One of the plus points to take from
what has been a pretty disappointing summer is my increasing fitness.
When, after a gap of about a dozen years, I swung my right leg over a
bicycle again a couple of years back, I was wondering how long it
would take me to get some proper riding fitness back. My last bout of
riding hadn't posed too many problems that I could remember, and as a
kid, well I was always on my bike, and hills? Well they were just
bits where I went a bit slower that was all. So I reckoned this time
around it wouldn't take long to get by biking legs back.
Wrong!
It's a longer hill than the photo shows, honest. this is just near the top.
I'm a chunk older nowadays, and had
also done a fair bit of smoking in the meantime too (although I have
also successfully given up... again...) and the fitness has taken a
long time coming. But this year I feel I've really taken a big step
forward, probably thanks to riding all year round whereas the
previous winter I missed three months entirely.
The area this increased fitness is
noticed the most is in my ability to scramble up and over some of the
bad ass hills on the lanes I populate. Some of these are what are
technically known in geological circles as 'right steep buggers' and would surely test even
the most enthusiastic of hill climbing pro racing cyclists. Look up
'vertiginous' in the OED and it'll say something like 'steep' and
'see Tregassow Lane or Lanner Mill hills in mid Cornwall'.
Probably.
The hill in the photo above is a mere
bump compared to some of the ugly gradients I encounter, but even
that one would see me walking up it to start with. Now I barely
notice it, which is just as well, as looking at it on the map shows a
disturbing lack of tightly packed contours and those little arrows
used to mark 'sod that' climbs.
But I have also recently found myself
conquering those slopes I previously had no chance of getting up.
Alright, I might still be puffing like the Flying Scotsman and my
legs burning like a second home in Wales, but at least I can now make it
up and over them, and carry straight on without needing a rest at the
summit. Now I admit all my bikes are equipped with a granny gear for
winching up the lumpy bits, but still, I'm pretty pleased to see such
an improvement, it is very encouraging and erm, uplifting, in fact.
So now I look at prospective routes for
a particular day's ride and no longer dread or fear the hills I once
blanched at, and my enjoyment of cycling has gone up several notches
as a result of the feeling of added freedom I've gained. I might
still conk out at the top of one with a heart attack one day, a
constant worry given my age, but at least I will have made it to the
top probably, and not gone into meltdown only half way up a slight
slope, which would be plain embarrassing.
It's like everything really, practice
makes perfect, and the more you ride up hills, the more your body
gains the required fitness, and you acquire the technique best for
you. For me, I just get into the granny gear early on, and just pedal
and not worry about whether I make it as far as last time, or to the
top or whatever, and that's what works for me. Nine times out ten now, I find myself riding over the top of some gruesome climb with barely
a thought given to baling out.
The trick now is to continue building
on that fitness and not let it slip this coming winter.
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