HTFU Weekly Rides at Gas Works Park 2025

HTFU ("Hills To Fly Up" but sometimes known by a less appropriate name) is our regular Tuesday night hill climb/power development workout. Come prepared for 60-90 minutes of steep hills and hard efforts. This will help you develop more power and mentally prepare you for challenging sections of your race course.

Benefits of Hill Workouts: Working on hills is critical, because, well, some races have hills. Confidence going up AND going down is essential. But that is just the starting point. Intense near-all-out efforts are critical to improving overall strength and key to improving your VO2 Max. As part of a focused workout, hill efforts can also greatly improve pedal stroke dynamics. Regular hill workouts will also help you mentally prepare for whatever gets thrown at you on race day. You should join us, even if climbing hills is intimidating. Let's get it done. Bring your willingness to suffer and leave your inhibitions at home as we will tackle some of the steepest hills in Seattle.

Pace and Regrouping: HTFU is designed to get your heart rate close to anaerobic threshold and give you 3-4 chances to get close to your max HR. Please note that this is a training ride and not a social ride. This requires that you pay attention to the group dynamics as we ride on open roads and try to stay with the group.

Routes: Our routes change every week. Traditionally we have gone through a 4 week cycle from easiest to hardest, with the routes listed below. When doing these routes, they are no drop rides. You can expect 3-4 significant hills. As everyone will conquer the hills at their own best-effort pace, we regroup frequently (at the top of almost every hill).

Our route rotation:

HTFU 75th
HTFU Queen Anne
HTFU 98th
HTFU Bellevue

Lately we have also introduced hill repeat workouts. In these, we go to together to get to the hill, then everyone is on their own going up and down. While the scenery does not change, you get the benefits of a workout tailored to your own needs and desires. The strong climbers aren't waiting and the slower climbers aren't feeling like they are holding people up. So far we have two such rides:

--5th Ave W in Queen Anne. Its about 8-10% grade, easy to get to and very few cars.

--NE 24th St in Bellevue. Its 10-14% grade, we treat the 520 bridge as a "hill" workout interval both ways, and while there is traffic, it has a decent shoulder.

Equipment: Helmets are obviously required to ride. A good headlight and taillight are recommended. Also MUY IMPORTANTE make sure that your bike is in good working order and there is plenty of life left in your brake pads. Can not stress this enough... Check your gear BEFORE coming out!

Location: We meet in the parking lot of Gas Works Park and start/end all our rides from there. Be aware on nice days this parking lot will fill up in the afternoon; if you're driving to this event, give yourself some extra time to find parking.

Time: Be ready to roll at 6:30 pm. We will have a brief safety speech, then roll a soon as it is done. Again, arrive early enough to be ready to roll at 6:30 sharp. If you are late, don’t expect to join the ride. Most rides are about 1.5 hours in length.

Weather: Rain or significant chance of rain cancels this ride. We'll make the final call no later than 5:30pm day of the ride. Please check back in the comments section prior to ride for cancellation due to bad weather.

In order to participate in any Seattle Triathlon Group event, you must sign our electronic waiver. Waivers only need to be signed once per year or if your contact info has changed. You can login to your account at https://www.seattletri.org/dashboard to check. I will only be accepting electronic waivers - please complete the waiver ahead of time! No waiver, no ride!