Listed below are my personal “100 Steep Ones” (give or take a few) in a somewhat loosely categorized listing. I started out with the idea of listing perhaps the top 20 climbs. Things got out of hand quickly, and here is the result, with 100 climbs listed!

The definition of a hill is pretty subjective, and my data mostly show the “meat” of a hill — the main, steep portion of it — as I see it. Sometimes, to give a better idea of the overall grade, I’ve also included the overall length of a hill and the overall average gradient. Other times, a particularly steep section will merit a special notation.

All the climbs listed are within 50 miles of metro Louisville, more or less, depending on how one arrives at said location. So, theoretically at least, they all can be worked into a long (century-distanced) ride from Louisville.

Duc

Enhanced Table (beta)

If you have Javascript enabled, the table may be sorted and reformatted several ways by clicking the headings. You can list them by toughest, longest, East to West, North to South, near to far (from Louisville, first by direction, then by radius only) etc. It has been tested mostly in IE. Please email me with any errors.

Another thing you can do with this list is to measure your power output. Pick a steeper hill to ride, over 12%, where your aerodynamic drag is minimized. Climb it in your best gear noting the time it takes you. Get the combined weight of you and your bicycle in kilograms. Divide your weight by the seconds it took you. Then divide 85 by the time listed in the table (converted to seconds). Then divide your number by the number derived from the table and multiply by 250. That is your power output in watts.

PaCkMaN

Thanks to Jack Perry for providing some data for cross-checking.

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web posted: 5 January 2007
last updated: 10 March 2009
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