Road Cycling - riding on the flatland

i started riding bikes in philadelphia. it's pretty hilly around there. the local rides went to many hills and were very fun (especially delaware county). lots of variation in speed and effort. now i live in ann arbor MI, and it's pretty flat. i went on my first group ride today, and it was much different. the group held a more consistent (higher) average speed, and there wasn't as much variation in effort. it was almost in a way monotonous. i don't want to come to a conclusion until i do a bunch more rides, but, man, i miss the hills. anyone else encounter this type of situation? any tips on making things a little more interesting? i guess sprints? or intervals while out riding alone, maybe?

I'd love to ride in the flatlands. All we have here are rollers, long sustained climbs, steep descents. I hear they have alpine skiing there too. I think one resort has as much as 400' of fast descents!

Yeah, I'm an ass ;)

Why'd ya move to the flats?

To me, the flats help me develop cadence and straight line tracking. I like hills better for the same reason you stated. Oh, you can get some variation here on the Texas Coast. When we turn around, we usually face a 10-20 mph head wind. Now that sucks!

yeah, the wind is kind of like hillls. guess one has to learn how to ride into wind as well as up hills.

i moved to ann arbor for school/job reasons. i miss philly.

I'm with you - I don't care for the flats. For whatever reason, I can't ride the flats very well - too slow. But get me on a hill, with just the right upward slope and for some reason I take off like a rocket.

I am the exact same way, sure flatlands are a nice break, but when I go up hills I get a burst of energy and I am able to push myself up most of the hills now, after a good month's training I have been able to make it up any hill now, usually I bike on the highest gear to get more of a workout and to train more. As for riding against the wind on flatlands or hills, I usually crouch my body down really low onto the bike and usually try to make it so the wind isn't hitting as much of my body as possible so I don't get slowed down too much, sometimes it just hard, anyone have any techinques are riding against the wind?

... anyone have any techinques are riding against the wind?Yeah, just sit in the pack around the sixth position and don't take any pulls out front!

I grew up in Del. County outside of Philly and moved down to the Texas coast 1 year ago. Don't take this as a rip, but having lived there for 34 years, road biking for 10 (ended up moving ot mt biking), I think I am entitled to a strong opinion. While I agree about the rolling hills, I do not miss the crappy roads, pot holes, heavy heavy traffic, short riding season, much more aggressive drivers. And that's just on the bike. Love the cost of living down here, overall nice people, weather, great food...

I agree about the headwinds being a challenge in themselves, but it's different than hills and the flatlands do get boring, but luckily there are huge groups that ride together down here so that makes it better for me...

Good luck in Michigan.