April 2009 |
After failing to make it Green Valley about a week ago due to truly cruel winds, I tried it again... this time - success! Getting out there was extremely easy, which made me feel good since it wasn't too long ago that I would have thought those 30 miles alone were an accomplishment. I ate a chicken sandwich and some fries and had a liter of Gatorade at Carl's Jr. and after a brief rest turned back up the road towards Tucson. I expected to feel slow having stopped and eaten, and indeed I felt pretty terrible for about the first 15 miles. Exactly what happened I don't really know. I considered that it might have been dehydration, but couldn’t be sure. I drank 1L of water before leaving and had 1.5L along the way to GV, sweating freely the entire time. On the way back I didn’t sweat so much despite obvious exertion which concerned me – but I couldn’t tell if it was dehydration or the fact that the humidity was in the single digits and the wind had picked up quite a bit. In any case, I consumed massive amounts of water and sports drink and continued on… at about mile 45 things picked up randomly and I felt pretty good for the remainder of the ride. When I had finally made it back to my apartment, my cycle computer read 59.5 miles... a few laps around my complex solved that problem to make the number a better milestone. Hey, riding is riding! Distance: 60.0 miles |
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Back in Fountain Hills at my parents place to visit for Easter, it was a good opportunity to go for a ride up there. I knew the route I did the last time I was up there continued to become something known as '9-Mile Hill' so I thought I'd give that a shot. From the internet accounts I'd seen of it, the hill was a continuous 2-3% grade rising about 1,300 feet from bottom to top. For me, this should be a fairly massive challenge! It really wasn't that bad. The portion of the ride I'd done before went by very fast and soon I was at the hill. From the bottom, it was fairly intimidating - it just sort of went up until you couldn't see it any longer. Once you'd ridden to that point, it still continued until you couldn't see it any longer... and on and on. I found I was able to climb about 10mph and plugged away without much problem to the top! w00t. Distance: 44.3 miles |
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Susan's parents house is in Green Valley about 35 miles from my apartment along a nice road... perfect! Or so I thought, the weather had other ideas. I didn't last very long riding head first into 35mph winds... longer than I thought, but Green Valley was not going to happen. The way back was fun though, with the wind and slightly negative grade allowing me to effortlessly ride around 25mph. Distance: 45.1 miles |
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I don't think there's much question that the road up Mount Lemmon is one of the greatest possible bike rides in this area and probably one of the best in the state and country! I could contain the fascination no longer... Even attempting this was an interesting choice for me since, at 300lbs. and not in very good shape, I generally suck to an amazing degree at any kind of hill climb. It's something like 16 miles from my apartment to the base, so I figured I'd ride out there to warm up and so that if (when?) I failed miserably to climb anything, I'd still get a good ride out of the ordeal. I set out going east on River Road... had someone filled the tubes of my bike with lead? I felt terrible and slow. This was not going well. Somehow I managed to avoid turning around despite nearly doing so many times and found myself at the "Mile 0" sign. I called Susan to give her my last goodbye and set out. After literally about 100 yards of riding in my lowest gear (a 36/26 of all things) I had to stop. Truly, this was not good. After a few cycles of riding and stopping for a few minutes, I was not even through the first turn... oh boy. Then, a sign - encouragement sent from above! An overweight and aparently quite elderly woman rode by me and said hello. Not far behind came her (I assume) husband who looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 years old... This sort of thing (including a girl that looked like a 14 year old version of Susan on a mountain bike) happened a few times as I sat on the side of the road and drove me to press on. Soon I was at the Babad Do'ag parking area and vista near the 3-mile point. A joke by the standards of people who do this sort of thing, but a pretty satisfying accomplishment for me. The real reward was the way down... gravity likes me, it was insane fun carving out the turns at 40mph. Lesson learned: windy roads at 40mph on a bicycle is more fun than 150mph on a motorcycle (and probably more dangerous...) Distance: 39.6 miles |
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