I don't think they are going to leave one square inch of the area undeveloped. Riding out there likely won't be doable much longer with the amount of traffic that is likely coming. Sad.

Thanks for the info. I'll check them out the next time I'm there. It still seems bizarre to me that the park named for the lake has no obvious lake access.

Thanks. Two more parts to this one. It's 75 miles total. Great ride.

I'm perfectly happy with the music I play. These recordings were not made with KZbin in mind at the time so the narration is what it is. I just said enough to where I'd remember things when I'd watch the video or for the benefit of someone else I know that would watch the video with me. I've since decided to put them up on KZbin now just to see what happens.

I think I collapsed at the top of Skyridge like that the first 4 times I did it. I no longer collapse like that, but it remains a serious challenge whenever I do it. Check out all the Lake County Hill Quest videos I'm trying to upload. I have MANY more coming. You'll see MANY other serious hills to try out there. I've compiled a database of 167 beast hills in the area. I consider Skyridge to be the King Beast, but there are two other hills out there that are close competition for that crown to where it really depends on who you ask and how you're feeling that day as to which one is really the toughest. Scott Street and Harrier are the two others. I do know someone that has completed Skyridge, but has not been able to complete Scott, so if you go by her, she would say Scott is the King Beast. The first half of Scott Street is definitely tougher than Skyridge, but then it levels out more in the second half, so psychologically, I think Skyridge is tougher because it's tough all the way up once you pass that first cross street and the grades get more serious. Harrier is just ridiculous all the way up, but it never has that toughest peak grade point so I usually consider that to be #3 even though its average grade is much tougher than Skyridge or Scott. Congrats on slaying the Skyridge dragon.

@@cyclinginflorida5 That's awesome! I recognized one of the hills in Clermont on Timbervale Trail in Canyons at Highland Ranch. That one used to kill me too but have improved a bit. Still a good challenge but nothing like Skyridge. I've driven Sugarloaf just to get a look and just nervous about the roads to get there. Skyridge definitely took me by surprise. Thanks for posting and the suggestions. It's funny how you can ride by these places and have no idea there's a black diamond slope two blocks away 😀

@@Peter_McKenna587 You'll get to see pretty much all of the 167 hills in these videos I'll be uploading. You'll get to see lots of surprises. Wait until you see Rainbow if you haven't done that one before. 2nd biggest hill in Clermont, only 20 feet shorter than Sugarloaf, but with a steeper average grade and a much steeper peak grade. Finding that one caught us completely by surprise. I've never had a problem with the roads leading to Sugarloaf, but traffic is likely getting worse out there with all the development going on, so that may change. Did you also do Southridge when you did Skyridge?

Senior is Sugarloaf. Junior is The Wall. When I first went out to try to find Sugarloaf, I did so without any mapping. I just rode out there. When I found The Wall for the first time, I errantly thought it was Sugarloaf. I figured out that I was wrong a couple weeks later after some map study. So I just started taking to calling The Wall Junior after I finally did the correct Sugarloaf. They seemed like a pair where one being Junior and the other being Senior made sense in my head. This was before I knew that riders called it The Wall. Yes, I have my full hills database on the Florida Freewheelers website along with a map with markers indicating the location of each hill. I manage their website. But we have that page as a Members only feature. You can e-mail me and I can send it to you as a CSV file you can view in Excel. I have statistics from Strava segments for Average Grade, Peak Grade, Lowest Elevation, Highest Elevation, Total Climb in elevation and Total Climb in distance for every hill out there. I don't know if Strava is 100% accurate though as there are a few stats in my database that I think are questionable, but I kept them as Strava showed them. Here are the numbers for Sugarloaf and Skyridge: Sugarloaf Distance (in miles): 0.54 Average Grade: 7.3 Peak Grade: 13.7 Lowest Elevation: 94 Highest Elevation: 304 Elevation Difference: 210 Skyridge Distance (in miles): 0.21 Average Grade: 9.9 Peak Grade: 16.1 Lowest Elevation: 177 Highest Elevation: 288 Elevation Difference: 111 After I did Skyridge 3 times, Sugarloaf seemed easy by comparison. The other two serious contenders for King Beast status (toughest hill in Clermont) are: Scott Distance (in miles): 0.17 Average Grade: 10.7 Peak Grade: 18.8 Lowest Elevation: 95 Highest Elevation: 191 Elevation Difference: 96 Harrier Distance (in miles): 0.14 Average Grade: 12.8 Peak Grade: 14.4 Lowest Elevation: 109 Highest Elevation: 204 Elevation Difference: 95 If you haven't done these before, you'll get to see them in future uploads if I could ever get these to upload. The next one I'm trying to upload has errored out on me twice in the last week, so now I have to start over again. Sometimes they'll error in a way where I can resume from where I left off. But sometimes they error in a way where I have to start all over again. Very frustrating.

