No, not as hilly as the northern part of the old course. The land itself is pretty much completely flat. I think some just underestimate the number of overpasses. I drive it often and started paying attention when I signed up for the race. There are more than I thought. But the good thing is it seems to be very consistent, and ever "hill" has a pretty tame grade with an equal downhill and flat behind it.

I've never ridden the course, but have ridden on the Grand Parkway which is similar. Only thing is that wind can be an issue. The day I rode the Grand Parkway it was cold with strong swirling winds. It was demoralizing.

Want to make an educated guess on how many overpasses there are per loop?

According to BBS there are a handful, but somehow I feel that it’s underestimating # of these quite a bit (based on some of the comments I’ve seen in people’s RRs).

Kind of a random bump, but I was driving into work today and took the Hardy Toll Road. Was thinking of the race and thought of this post.

Can't say for certain that I didn't miss one here or there or lost track a little. But I casually counted about 11 overpasses from where the Hardy starts to where it ends. And most of them are between the Woodlands and Beltway 8 (about half way down the toll road). After that, the cross streets have the bridges, so the course is quite flat.

So if you are going out and back twice, you are looking at 44 small to moderate "hills" on that particular section of the course.