Discovering SL, one climb at a time! Part 2

My Search for climbs starts!My biggest downfall inspite of the extra miles this racing season has been the complete lack of hill training.
The most beautiful mountains lie not that far from Colombo but it takes eternity to get there. In the US I use to drive 100kms out of the city to the hills, ride a century and still be back home for lunch. But here to get out and ride could easily become a day activity.

On my return from Italy I decided to venture out further from the city and a pleasant discovery was made. The place is Hatton a tea plantation area at 1200m some 125k from Colombo. the 27k climb starts at 51m and finishes at 1250m in Hatton. What really interests me is the climb in itself so I have been driving further to cut on the flat kms thru crazy traffic. The road divides in Avisssawella where much of the traffic heads off to Ratnapura while the ride to Hatton pleasantly becomes traffic free! The ride now becomes 70k long out of which 27 is continous climbing to Hatton. I dont think I can do this more than once a week since it requires an hour of drive to get me this start point, and then another or over 3 hour drive from Hatton back to Colombo after the ride. I have been there a few times and the drive has been more tasking than the ride!! The descent seems never ending thru winding roads. I am starting to believe that the descent gives one a far better perspective of the climb than while climbing it. 

I  have divided the climb further into two sections. 10k and 12-17k depending on whether I want to really reach the town everytime. The first 10k though not very scenic compared to the second half is lot more winding and follows a furious river very popular with whitewater rafting. This 10k is also more difficult in gradient compared to the second half. It is almost at 7-8% but there is a section a km long that plateaus out 3/4th into the climb before picking up again at 8% till the end of the 10k. It brings the overall gradient to just over 5%. The last km and half is the crucial part of the climb where I tend to lose time. I need to stand up and sprint my way up on that section. At the end of this 10k is Ginigathena where the tea plantation starts. I can see myself doing this climb more often even during the week to get a good hill workout. 
The second half is similar to the scenes you find in Ooty, just lush green tea plantations and resorts though the mountains are not as cured as OOty. They are more wild here with many high scenic peaks with number of huge waterfalls on their sides. The ride is less tasking but you are still climbing at 5-7% but with occasional respites. but then you already have 10k of climbing when you get to this section and that makes it challenging. I think I will do the entire climb over the weekends just like I did yesterday.

I rode the first 10k yesterday at around LT to set a time for it. Now I have a target everytime I climb that section. The second half I rode at tempo. On the first half I took off 5 mins compared to my time last week, I am starting to understand the climb better and also I rode the second time on 23's!! I got the 10k climb yesterday in 37 mins. I think it is a 32min climb and I have that time in my mind by december since my average HR dropped to 160 by the end of it.
Another target I have in mind is to start riding this ride from Colombo when I get closer to TFN. It would be identical to the SB climb from Manarkkad.

I have been riding this with my family. My wife and I ride the entire thing while my son rides about 10-15k of it. So far it has been a very good family outing combined with stiff training. I think if i can continue to work on this stretch I should see myself in excellent shape for the next season.