Redeeming Tuesday

This morning the alarm rang.  I turned it off.  I went back to sleep.  I wasn’t rewarded by nice rest, but rather by a very disturbing dream.  It was a dream where I was out of control of circumstances where I should have been in control.  I would have done a better job getting up and getting on the bike.

I resolved to go out later in the day, and was out about 30 minutes later than I planned and for a much shorter period of time.  Riding alone these days just isn’t as much fun.  Cycling has become very social to me.

I was testing out the new camera mount, and I think it works pretty well.  As I rode to the end of the trail, I wasn’t feeling very spry and I wasn’t into speed, so on a whim I decided I might as well do THE WALL™.

As I remember THE WALL™, it is this monster climb of 18-20%.  A rider’s weight is not sufficient to propel one up this pitch, but rather you have to pull down on the handlebars in order to get enough downward pressure on the pedals to even move up the grade.  I’ve probably ridden it less than half a dozen times.

I was disappointed.  THE WALL™ is still an 18-20% grade at its steepest.  Climbing it still spiked my heart rate to 177.  But the climb wasn’t all that awful.  It was as if THE WALL™ was getting long in the tooth and just doesn’t pack a punch like it used to.  I’m not intimidated by it any more.  It is not something to be avoided or only challenged on occasion.  This is a confidence builder for the Flèche.

(Having said that, I’ll not ride the fixie up this climb any time soon.)

Right now my computer is processing the video of my climb up THE WALL™.  I’ll post a link later.

It was a short ride, and I’m glad I got out.

This Ride: 16.8 miles
Month: 587.5 miles
2012: 862.9 miles
Total since 1/1/2010: 14,716.5 miles