February 1, 2006
This is the Climb That Never Ends
Did you ever go to summer camp as kid?
Do you, perhaps, remember some of the songs the counselors taught you?
There was one that all the kids knew at every camp I ever went to.
In the great tradition of the best summer camp songs it was not only simple, catchy, and easy to remember, it was also irritating.
When properly done it could be sung for hours on end or at least as long as the bus trip. This is especially true when the song is alternated with other popular ditties like "Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall".
I've changed the words a bit, but it went something like this:
This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because... This is the climb that never ends and it goes on and on my friend; some people started biking it not knowing what it was and they'll continue biking it just because...
The mountain was something like that. For the first fifteen minutes of the day I was in my happy space. My goal is a consistent 20kph and I had that. Fifteen minutes and five kilometers. Then, the climb started.
And it didn't end.
It just went on and on (my friend).
Forty minutes later, I'd gone another four kilometers.
It didn't take long before I was near the back, enviously watching the people on mountain bikes spinning their way oh so slowly to the top and listening to the creak creak creak sound of Brian Lao's rear derailleur as he zigzagged back and forth and forth and back across the road.
(As one of the other English speakers and one of the other people who spent a lot of time on the truck I got to know Brian pretty well over the course of the trip. Physically he was better able than I to do this trip. However, his preparation had mostly consisted of pulling his steel 12 speed off of the semi-enclosed balcony where it had been left two years ago and if my road bike wasn't really suited for this trip then his definitely wasn't. The derailleur really wanted replacing. Really really wanted replacing. And wasn't discovered to be a problem until well after it was too late. As a result, he creaked. And spent a lot more time walking than strictly neccessary.)
It was better than merely beautiful. Words like magnificent don't even begin to describe it. Once we'd started on the S curves there would periodically be entire vistas lit obliquely by the rising sun. And it didn't even hurt much. It wasn't that the climb was particularly hard, in Vietnam I'd faced much steeper grades, simply that it was a mountain and went up for a very long time without ever having any down or flat bits.
But the down finally came. And by the time we hit one hour I wasn't very far behind my 20kph sweet spot.
Today's ride: 15 km (9 miles)
Total: 218 km (135 miles)
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