lulubel
Über Member
- Location
- Malaga, Spain
.... is to ride up mountains.
I know it's normally hills people are talking about when they say that, but I guess the same applies.
We live in a wide valley surrounded by mountains (not Alps or Pyrenees type mountains, but they definitely warrant the "mountains" description rather than "hills"), and today I decided it was time to venture out of the valley and try out some climbing. The valley bottom is by no means flat, by the way. It's actually quite bumpy, and a normal ride would include at least 1,000ft of climbing in 20 miles.
I managed to find a road today that climbed 1,000ft in 4 miles.
I was pretty pleased with myself, to be honest. The sign as I approached it warned of mountain road, sharp bends and 9% incline (ridewithgps showed it as varying between 3-15%) I came to it about half way through my 42 mile ride, got into a nice rhythm and felt quite comfortable. I could have carried on climbing to do another 1,000ft in the next 5 miles, but decided I'd done enough and turned for home. I was glad I did because my legs completely failed me about 7/8 miles from home, which has never happened before, and I really struggled after that point. I didn't hit the wall, it just seemed like my quads had had enough!
I hadn't expected that. I thought I'd struggle on the climb, but I didn't expect to have problems later. It's never happened before, and I've ridden further. Is it just that I pushed myself harder than usual and my legs just had "had enough"? Does it get easier?
(I really want to do the rest of that climb, and the 2 that follow it to get to the highest point on that road, but I also need to get home afterwards!)
I know it's normally hills people are talking about when they say that, but I guess the same applies.
We live in a wide valley surrounded by mountains (not Alps or Pyrenees type mountains, but they definitely warrant the "mountains" description rather than "hills"), and today I decided it was time to venture out of the valley and try out some climbing. The valley bottom is by no means flat, by the way. It's actually quite bumpy, and a normal ride would include at least 1,000ft of climbing in 20 miles.
I managed to find a road today that climbed 1,000ft in 4 miles.
I was pretty pleased with myself, to be honest. The sign as I approached it warned of mountain road, sharp bends and 9% incline (ridewithgps showed it as varying between 3-15%) I came to it about half way through my 42 mile ride, got into a nice rhythm and felt quite comfortable. I could have carried on climbing to do another 1,000ft in the next 5 miles, but decided I'd done enough and turned for home. I was glad I did because my legs completely failed me about 7/8 miles from home, which has never happened before, and I really struggled after that point. I didn't hit the wall, it just seemed like my quads had had enough!
I hadn't expected that. I thought I'd struggle on the climb, but I didn't expect to have problems later. It's never happened before, and I've ridden further. Is it just that I pushed myself harder than usual and my legs just had "had enough"? Does it get easier?
(I really want to do the rest of that climb, and the 2 that follow it to get to the highest point on that road, but I also need to get home afterwards!)
and I was breathing a bit heavily.
