If you have watched any professional bike races, you have likely seen those dramatic mountain-top finishes where the cyclist is forced to run the gantlet through crowds pressing along both sides of the road. The heart is pounding, lungs are burning, legs are screaming, pedals are barely turning ... any clueless bystander could topple the racer onto the pavement.That is what it felt like at the top of Montevina this morning on today's Low-Key Hillclimb, though of course there were fewer people and I had much more room to maneuver than the pros do. For the first 3.3 miles, Montevina presents a challenging gradient of 8.3%. When it gets steep, it is a sign that the end of the road is near. Not nearly near enough, however, as you face a stretch more than a quarter mile long at an ever-increasing gradient that averages 13.1%.
My ever-increasing heart rate averaged 180 beats per minute on that segment, for close to five minutes. At that rate, there is little blood flow allocated to the higher cognitive functions. With people and bicycles everywhere, I had no confidence that I could pedal across the line and bring my bicycle to an uphill stop without toppling over.
I dismounted and walked the last 50 yards. My speed had already dropped to 3.5 mph, so it was not as though I would lose much time. A throng of fellow Death Riders cheered me on, shouting: This is harder than the Death Ride!No argument there, though I had been similarly unnerved by the Brownian motion of cyclists at the top of Ebbetts Pass.
On the climb, I worked hard not to be distracted by the incredible views of the Santa Clara Valley and Monterey Bay, blanketed by fog. Even at my pace, the marine layer lingered long enough to collect some nice photos on the trip back down. I should climb this hill more often.
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