Great Lakes - Hills in NW Ohio, Oxymoron anyone!!

I live in Toledo and need to find some better hills to train on, besides overpasses! Does any one know of some good ones in the area? I currently ride along River Road allot, between South Toledo and Waterville, and there are a couple small hills, but I need more and larger hills.
Thanks

I will call the slight inclines that rarely exist in nw ohio 'hills'.


river road is the best you get-but its much hillier south of waterville and all the way out towards napoleon. Ovitt road between 65 and 64 just south of perrysburg/waterville is good for 'hill repeats. 65 has a few rolling hills between waterville and perrysburg plus you can see some cool big ass houses. Ottawa Hills has some hills and a some nice houses.



um... ya thats about it.

When I rode up there in college I remember riding up to River Road from BG for anything that even closely resembled a hill. And lots and lots of reps on overpasses as silly as that sounds.

If you're thinking of putting the bike in the car and driving, take a look at the Irish Hills area in SE Michigan, and the area around Manchester and Jackson. Not tall hills by Appalachian or Colorado standards, but ifyou don't regularly climb anything but overpasses, 50 to 200 feet is the next level. So far I think these hills are about as hard as anything in Michigan, perhaps excepting the Pierce Stocking and Inspiration Point climbs.

I have a thread on one of these rides, in C&V, "Ann Arbor Vintagists." We put in some links to route maps on MapMyRide, and I'm pretty sure we made them public links.

Of course, you can find Ohio hills out toward Cleveland.

Or pm me for more info.

The only real hills around Toledo are the Hi-Level Bridge and the two old landfills on the north side.

There are only two hills that I have found. One is off of River Rd. on Jerome, heading toward the mall. The other is the path that is part of the Fallen Timbers Memorial (just before Jerome Rd. on the right, sign where the path starts off of River Rd. says Emergency and Authorized Vehicles only)

Way back 35 years ago when I was at BG, I rode my bike out southwest of town on Sand Ridge Road. I think it was the only road in all of Wood County that wasn't straight and heading north/south or east/west. But there were no hills to speak of.

It was so flat there that living on the 7th floor of the dorm, I could see the Owens-Corning building in downtown Toledo. The BG golf course used the side of the highway landfill hill for three holes just to have some elevation change. Snow never touched the ground from the North Pole until it landed on and buried my car.

On the other hand, the wind in NW Ohio is the equivalent of climbing mountains, and is unrelenting!

You're going to need to travel a little distance! Check out the areas where they hold the Columbus Fall Challenge, Knox County Challenge, and Holmes ... also, the areas around Mohican State Park. The old triathlon course there was considered tough!