Originally Posted by LWaB
And there I was describing PBP to a local bunch as a series of gentle rollers...
Gentle rollers!!!
As far as I'm concerned, there are three definitions of rollers:
1) Tall rollers - like the hills on the PBP. These are hills where you shoot down one side, and can make it about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up the next hill before you have to start pedalling.
2) Rollers - Hills where you shoot down one side, and can make it about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the next hill before you have to start pedalling. The hills on the Last Chance would have been "rollers" if they had been slightly closer together - at a few points on the ride, they were close enough to qualify.
3) Gentle or small rollers - Hills where you shoot down one side, and can make it 2/3 to ALL the way up the next hill before you have to start pedalling. There's a series of gentle rollers in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. I love that road because I barely have to pedal the whole way - it's so fast!! I'll pedal a couple pedal strokes at the top of each of the little rollers which will send me shooting back down again.
At 300K on the PBP, I came so very close to quitting because I just couldn't face another 900 kms of tall rollers. I took a bit of a break there, felt some better about things, and kept going, but those PBP hills took it right out of me.
But then, when I rode the PBP I'd done all my training in Manitoba!!