Back to the hills

After two weeks in which the only riding I got in was on my short commute to school, I decided that the beautiful autumn weather and my ever-tightening pants meant that I needed to get in some quality saddle time in. Without enough time to hit the trails I pumped up the Cannondale to 135 psi and pointed my handlebars to the southeast to take on the Hiedelberg Escarpement.

The last time that I headed this way I met with rather dismal defeat, and today I was even less prepared: poor nutrition? yep; fattyboombalatty? check; lazy? uh-huh; lack of sleep? guilty. However, I might be a little wizer. Rather than map a route that took me rather straight to the top, I took a longer, more gradual approach to the top of the ridge. I'll probably wear out my 26 tooth cog if I do many more rides like this, but by getting in a groove and rolling I at least was able to avoid the walk of shame.

The fall colors were nice, and while it was never cold, by the time that got to the ridge the wind was chilling my ears pretty nicely. This route was much longer -- possibly my longest road ride of the year, embarrassing though that is -- and the rollers once I got to the top of the hill really took a lot out of me. By the time that I limped back in to Albany I was ready for a hot shower and some eats.

Here's a map of my ride for your cartographic enjoyment. The total ride time was just a little over two hours and twenty-two minutes; take a whack at those number Adrawk!

How Hiedelberg could kill a man...

This is something I can't understand: how a bike can near kill a man.

Pressed for time last Sunday I headed out to the southwest of Albany to get a couple hours of riding in on the skinny tires. I'd planned to head about halfway up the Hiedelberg Escarpement, a ridge outside of town that begins to loom over you as you get onto progressively smaller country roads. Unfortunately I can't read maps (or wasn't paying attention), and my route took me winding to the top. (And you know it's the top by the beautiful views, and the cell phone towers.)

Here's my route:



There's no way that the map can convey just how out of shape I am, so let me say this: at the top of the ride I actually had to get off and walk the last hundred yards or so. I've never, ever had to do this on a road bike before and I have to admit that it was pretty humbling. I imagine if I had a 27-tooth cassette in the rear -- or a compact crankset -- I would have been fine, but on Sunday the choice was stop and walk, turn around with my tail between my legs, or fall over and hope someone found me. So I walked. Of course as soon as I unclipped the only car I'd seen for minutes pulled up behind me to make sure my humiliation was witnessed.

So yes, I have been beaten and unmanned, but I'm ready to go back for more: at my slow pace, the ascent took somewhere around 25 minutes, all but a couple hundred yards or so were uphill (there were two quick dips). Some was just steady climbing, but there were a few switchbacks and steep pitches. Needless to say it was quite a change from doing repeats on Mt. Sinai (which I was never very good at, and I haven't done for almost a year now).

There were a few minutes where the only thing that got me through were my snazzy new bottle cages. But survive I did, and I'll live to ride -- and walk -- another day.