My Favorite Whidbey Hill Climbs

My Favorite Whidbey Hill Climbs is a list of the hill climbs I enjoy most.


1. Swede Hill

        I am currantly the Strava "Local Legend" on this hill climb. Basically means that I have climbed this hill more than anyone else in the past 90 days. It's on my way home. I have good efforts and bad efforts on this hill. Sometimes it's my favorite climb and sometimes it's not my favorite. Because I climb this hill regularity It has become special.   





2. Heggness Hill




3. Campbell Road





4. Lancaster Road






5. North Bluff Road






6. Engle Road





7. West Beach Road Climb




8. Possession Point Climb




9. Mur de Bob




10. B. Galbraith Road

May Climbing Challenge Tour of Bush Point

The Tour Of Bush Point. 

I have been looking forward to riding out to Bush Point for most of the winter. Bush Point is scenic with the Olympic Mountains in the back ground and the shipping lanes in the for front. When the merchant ships go by Bush Point I am astounded by how big they are and how close they come to the shore. Another reason for wanting to go to Bush Point is for the last few years when I'm heading out Smuggler's Cove road I go by Bush Point on my way to Greenbank and beyond thinking to myself "I should go down to Bush Point one of these days." Neither of these reasons where my main focus when I set out on this ride. I was go to Bush Point to climb Spyglass Drive.

Before I recount climbing Spyglass Drive I must tell of two hills I climb more regularly on the way to Bush Point. The first of which is Sills Road. I may have mentioned Sills Road in another post. It goes to show that I climb Sills Road often. Anytime I want to head to Bayview and all points north Sills Road must be climbed. 

Here's another look at it.

The other climb is Lancaster Road. I climb Lancaster less than I have in the past. I make a point of climbing it a few time a season. Heading out to bush Point provided a perfect opportunity to do so.



When I reached Bush Point I had to go out to have a look at the light and lake or it wouldn't be a TOUR of Bush Point.

Then I worked my way to the other side of the point where the boat launch is located.

The boat launch is at the bottom of the hill I had come to Bush Point to climb, Spyglass Drive.

May Climbing Challenge First Week Review.

I'm behind of my blog posting so this post is going to be the week in review. You can read about Monday's Ride in my last blog post. The main idea to reiterate is that a Monday's Ride I was feeling good. The legs were pumping hard on the pedals like a couple of high performance pistons and my breathing was deep and comfortable. By contrast Tuesday's ride, Cinco de Mayo (Two Towns Clinton - Langley) was difficult. My legs didn't want to cooperate with each other and my energy level was off the charts low. Nonetheless, I was able to climb a few noteworthy hills. The first and one of my favorites is Campbell Road.



This is a killer hill going from Maxwelton road up to Cultus Bay road. It has scenery, switch backs and steep pitches. It is known by several cyclist I've meet from over town who come over just to train on Campbell road for an event they were riding later in the summer. Awesome climb.

The next one is tough one. Its steep and the pavement sucks. The jury is still out as to whether I put it on my favorites list. Some days are good on this climb and somedays are not so good. It's a climb that must be experienced to be one with the Whidbey hills.




At the end of the ride Swede Hill road. I climb this hill more times in a season than any other hill. It's how I get home.







After this ride I was exhausted and rest on Wednesday. I tested the waters with short ride on Thursday. Willy's Way.  I went into Langley via Maxwelton then Coles road. Once I got into Langley I was starting to get into it and decided I would head out of town on Wilkinson road. I made it out to the intersection of Wilkinson, Bob Galbreath and Surface road. I was feeling good but not good enough to climb Bob Galbreath road so I turned on Surface road. Surface road is a fun climb and it's part of the Tuesday Night Time Trail.





Another way home is Scatchet Head road. This hill is definitely not one of my favorite hill climbs. I'm not sure why. Most of the time when I'm on this hill I think to myself "Just get to the top and you're home. "  I don't care how well I'm doing or if I'll get a PR just get up the hill and get it over with.



I'm going to wrap this post up and write about Friday's ride in the next post. Friday's ride deserves it own post.

The official tally after three rides is   4750' / 24606'.

Monday Ride! May Climbing Challenge

Monday Ride is the first official ride of the May climbing challenge. I say first official ride because I did a ride on May Day but neglected to hit the record button on the Strava app. I'm done crying about my mistake. Snooze you lose.

Let's have a look at Monday Ride.  The weather was warm but was threatening to rain, fortunately;  I only felt a few sprinkles and the roads remained dry. I was comfortable on the bike and I had great legs. One of those rides were you know why you love to pedal bicycles.

The route is one I do often during the season. Basically I go into Langley via Bayview Road. Come out of Langley on the Langley Rd and cross the highway at Ken's Corner and then home on Cultus Bay Road. Because I was feeling so good and I'm doing the climbing challenge I added The Heggenes Loop.

Here are the climb along this route.

1. Sills Road. This hill would just about kill me when I started riding again. Now I just put in a decent effort and get up it.




2. Brook's Hill is a decent climb and I do well climbing most of the time. It also sets you up on the top of the descend into Langley.




3. Lang Road Hill. This hill climb is one I like to put in a good effort. Sometime I start out a little too hard and then suffer at the top. The other annoyance on this hill is the traffic coming out of Langley. It can be quite heavy certain times of the day.



4. Heggenes Hill is on my favorite hill climb list. The lower part of the hill reminds me of Switzerland. The meadow with the barn and horses and the way the hill is cut. Beautiful. 



5. Last but not lease Scatchet Head Road. This hill is not one of my favorites. It's necessary climb to get home. 




I ended up with 1657 feet of climbing on this route. I've convert the Stava goal of 7500 meters to feet 12606.3. So I only have 10949 feet to go.

Keep on climbing!

May Climbing Challenge

Happy May Day. I have joined the May Climbing Challenge on Strava. I am excited about the challenge. I’ve been anticipating participating in this climbing challenge all winter. I tailored my winter roller sessions to be ready for the May month of climbing. My goal is to get my climbing legs early this year. Another goal is to climb as many Whidbey Island hills as I can. That is to go out of my way to climb hills I don’t usually climb or climb a few I haven’t climbed before. One hill that I have been eyeballing is out at Bush Point.

10% grade, wow that intimidating.

Another hill that fits this category is in Coupeville.
This is another 10% grade and another hill I have yet to climb.

I don’t want to shy away from the toughest hills on the Island. These are my top three toughest climbs.

1.

2.


3.

 Finally my three favorite hill climbs.

1.

2.


3


What is your toughest and favorate Climb? Let me know in the comments below.