Handling Big Hills
Albany to Hillsdale, NY: 30 of 44 miles
Day 6 of this Empire State Bike Trail Tour
Saturday, August 7, 2021
How do you handle your big hills?
Training for this bike ride,
Should have been 50% daily walking up some very steep hill,
Pushing my bicycle!
Today's hills were killers.
Even Stan, who is extremely strong,
Actually, strongest rider,
Talked about the consistent
Hills of 10% to 14% grade.
Those are STEEP.
E-bikes are definitely useful for this trip.
Five riders have them.
(There were six. Sharon has one.
Sharon left tour today due to broken arm.)
I was able to ride up half, maybe 2/3s of hills.
When I give a talk, I remind folks,
"Don't look at top of hill; too discouraging.
Pick markers along the upslope,
Ride to marker, do that again."
Well, today, that's what I was doing.
Realizing that can be "pretty lame"
When grade is really hard.
Mostly what I did was count.
e.g. "ONE, 2,3,4, TWO,2,3,4, THREE 2,3,4,
Often reaching a couple of hundred.
I think it keeps my mind off struggle.
At times, the very best strategy:
Get off bike and walk the hill!
You'll get there.
Whatever your "big hill" is,
Walk if that's what's needed.
You'll get there.
Hugs,
Lin
Limerick:
When going up hills by mere inches,
There're really no ways that are cinches.
To get to the top,
You simply don't stop.
Unless you've a system of winches.
Margaret Smith, one of our trip's 2 youngest riders
Sunflowers behind our motel!
SAG van contents minus all luggage = lots of food!
Our super SAG driver to the rescue
