Two of them are seriously conflicting: 1) to increase my average speed, and 2) to ride up as many hills as possible. What this means is that I have to work to increase my speed on every hill I ride up.
The hills of Roller Coaster Road are especially good at fulfilling Goal #2 but sabotaging Goal #1. Each time I ride north on this hill, I ride up 5 or 6 very steep, though rather small, hills. I start each hill pedaling fast and going at a good speed, but by the time I reach the top I look down at the computer and see a dismal 14.5 or 15.2 on the "current speed" line. Okay, I tell myself, I'll go faster on the next hill. And I pedal like crazy, watching the current speed readout climb to 32 or even 38, only to see it fall rapidly as I reach the steepest part.
Oh well, I figure it's a good workout, and getting a good workout is also one of my goals. And if I manage to climb a hill without switching to the middle ring, I've accomplished another goal, which is to eventually be able to climb all the hills around here in the big ring. Even the big hill. Today I did the first part in the middle ring, but switched back to the big ring for the last part. That was a satisfying feeling and I kept my speed at no less than 20 km/hour for most of the climb,
Another of my goals is to ride both a metric century and a regular century this summer. I've been looking at maps and trying to decide on a route for each. I've ridden 71.48 km without stopping, and I rode over 100 km on one day last fall on the Icefields Parkway, so I don't think 100 km will be too hard. 100 miles might be a different story; I'm sure I'll need to stop a couple of times, but I'm confident I can do it.
The really hard part might be to persuade someone to ride with me.
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