I’m guessing this doesn’t happen to some of you hard core biking wonks, but Saturday afternoon, I road up a hill, or mountain down here, the roadies consider “formidable.” I think the whole ordeal damaged my face giving me a temporary “hill bitch grimmace” and possible neurological damage. The hill I rode up is about 1.6 miles up. Don’t know what the grade is, but safe to say is that at its highest grade, if you released a small marble, down the hill, it would roll for about 2 seconds, and then go off into the air, maybe never to come down, until it hits rock bottom. Its basicallly a sheer cliff.
It got the best of me last weekend; its one of those hills which is what I call a “yes” or a “no.” Many of the novice bikers try to make gains on it, add another 20 yards to each try, thinking that eventually one week, five months from the day they first try, they will make it to the top. But this mountain doesn’t play that. It’s either a “yes” or “no.” Its a willpower hill.
I was determined to whip it, when it quit raining, at some point that afternoon.
Earlier that morning I had done some squats at the gym, which I had forgot about by, say 3 in the afternoon, for some idiotic reason, when I decided to get on my bike and climb the beast. Warmed up a little bit on the flats for 12 miles, turned around, and up I go, suddenly one spasm after another hit both my quads, then I remembered the squats. Normally, I would have quit right there, but there were some other roadies at the bottom trudging their way up, so pride kept me going.
Then, at some point during this hellish torture, going up it, it started raining, but I was half way up it, dealing with these cramps, determined to get to the top. So, I get out of the saddle, to try to make it the rest of the way, when the wind hit, at a good 19 mph. Now, I’m not a “out of the saddle” hamstrings kind of guy. I’m a quadriceps sit down up the hill all the way guy. With those gone, I’m down, down, down into granny gear. I think it took me 10 minutes to go five yards. And now I couldn’t see because of the rain. I decided just not to see what was left for me to do, so I looked down, and off my $119 Oakley half jackets go, no doubt to be crushed by the people coming up. I was at a point going up the bitch hill, what with the wet pavement and steep grade, if I clipped out, I’m going down, sliding down, like a fool.
Suddenly, at the very top of my head, I got a tremendous headache. I felt feint but kept fighting and trudging, telling myself, don’t freak, don’t freak. Gasping and grimmacing, I had like a death grip on the bars, and made it to the top. After it was all over with, I couldn’t move my jaw because my face muscles got locked into a grimmace I must have had for the whole ordeal. After I got up to my car, and looked in the mirror, my jaw muscles looked like I was still climbing the mountain.
Never seen anything like it, what I will call a “Hill Bitch Grimmace”. Looked like I just saw that chick in the horror movie, “The Ring” or something. It took an hour after the ride before I could get my face and jaw to relax back to normal. It was temporary and I should have documented it, medically. My wife wanted to take me to the ER.
And I had a headache, very top of my head, all day Sunday, and most of this morning, from that ordeal, which was probably from all of the blood rushing willy nilly from my head to my heart to pump my dead ass legs.
I’m sure everybody has got a “Have I Got A Hard Climb Story” and I like to hear some of yours.