Riding the Horse Farm is a different experience from what most Gainesvillians find customary. While most of our riding in this region is relatively level, allowing low intensity continuous energy outputs and few gear changes, the Horse Farm territory is the anomaly. Throughout its course you will be challenged by long grades, and many steep hill climbs that will call on both your shifting skills and your climbing strength. To prepare for this you need to learn to use your gears swiftly and smoothly and also build up your climbing strength and endurance. This is best accomplished by going out and riding hills on training rides. An evening training ride that includes ten or more miles of regular hills is a good way to prepare. Eventually the shifting will become automatic and the hills will not seem so horrible. Two roads I know of that provide a good combination of light traffic, reasonably good road surface, periodic shade and lots of hills are NW 210 Ave. ( NW of McIntosh) and Dungarvin Road (AKA NW 193 Ave) (SW of McIntosh). These roads are only a few miles from each other and can be ridden sequentially to provide a fairly short ride (about 20 miles), with a LOT of hill training. But either, by itself, can provide a lot of hill variety in a short distance if ridden in both directions. An additional benefit for NW 210 (also referred to by some as Avenue A) is that it passes by Earl's Bike Shop at the point where the road turns to parallel I-75. So if you have a mechanical problem on this seven mile stretch Earl might be able to save you.
For those who live near Alachua, an alternative training hill is on NW 94th Ave. ( AKA Chestnut Hill ). It is only a single hill, but it is substantial and if ridden a number of times will build your hill capacity. One deficiency of NW 94th as a training road is that it does not provide the variety of hills needed to teach gear use in accord with varying hill steepness; for this Dungarvin is the supreme instructor, a genuine roller-coaster of a road. Try these roads, you will like them for their scenic qualities as well as for their climbing demands. And NW 210 Ave. is my own personal favorite road in this entire area, its just a nice balance of work, fun and pastoral scenery.