Yeah, I know that now. I just didn't know it back then. I currently manage a website for a pickleball league in Milledgeville, GA among other clients. These videos were shot quite awhile ago. I'm just now getting around to deciding to make a KZbin channel from all the videos I recorded.. You'll see Clermont neighborhoods that are still under construction in these videos that have long since been finished. There are a number of new hills out there that I'm aware of as a result that I don't have on video yet. I definitely know of at least 11 newer beasts from neighborhood construction that came after I shot these videos and built my hills database. So that would bring my database up to 178 hills once I get those added.

Thank you sir.

I've learned that since doing these. But there's something to be said for finding out the hard way that Google Maps isn't perfect. It adds adventure. ;) That Lake Merritt Road one got me mad though. There was no reason for Google Maps to show that as a road IMO.

Yep, that neighborhood off Howey Cross is spectacular to ride through. It will be in one of the next videos I'll be uploading. It's some rare flat ground out there, but still great to ride through. I'm glad the videos are inspiring you to try some of these beast hills I've found. Keep watching what's going up now and you'll see MANY more. I have a ride out there that I've put together that has over 5,000 feet of climbing in just 50 or so miles. I led a weekly ride out there that I called Clermont Hills Challenge where I would pack in as many beasts as I could in a 30 mile ride to torture people with. My goal was always to wipe myself out physically with each ride and if it would wipe out others coming out there with me, all the better. ;) . I was usually a middle of the pack caliber rider among the people that would come out there. I'm not fast at all, but I enjoy the climbing challenges.

Yep. I know every road and every hill out there. I've compiled a database of 167 beast hills out there. You can see the full database if you are a Florida Freewheelers club member. I'm starting to upload all my Clermont Hill Quest rides now. I have MANY more that are coming, but the upload process takes FOREVER. I'm uploading as fast as KZbin allows them to be uploaded. I probably have 80 more videos left to upload and around half of those will be Clermont hills. You'll be seeing me gradually learning EVERYTHING there is in Clermont/Lake County. All of these Hill Quest videos are the ones I did when I was trying to find everything for the first time. Sugarloaf is only #37 out of #167 in average steepness. There are much tougher climbs out there, just not as large. I can get you the percentage grades for all the Buckhill Road hills. I think you will be pleasantly surprised upon seeing more of these Hill Quest videos at some of my off-the-beaten-path finds. Skyridge is the toughest hill in Clermont to me. You can see my climb and descent videos for that among the first videos I uploaded to this channel. Those are cut from the full ride videos which are going up as well. Skyridge is tougher than anything on Buckhill, but the combination effect of hill after hill on Buckhill is tough. There are only two serious competitors to Skyridge for the King Beast crown. You'll see those in future videos I'll be adding as fast as I can.

Yep, that's the west shore of Lake Apopka. That's the biggest lake in the Metropolitan Orlando area.

Go Pro Hero Black 5 (older model). 64GB SD cards will record about 2 hours 15 minutes each at HD resolution (not 4K). I now have 6 of them, but previously only had 3. There are some rides that I'm uploading where I wasn't able to get the entire ride due to only having 3 cards at the time. Batteries last roughly 1 hour 15 minutes or so, maybe 1 hour 30 minutes. I have 7 of them.

I don't have music on all of these. I have music on less when I'm riding with someone else. The ones where I'm riding alone always have music. I don't recall the temperature on the day of this ride, but it likely wasn't during summer. This is a very long three part video ride in the hills, so I don't think we'd have done that on a super hot day. I haven't really had a problem with getting sunburns. I'm not sure how or why that's the case because I do long rides on sunny days. I have had some sunburns, but nothing seriously bad.

What's the time range for where you are talking about here. I'm not sure which areas you mean.

Cool. I need to get back out there to do that trail again. I never found the spur that goes out to Honeymoon Island. I wanted to do that. What is the time range on this video for the section you are talking about? I'm not familiar with any specific spots. I just know the starting point at the Tarpon Springs trailhead and I just rode from there.

Strava says it is 7.3%. Skyridge is 9.9%. I'll have another one that will be going up later that averages over 12%. There are MANY beasts in Clermont.

Average grade = 7.3% Peak grade = 13.1% according to Strava segment. It's the biggest out there, but not the steepest.