Mike Says Meh|The blog of Mike Kauspedas | Hosting by www.gearhost.com

Oh … my … God. Absolutely the hardest ride I have done so far, the hardest physical activity I have ever done. I have never once in my life felt like turning back, I always keep pushing forward. There were spots when I hit the steeper grades where I started considering it. Then after when it just kept going up. There was nothing pleasant about pleasant park rd and its endless incline.

At the beginning of the ride i actually felt pretty bad, my cadence was hovering between 75-80 and I wasn’t going very fast. Then my rear derailleur busted and I had to pull over for 15 minutes working on it. Thankfully it was just a loose cable. I made my left past the highgrade road sign. It was pretty mellow for a bit, my cadence was up between 90-100 and I was moving along. I felt pretty good and figured something I ate had just broken down into energy or something.

Then I took a turn for the worst, literally. I turned and the grade steepened by a couple percent. I switched into the lowest gear I had and struggled to keep my cadence up. Near the worst of it I was dragging at 5mph with a cadence as low as 40. This was my do or die moment, and I did.

At points I was dripping sweat, so bad I thought it started to rain then realized it was sweat dripping from my head onto my knees. One of the worst parts about the climb is how slow it is, no wind to cool and dry sweat. It just leaks out of you.

I hit pleasant view road and got a break in the incline. My cadence went back up and I started feeling better. But I had spent most of my energy and hit that dreaded wall. I was running on fumes and I felt it. Gatorade was no help and I didn’t feel like munching on a granola bar I had. I just wanted to get to the damn summit. Lesson learned, eat more before I ride.

At the summit there’s a nice cyclist rest area. Equipped with a porta potty, coolers full of gatorade and water, a picnic table, and a big steel trap to put donations in. I squeezed in a $10 bill and took a gatorade and water, filling up one of the water bottles I had finished off on the way up. I was going to use my camel back but its a big military issue my best friend gave me. Awesome, but large and bulky and I didn’t feel like carrying the extra weight. So I took two water bottles instead. I would have been fine even without the pit stop, but I would have cut it close.

I hopped back on the bike and began my descent. 30 seconds into the descent at 30mph I realized my bike wasn’t made to go that fast. I hit the brakes to slow down and almost nothing happened. I squeezed harder and they hissed back at me. I took turns squeezing the front and rear to try and keep them cool. I don’t even know if it was the issue, but I knew it wouldn’t hurt. I’m bringing my bike in for a tune up and to get those replaced within the next few days. I got so scared riding down trying to miss gravel I started hoping for more incline.

I got my wish, after turning onto Oelhman Park rd I cruised down an incline for a bit and then hit several small very steep hills. One after the other, short 2 minute break hoping I didn’t hit a rock while flying down, to mashing up another short steep incline.

Once I hit city view it was smooth sailing. Well, not really. I spent most of my time squeezing my brake handles hoping they wouldn’t give out. I was also thankful I wasn’t going up, because the down was really steep. And twisty. So here I am trying to slow a bike with little to no braking power and cornering like I have never done before all while trying to avoiding cars and gravel.

It finally ended at turkey creek road and I got more of a normal incline and a straighter road. Since I didn’t have to brake as much on corners I felt a lot safer and cruised along at 30mph. I got to the right hand turn back onto deer creek in no time and came to yet another hill. Once I crested this one though it was all down back to the car. At one point my speedometer said 40mph which prompted me to squeeze the brakes a little. I brought it down to 30 and sat around there the rest of the way down.

It wasn’t as bad as I think it was though. I should have ate more, and I should have gone out in the morning when it was cooler. I spent the night before upgrading a server and I couldn’t get to sleep till 4am. I started climbing at 1pm. I’m thrilled I did it and I’m thinking about the next one. I guess I’ll give lookout mountain a shot, once I’ve got brakes that can handle the descent. I’ll try and bring a camera next time too.

My elevation data and the route are below.