I’ve got nothing against climbing.
At least once a week I head into Oregon’s Coastal Range, where my ride begins with a two-mile climb with grades that are, well, let’s just say not rider friendly.
It’s hard, there’s no way around it. It burns and hurts, but in a good way, know what I mean? Even this time of the year, when my fitness registers on the questionable side.
When I ride my more frequent mainly gravel-grinding route around the farms, vineyards and orchards here in the Willamette Valley the amount of climbing pales in comparison.
Except …
There’s one patch.
It can’t even be a quarter mile long. If most of you reading this joined me on the ride, you probably wouldn’t even notice it, much less call it a hill or even a climb.
But make no mistake. It doesn’t matter what time of the year. It doesn’t matter what level of fitness I have. I could be off-season slogging or flying in summer peak fitness.
Every.
Single.
Frickin’.
Time I hit this bump it simply kicks my ass.
I can’t explain how this mole hill makes a mountain out of itself in my head, and in my legs, and in my lungs, but it just does.
It pummels me. It embarrasses me, although luckily I’m always alone, so it only disses me to, well, myself. But I’m a Gemini, so, oh, how that one twin lambasts the other.
This week’s question, do you have a Mother Nature nemesis out there that haunts you?
These two are formidable no matter what condition I am in.
Beznar to Talara
Any climb close to Sierra de Huétor, between the Sierra Arana and the Sierra de la Alfaguara
After doing the last one a week ago, I switched from an 11/30 cassette to an 11/32 and am psyched to try it out today.
I am also a Gemini!
My mother was a Gemini, too. The four of us would get into some epic battles!
Hyde Park Road to the Santa Fe Ski Basin. I’ve done it numerous times, but it always seems like such a long, grind-it-out schlep that I usually find an excuse to ride somewhere else.
There is a short pavement climb close to where I live in western Massachusetts that slows me to a crawl every time. Less than a quarter mile long, it’s the last rise as I return from any ride be it commuting or recreational. It reminds me without exception, no matter how good the ride went earlier that gravity is real!
I’ve got one of those road climbs too up Riley Street to McAdoo in Folsom, CA. It’s often the quickest way to get home. But I’ll do longer workarounds just to avoid having to finish up that 3-4% little hill.