We had less-hilly bike errands to run on Wednesday, so we picked our weekend ride with an eye for some rollercoastery goodness. The 7 Hills of Kirkland route is an old standby. The nice thing is that we don't even have to navigate. We just follow the Dan Henrys they placed back in May for the event participants.

Our ride includes 30 miles of cruising along the Burke Gilman Trail, which, looking at the elevation profile above, is not as flat as a pancake as I thought it was. Still, the highlights are the hills, which I'll describe individually:

1. Norway Hill. A steady grade of 6-8%, with about 400 feet of elevation.
2. Kingsgate Hill. Not even a hill, really, just a bunch of little ups and downs.
3. Winery Hill. We mistakenly call this "Whiskey Hill", because there's a distillery at the bottom. It's pretty steep, but there's a milder spot in the middle to make it manageable.
4. Rose Hill. The longest slog, but less steep than the others.
5. Market Hill. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
6. Juanita Hill. Also easy, but psychologically challenging as you know there's one last big hill just ahead.
7. Seminary Hill. This one has grades of up to 9%, and by this time one's legs start to feel pretty wobbly.

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The entire time, I was thinking about how much harder the hills are going to be once I'm fully loaded. And how we're expanding our list of gear rather than paring down. And how we're not getting any younger.

The day after, our legs are a little sore, but overall, we're in good shape. We could do it again today if we had to. In Japan we will have days that match or exceed this amount of climbing, but we won't have to pull this much distance in a day. I keep telling myself that we have plenty of touring experience, we know how to deal with situations as they arise, we can alter plans as necessary. But I still can't shake this feeling that, this time, we're biting off more than we can chew.

We have bike boxes ready to go. We have also decided to try camping at this park in Chitose that's very near the airport. We're not sure if reservations are required. Reserving requires an account, which requires a Japanese address. We're just going to show up, and if they don't take us, we'll go find a hotel. Should be easy enough to do on a Tuesday in September.