Bomb the Hill?
 

You do a 66 mile organized ride. When you finish you feel good so you decide to stretch it into a full century by riding a 34 mile out and back route. 0.25 mile before the turnaround point, you reach the top of a long slow climb and see the road drops at about 20% grade. Do you bomb down the hill knowing that you'll just have to turn around and climb back up again?

20% grade! I'd bomb down it.

I try to avoid downhills if possible. Might have something to do with no hand brakes or coasting...

After 66 miles, I'll do another 44, but I'm looking for the easy route.

Bonked too many times by putting in too much energy- 20% down would be great but 20% up after 83 miles would cause me a problem later. Incidentally on a 100miler in a month- Our 20% up is after about 40 miles. The rest of the 10,000ft climbing is around 12 to 15% Just hope it doesn't rain cause I haven't sussed a Good Mud tyre for the Tandem yet.

Just short of the turnaround on a 34 mile leg, eh?
With 17 miles still left to go I'd probably skip the down hill / up hill to save energy and make up the last little bit of mileage at the end. Or explore a side road with just a couple of miles left to go.

I bombed the hill. It was too much temptation. The crawl back up was tough, but in retrospect I'm glad I did it. I didn't know it at the time, but the climb was one of the steepest in the region and I would have been upset to find out later that I wimped out.

That's a pretty steep grade... there's not many steeper, really, on the roads out there.

Given that, I wouldn't do it... then again, I'm a lousy hill climber.

Sure I would....If my home was at the bottom of the hill...

I'm feeling kinda tried today, so I voted to skip it.

And go splat at the end? No.

Yes !! What does not kill you makes you stronger.

Oh, sorry, I read the thread topic and thought this was going to be a political op-ed question...

No way.

nope. smoke a Camel at the pass, enjoy the scenery, and make up the last half mile distance riding around in a little victory lap once you get back to the start of the ride....

Me too. Given the thread title, I'm wondering how long it will be before Homeland Security starts rounding everyone up. . .