Hills.

If there's a single topic of discussion that all riders seem to enjoy, it's hills. The joy, the pain, the anticipation, the legendary ascents.

Thus have I learned about hills:

• If you continue pedaling, no matter how slowly, you will eventually get to the top.
• The reward of a difficult hill is an exhilarating downhill.
• Talking to someone while you ascend makes it much easier.
• Complaining (or riding with a complainer) while you ascend makes it much harder.

I have been on a lot of training rides heading North from San Francisco, which usually involves encountering the famously feared Camino Alto Road. Here is a video I took, starting near the top of the ascent, and continuing down to the traffic light at the bottom of the hill.

Note: the bumpiness of the descent kept angling the camera down, which occasionally brings my headlight into the frame.

For all the computer gamers out there, that is not a handlebar-mounted weapon of any sort, it is a battery powered accessory designed to project photons in a focused pattern to warn car drivers of my presence in low light situations.