Going Uphill

A view of Baderville from Snowbowl Road, my favorite local mountain to ride up on a bicycle.

I greatly enjoy riding my bicycle up mountains. Although it is a mountain bike, and meant for dirt trail, I usually prefer to ride mountains on pavement. I like trail too but not for going uphill. In my opinion, it is more dangerous to ride on roads than to be off on some mountain biking trail. You can't get hit by a car on a trail. On the other hand, it is certainly a more enjoyable surface to ride upon for such an undertaking. Climbing on single track is truly exhausting. By climbing on the road, you can climb much longer and get into that state of flow that is sometimes called the Runner's High.

In the sport of bicycle racing, there are different disciplines. This is an analogy to track and field where some people are good at long distance running, others at short sprints, others still at long jump, etc. When I got into bicycling (as an adult) I hoped to be a "mountain specialist," because I loved mountains and enjoyed watching the mountain stages of the Tour de France and Giro D'Italia, but that was not meant to be. I enjoy climbing but I'm not good at it at all.

If I were into racing, which I'm not, then I would have been a sprinter. Using the Strava smart phone app, I learned that I can put out tremendous wattage for a short distance but climbing doesn't work as well. To be fair, if I were racing I would definitely maintain a lower body weight and presumably be better, but I still think I was born to be a sprinter. That's the way it was with running, and it seems to be true for bicycling as well.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3468992647