Today I decided to tackle the scary category 5 climb that my riding club has listed. Strava had it listed as a 4 by the way, which led me into another internet search only to find out there really isn't much of an international acceptance of how to rate a bike climb. An interesting website I found on the subject was explaining how they rated climbs in the Tour De France. Basically rated in what gear you need to be in to drive a car up it, there was also a classification of HC or hors categorie- basically meaning beyond classification. I would've rated today's ride as HC, but alas there's a tougher category- category 6. My club goes the opposite direction. The higher the number, the tougher the climb. Anyway, I figured after doing some "3's" that Strava rated a 4, a "5" should not be too bad.
Today I was humbled. By a mountain.A mountain schooled me and told me what was what. It has been awhile since a workout has made me either want to cry or give up. Hicks Rd was his name. Specifically Hicks West...although Hicks East appears to be tougher, but I guess that might be because I'm not fond of descents and that's the route we took.
I have decided I am meant to climb hills. But I actually asked God for mercy during this ride, which is definitely out of character for me being as I truly believe no one is listening.
We first rode through some rolling hills where I got in a discussion with a veteran rider about this route being as I had never done it. To his credit he did repeat several times that he feels this is one of the hardest ones in the area. Maybe I was judging him, maybe I had just heard too much talk about some of these hills that actually were not incredibly bad. Either way, I figured it would be tough, but I was ill prepared.
We hit a decent hill, which I thought was "the hill". It was steep, I was clamoring for gears and even passed the top rider in our group. As I got to the top, I slowed down to let him catch up since he knew where he was going and I didn't.
We discussed how tough that hill was. I'm pretty sure he was unhappy about me passing him. He suddenly wasn't as friendly as he was before the ride.
"That was nothing, that was just the warm-up. That was only about 200 feet of climb. The next one is about 1,000."
"Seriously?"
Well.
We descended down a winding mountain road, green and lush. I pushed my arm sleeves down around my wrists.
Then it appeared. Hicks West. The lead guy pulled over before we started, not entirely sure why. Maybe to pee. As I passed the front rider, he said "Yep, this is where I usually get dropped." I replied "Well, we'll see how long I last" and pushed on ahead.
It wasn't long before I ran out of gears. I switched between standing and sitting. My legs started to burn. It went on forever. I had no clue how long it was going to last and when the next turn would suddenly dip downhill and I would get to pull over and wait for the rest of the group. I stood, I sat, I stood, then sat. Neither position was tolerable. I could not believe how long this thing was lasting. It was impossible. My fatigue had me all over the road. If I went any slower I would tip over. I just kept telling myself, no mountain lasts forever, it's just around the next turn.
But it wasn't. It was not around the next turn, or the turn after that. My lungs burned and I started to wheeze. I pulled over and didn't even have to brake to unclip from my pedal...I was going that slow. I turned around and looked back down the hill. No one in sight. How long can this possibly be?
I waited and watched. I sighed. Just me and this mountain. I clipped back in and stayed seated awhile. My legs whispered a soft thank-you for the break. They almost felt good. For about a minute. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. It was too much. Please God no more hills. No more. I may or may not have whimpered out loud. Who cared. There was no one around to hear it. I wanted to quit, I wanted to cry. I wanted to disappear off into the side of the mountain and never be seen again. My left quad felt ready to explode. My lungs were on fire. I secretly hoped a car would come up behind me and run me over. See, it's so steep not even cars want to drive up here.
I pulled over again and unclipped. I looked back. Still no one. C'mon Carrie, It's just around the next bend. You can do this. You know it can't last forever. I was so full of agony and despair. I clipped back in and rode on. I finally came to a spot that looked sort of flat. I pulled over, wondering if this was where I was suppose to wait. I watched downhill until riders started coming into sight.
"Keep going?" I shouted down to the closest rider.
He looked up, then back down at his pedals. He continued trudging up the hill without looking up again. Well, let's see what's around the next bend.
Up. More up. That's what was around the next bend. Are you kidding me?! Also, a wild turkey was around the next bend. He gobbled at me then hopped out of the road. I put my head down and whimpered. Then, up ahead was a sign for a stop sign ahead. Wait. Stop signs on a steep hill are usually there to stop you before you go down.
I came around the corner and harps sounded. The road descended down to an intersection. Hallelujah. I pulled over, unclipped from both pedals and waited. Not too long after, the ride leader showed up, followed by a couple other guys. We parked our bikes at a trail head to wait for the others.
I told the veteran rider "That was way worse than you described to me."
"Ha ha! Well, I didn't want to scare you."
Holy mother.
I brought up to the ride leader that the club classified this as a 5, but there were 6's. How on earth do people ride those?
"Oh, well you need a triple."
Wait a minute. Wait.
I looked at the other bikes leaning on the fence post. They all had triple cranksets...3 chain rings in the front. Mine had two.
Hold on....Something was starting to click.
"I mean you can become a world class climber.." What? With a triple or without?
"So can I just switch them out?"
He explained that it was a little tougher than that. Anyway, I got to thinking about how everyone had a triple and I had a double and I was still passing most of the people on my rides (no, I'm not riding with the top riders though), on climbs anyway.
Then I remembered the conversation I had with the fastest rider on my first Billy Goat ride. He was impressed that I had made it up the hill in "those gears". I explained that I had shifted since getting to the top and that one was not the one I came up in. Apparently that was not what he was talking about because then suddenly we started comparing cog sizes and chain rings and I was totally lost. Did he mean he was impressed I made it up that fast (I used the word "fast" loosely, it was not "fast") having a double instead of a triple? But I've got a fairly good bike. I mean, it's not top of the line but it isn't low end either. Maybe mid-range.
Once everyone caught up, we made our descent. On this particular descent, a rider had actually died slamming into a guardrail. I'm slow on descents, burning up my brake pads like wax on hot pavement. Which brings up another issue. I just read last night that if you ride your brakes too much, it can overheat the rims, causing the tires to explode. What?!
I descended slowly, trying to ease up on the brakes occasionally to allow the rims to cool. I did not need my tires exploding at 28 mph, which is not an impressive speed on that hill, but none-the-less.
We rode through some beautiful old neighborhoods and finally made it back into the city. We were heading to Starbucks for coffee and lunch. I rode directly behind the ride leader and when he signaled left to turn into a supermarket strip mall, I looked behind me, saw it was completely clear and signaled left for the riders behind me. The ride leader and I started to cross into the turn lane, and I'm pretty sure the other riders did as well.
Suddenly behind me I heard the acceleration of a vehicle...accelerating to way too fast of a speed. I whipped my head around to see a cop car going code 3, hauling around the corner and heading straight for us. Some swear words came out of my mouth as well as "GO RIGHT! GO RIGHT!" to the ride leader. We veered off to the side of the road and the cop pulled up alongside us on the opposite side of the road, right up to another cop car. The officer already on scene was reluctant to approach a man he was talking to, saying he wanted to make sure the guy didn't have anything that would harm the officers. We kept on.
We shook it off as we all got bagels, juice and coffee. I was still shaken from it and wondered if I even needed coffee, but I decided to go for it. We sat and talked about food and restaurants, then headed back to the start. It was a shorter ride than yesterday, about 21.5 miles, but way tougher. I can't believe how bad that mountain broke me.
When I got home I started researching cranksets. One website talked about how a compact crankset (what I have) actually has a gearing nearly identical to a triple crankset. Now I'm thoroughly confused and am now going to google "triple crankset vs compact double".
My whole body hurts from this ride, by the way. There is a lot of upper body involved in trying to climb a hill. Just so you know.
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