to close on me but never made it across. We spun easily at the top giving me a chance to eat while the rest caught up. From here it was along Ridge Rd toward Stoney Creek.

At our farthest point, we descended McNeely Rd, which was a very new experience to me. I've never done a descent with such steep and tight switchbacks, so needless to say it was a bit hairy. Then, we climbed back up. 3 of us did, anyway. The climb is 1.6km, avg grade of 7.1% with sections at 17.1%. Needless to say, tougher than any other climb in Southern Ontario. It didn't help that my winter bike has a single 42t, so I was climbing in 42x28 (approximately equivalent to the second last cog on my road bike, 39x23). That was fun. Down Fifty road, and into Tim Hortons we went as we were now quite hungry and ready for a break at this point.

Following the refueling stop, most of the group went back up Fifty Road (no easy climb but gentler than the others in the area) while the same 3 of us decided to climb Wolverton Rd. instead. Wolverton is 1.3 km, avg grade of 8% with sections at 17.2% - similar to McNeely but 300m shorter and thus a little steeper on average. Also, the steepest part is a long stretch at 16-17% about 3/4 of the way to the top that just about breaks your legs.

Once on top, we enjoyed a nice tail wind, the same wind we'd fought on the way out. This carried us home, which included one final climb up the shorter and gentler escarpment back home in Niagara. In total the ride was about 145 km door to door for me, with about 850m of climbing. Not bad for a "flat" area with no mountains or real hills to speak of.

Here is my ride data, as well as an elevation profile (with slightly different time/distance since it was from Shawn's GPS file - you can ignore the peak power, since that is some bogus thing calculated by the software - that file did not have any power data from either of us).

Sunday I did an easy 1h recovery ride on the trainer, and then it was a couple days off to tackle midterms and other school business.

Tonight, a few high(-ish) cadence intervals to work on form and to get the legs warmed up after a couple slow days: