Originally Posted by pastorbobnlnh
8 miles! Super! I ride down a 3 mile stretch of dirt road that drops 650 ft of vertical. It's very steep in places with ruts, lose gravel, and blind turns and drops. It's a thrill better than any roller coaster ride I've ever been on. I try to stay below 35 mph just to let my wife and daughter know I'm not being reckless. The 1 & 1/2 mile climb is always worth the down hill on the other side!
One of the problems with our hills is that they are too short. I am talking a maximum of 1 mile hill with a 600ft drop in elevation. These are offroad though and the attached pic was taken in the Summer. Now imagine it from wednesday night, very slippery chalk, ruts are deeper, lot more flints about the size of footballs, and on the Tandem. We took it steady and still fell off 3 times, and that was climbing it. For some reason, we took it even steadier on the way down as it was on this hill we had a front blowout at 35mph in the summer and my pilot still remembers how hard the ground was. Also attached is a trail through woods. That little step at centre of picture is where the solos get launched. The Tandem doesn't get airborne on this little bit of solid Flint, but it does rattle a bit at 40 mph.