On the uphill

Of the three athletic disciplines associated with the triathlon, bicycling has traditionally been my least favorite and weakest. This is a bit unfortunate as the cycling leg typically is the longest part of the triathlon and the area where most athletes excel. The conventional wisdom is that one can always compensate for being a not-so-great swimmer by making up lost time on the bicycle. And, after the bicycle ride, the run is often more of a shuffle. You just need to get through it to finish. But bicycling is where it's at.

I resolved this year to work on this weak link, and accordingly I committed myself to going to cycling fitness classes at least once a week for about the eight grimmest weeks of winter. In early April, I rolled out my bike with hopes to commute to work on it at least three times a week. I haven't pulled off the three times a week, but I have managed to bike commute at least once a week, and usually have squeezed in an additional bike ride each week. With this new regimen has come a new-found joy: tackling the sometimes steep and still somewhat unknown rural hills that surround the area where I live and work.

In years past, I have avoided hills. They scared me. They were big and daunting, and the high-speeds that gravity would force onto me on the downhills made me fear falling. But hills, quite frankly, are all but unavoidable, especially if you live where I do -- in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. The only solution was to conquer the hills.

And, so, in the cycling classes, I made that a goal.

I tried several different classes and teachers before I found one teacher whose style I particularly liked. He taught by RPM (which stands for revolutions per minute) and gave us ranges for what we should aim for depending on what kinds of "hills" we were riding in his simulated exercises. Quickly, from this, I learned that gear-shifting is not about showing off how tough of a gear you can handle. Rather, it's about knowing how to identify the gear most comfortable for you to ride in and maintain the desired RPM. The logic behind RPM training, as I came to understand it, is that if you keep cycling your legs at a regular pace, your muscles build up (much as they would in running), and gradually the gears you can ride in become tougher. Characterizing gears, incidentally, is a difficult exercise. Basically, bicycles have two chain rings: one in the back, usually with seven or eight rings, and one in the front with two or three rings. If you're bicycling on a flat stretch or a downhill, you're probably using one of the smaller rings in the back and the biggest ring in the front. If you're on a steep uphill, the opposite is true. Part of the learning curve is to know when to shift, especially if you're going uphill. It's very easy to get into the mode of acting heroic and letting yourself believe you can make it up the hill without shifting down to an easier gear, only to find yourself getting stuck mid-way up the hill and having to undergo the ego-bursting humiliation of dismounting the bike and walking.

The training in the cycling classes paid off when I did my first bike ride home from work. My bike commute is about eight and a half miles one way on what I'd describe as "rolling hills", with the main issue being that the hills tend to roll up more on the way home than they do on the way down. I strapped on my helmet and got on my bike. Because I'd done the route before, I had a sense of where I would encounter the hills. To my surprise, they weren't as daunting as I had remembered them from when I had last ridden home from the office, sometime in September. I attributed that discovery to the indoor class training as well as the fact that I wasn't starting the season on my heavier mountain bike but on a considerably faster and more lightweight road bike.

As April spun into May, I found myself taking on more and more hills. I knew my trepidation had evolved into eagerness two days ago when I was riding one of my usual neighborhood loops and on an impulse turned left off the loop onto a road called Ormsbree. I knew from walking that road that Ormsbree would climb steeply up a ridge and would then wind around a picturesque plateau before plunging downward onto a road known as Ballou. Walking that hill has made me break out into a sweat. I haven't yet tried running it, and cycling it seemed like a skier approaching a double-black-diamond run for the first time. But up I went, shifting down as I went, until I hit the top of the hill. Wow, I thought, as I coasted along the plateau. That was fun.

Unfortunately, I hadn't remembered the rolls of Ballou. I scooted down the hill with my hands gripping the brakes to help prevent me from going so fast that I would fall over the handlebars. And, then came the uphill. Breathlessly, I started cycling up, but I forgot to shift. About three-quarters of the way up, I realized I was working so hard to keep pedaling that if I tried to shift, I might lose my balance and fall. So carefully I slowed to a stop, unclipped my shoes from the pedals, and walked. That hill awaits.

My latest hill adventure occurred today. I tried a new route home, traveling along U.S. Route 9 to a road known as Daniels that spills into a country road called Locust Grove. Both are rife with rolling hills. I rode them well, but panted at times because they were new hills and I was still trying to figure out when I shifted. The panting, however, has benefits. A walker on the downhill saw me cycling the uphill and cheerfully gave me some great words of encouragement: "Way to go, you're doing it. That's one tough hill!" Her words fueled me for the rest of the way home.