climbing repeats and gear ratios

Disclaimer: The following post uses some cycling geek jargon. Consider yourself warned.

There is nothing quite like getting dropped to motivate your ass to get out and ride. I took Monday off because I wanted to go the bar with some friends from work instead of riding. Point here, I’m motivated, but I still like beer!

Just across the Golden Gate Bridge there is a little tourist road that heads up a mountain. This area is referred to as the Marin Headlands. It’s in Marin county and I guess mountains that touch the ocean are called headlands? Whatever, the point is I finally have some sustained climbs that are super close to me and I can go up hill as often as I want.

Quickly after moving here I realized that I needed to switch to a compact front crankset because I was climbing the headlands at about 55rpm. Clearly way too low! I opted out of changing anything on the back. Partly because I didn’t want to buy a new cassette, partly because I’m stubborn and was convinced that 34x23 would be fine. My next trip to the headlands I was surprised to find that on some of the steeper sections I was still averaging about 65rpms, but as I’ve been hitting these climbs things have been getting better.

Today I did 4 repeats up the back climb (not sure what its actually called, I may name it myself soon though) at the headlands. It’s about a 6 min effort (not all out), 6 switch backs and 2 pretty steep sections where I tend to get out of the saddle to keep the rpms up. As I was doing these repeats today I was determined to not be a total Fred and hit the first one so hard I couldn’t get through the last one in anywhere close to the same time and I guess I’m starting to learn to manage my effort because I actually rode 3 and 4 faster than 1 and 2, a small, but big accomplishment for me! My rpms were staying around 75 and in certain sections I was able to kick it up over 80 which was really encouraging as it clearly means I’m getting stronger. I’ve still been wrestling with changing the cassette out for an 11-26 but today made me think that maybe another month and I’ll be able to spin up most of these climbs on the 23. I guess time will tell.

Oh, and on a side note I’m also getting much better at descending, however, it still scares the shit out of me almost every time. If any of you guys make it out to SF and bring your bikes I’ll take you down a descent that was clearly inspired by a roller coaster. Its so steep that when you’re going down the first section all you can see is edge of the cliff and the ocean below. You can’t see the horizon without looking up. Which, if you did look up you might end up in the ocean because the 90 degree right hand turn does not seem to be forgiving. I want to pretend like I like it, but that’d be a lie. It’s a necessary evil to get to another part of a ride I’ve been doing. The insane winds coming off the ocean in the late afternoon don’t help matters either.

So, basically, I had a good day on the bike. Hopefully I can find some training partners in the near future and get myself scheduled for another crit maybe mid August. I should be fit by then!?