Death By Hills, Version 1.2 (planning stage)

Party people in the house, we have more upwards-punishment to deal out to your legs. Now before you go trying to sell some (or all) of your children off in order to afford some uber-light, uber-expensive AX Lightness components to remove all possible weight from your bike in order to help you up the hills faster, realize that this will be in a different area.

Whereas the glorious Death By Hill West County route went through most of the worst hills that St. Louis County has to offer, this will be farther east and south, encompassing the full range of hills that will be found in "mid-West County," South County, Fenton, Valley Park, etc... Generally speaking, we don't think we want to go much farther west than Hwy 141, maybe stretch it up to Ladue Rd briefly, and no farther East than Southwest Hill. I'm (we're) not as familiar with the deeper South County routes, so I'm not sure how far south it would be worth it to venture south.

The hills that we'd potentially see on this route wouldn't be *quite* at the level of things like Huntersford or the Scenic Loop, but they'll still hurt plenty, and would be worth riding in order to familiarize yourself with more-easily-accessible places to hit on your daily rides when training for rides like Syllamo's or the American Mountain Classic.

So right now, we're trying to compile a list of potential "Col's" that would be worth doing. I think Ladue is about the farthest north that we'd want to go. What we have so far:
-Barret Station (between Doughertey Ferry and Big Bend)
-Marshall Road
-the road through the apt complex adjacent to Marshall (Timber Ridge?)
-Rott Rd in Sunset Hills
-West Watson
-Rott Rd.
-West Watson
-"Fabicksberg"
-West Adams (out of Sugar Creek Valley)
-Couch (out of Sugar Creek Valley)
-Carman Rd
-Des Peres Road (from Dougherty Ferry)
-Ladue (headed east approaching 270)
-Warson Road (south away from Litzinger)
-Heinz Rd
-Old Gravois
-Kerth Rd
-Henry Rd
-Old Sulphur Spring
-Lone Elk Park, if possible to safely get to.

We're open to suggestions, if plausible, and legal. If something worthwhile is in South County, let us know. This ride would be on slightly less bike-friendly roads than what we found in West St. Louis County, and would also require more turns. More traffic can be bad for large groups of riders, so we'll need good roads through neighborhoods when possible, and we'll need to go at a time when few people are driving, i.e another Sunday morning. The plus side is that there will be more places to stop for refuel. Again, to have to do excessive re-looping onto the same roads kind of sucks, so if it doesn't work, then so be it.

So as Bruce Dickenson of the metal gods Iron Maiden so gloriously commanded, "Run To The Hills."

-Casey F. Ryback