When I ride an in-town route, I pay attention to my Wahoo's "cafe' time" or the difference in total and moving time in Strava. The less, the better the route.
If you want hills, I've got some hills for you. I have a route in Raleigh with 3000 feet in 30 miles. Basically a loop with some hills in N HIlls, behind the Wade Ave Whole Foods, the Art Museum, thru Umstead, then back home. It's like 3-4 miles gravel in Umstead for a challenge.
I'll warn you on the Crankarm rides, if you go in the "busy season" it's a little too much to handle. And it's always a very very slow pace. It's a brewery crawl ride. Sometimes people race up a hill or something, but the ride leads get pissy. And they use a lot of questionable greenway/street combos that don't work for big groups in downtown Raleigh. I don't want to hate on it, because it's a very nice group of people to ride with for relaxing fun and some awesome people giving their time for the group ride and pizza afterwards. This summer I stopped going when 3 weeks in a row there was a crash and it took over 10 minutes to make it thru a stoplight due to group size.
If you're a State student, NC State has a dedicated FB page for cycling and they do early morning rides out to Jubala North of town and to Lochmere South of town once a week. Looking at their posts though, there's definitely a few that fancy themselves as "racer boys" and girls and don't seem to care for more chill riders. Worth a shot, it may just be that I'm old (33) now and that's not my scene. Lots of folks my age have a hard time "fitting in". It's either too young and racy, too young and chill, or too old and way too slow. I dunno. I'm just picky since I don't have a lot of time to ride.
If you want hills, I've got some hills for you. I have a route in Raleigh with 3000 feet in 30 miles. Basically a loop with some hills in N HIlls, behind the Wade Ave Whole Foods, the Art Museum, thru Umstead, then back home. It's like 3-4 miles gravel in Umstead for a challenge.
I'll warn you on the Crankarm rides, if you go in the "busy season" it's a little too much to handle. And it's always a very very slow pace. It's a brewery crawl ride. Sometimes people race up a hill or something, but the ride leads get pissy. And they use a lot of questionable greenway/street combos that don't work for big groups in downtown Raleigh. I don't want to hate on it, because it's a very nice group of people to ride with for relaxing fun and some awesome people giving their time for the group ride and pizza afterwards. This summer I stopped going when 3 weeks in a row there was a crash and it took over 10 minutes to make it thru a stoplight due to group size.
If you're a State student, NC State has a dedicated FB page for cycling and they do early morning rides out to Jubala North of town and to Lochmere South of town once a week. Looking at their posts though, there's definitely a few that fancy themselves as "racer boys" and girls and don't seem to care for more chill riders. Worth a shot, it may just be that I'm old (33) now and that's not my scene. Lots of folks my age have a hard time "fitting in". It's either too young and racy, too young and chill, or too old and way too slow. I dunno. I'm just picky since I don't have a lot of time to ride.