Incline

According to the internet’s #RideShimano magazine, the Tour de France’s infamous Alpe d’Huez ascent is “characterized by 21 hairpins which unusually count downwards, making each turn a recognizable achievement of pain and glory. It is a 13.2 km climb, ascending 1104 m with an average gradient of 7.9% and a max gradient of 14%.”  

And yet those superb professional cyclists in the Tour, including 22 year-old Thomas Pidcock, who won the mountain stage this year, routinely make the ascent in under three quarters of an hour!

It would take your average advanced recreational cyclist more than twice as long and I’m sure yours truly would need a minimum of two hours not including all the time necessary time for stopping to hold what we used to call a “safety meeting’ by the side of the road for inspiration and analgesic on the way to the top.

But who wouldn’t do it if they had the chance, right?

Because hills are what cycling is all about.

Just ask anyone who goes from riding their bike in a place like Seattle, which affords one plenty of ups and downs, to somewhere like Chicago, where all you ever need to pedal harder against is the wind, and they’ll tell you how much they miss all the bruising ascents and thrilling descents.

Grinding uphill may be a grind, but it’s honest work, and flying downhill really is flying.  

Give me a seven per-cent grade over a twenty mile per hour headwind any day.  At least there’s an end in sight.

So, even if your climb is just several stories up a city parking garage or your descent is merely one steep block down to a lakeside pocket park in one of the tonier sections of town, that’s plenty good enough.

Gravity is our friend, whether we’re ascending or descending.

Whatever goes up, must come down, except our spirts, which keep rising with every single turn of the wheel on our bikes.