A training ride up Seymour, and a very personal resolution

Submitted by Stan

I've been thinking a bit about our GearUp4CF ride in June, and some of the hills we'll be climbing only seven weeks from now.  We'll soon be facing, for example, a fifty seven kilometer, nearly continuous five to seven percent grade climb to Allison Pass, on the way to Manning Park. Last year, the weather conditions made the climb really interesting.  And then there is the hill I feared most last year, that twenty five kilometer stretch of highway out of Osoyoos with a seven percent grade.  It is part of our 125 km ride from Osoyoos to Grand Forks on day three.  And then, there's that twenty kilometer climb with a six percent grade up Kootenay Pass, part of our 128 km ride between Trail and Creston. 

I don't want to scare anyone on our team who has not done this ride before, however these are serious mountain highway passes. But that's what we're committed to. The reason - to raise awareness and raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis Research - is driving us physically and mentally to go the distance.

So, I thought, a nice ride up Mount Seymour that includes about thirteen kilometers of climbing at a five to eight percent grade shouldn't be too bad, should it?  Having done it many times, I should have known better than to underestimate the challenge of this particular climb.  I started out from home near Kerrisdale, headed downtown and crossed the Lions Gate Bridge, hoping to join up at some point with my friends in the Le Peloton riding group.  By the time I made it our usual rendezvous at Staples, it was apparent that either I had somehow missed them, or the warm comfort of a bed on this chilly Saturday morning was just too good to enjoy.  Thank God it wasn't raining. But the clouds were heavy, hanging over the North Shore mountains like a wet, cold blanket.  Ignoring them, I headed out to Deep Cove, a very nice, scenic ride along Indian Arm Inlet on Dollarton Highway.

At Deep Cove, just before ascending up the highway to Mount Seymour Parkway-->

I stopped briefly in Deep Cove, just long enough take a picture before heading up the mountain.

Well, either the mountain has grown taller, or my "power to weight ratio" has gone sideways over the winter.  I can only blame the latter. Too little power, too much weight. I won't say how much weight, and I'm certainly not obese, but it was REALLY noticeable going up the mountain. Let's just say that my average speed was about 10% less than last year. And that there is a well-known, directly inverse correlation between speed and weight when climbing on a bike.  Sure, I made it up without blowing a gasket. But it was not pretty - a 'wake up' call for me.  So, I'm resolved.  I've just got to WORK HARDER to be stronger, and, for heavens sake, get rid of that extra weight!!

I made it though, rolling to the top of a fog-shrouded cold mountain, still above the snow line.  Having come up the mountain many times before, that was not what was worrying me.  My biggest concern now was the descent.

<--At the top of Seymour Mountain, near the ski lifts. What a difference from Deep Cove.

Just picture this. You are coming down the mountain at 45 kph on a lightweight road bike, in thick fog with near zero visibility. With the wind chill, and near one hundred percent humidity which makes gloves dripping wet in cold moisture, it is a matter of endurance of how long you can hold on before your teeth begin to chatter uncontrollably.

Even though I could only manage 40-45 kph yesterday due to the fog (my usual descent on my Trek 5200 is about 70-75 kph), the wind tore through my gloves until needles of pain started shooting through my fingers. For nearly five kilometers - a lifetime, descending like that - I simply could not see for more than a few meters ahead of me.  My saving grace was my trusty Garmin GPS, because it displayed a little map and my exact position going down the mountain. That way, I was able to tell where the next hairpin turn was, how quickly I was coming up to it, and which way it was banking.  Fifteen minutes of bone jarring cold later, I made it safely to the bottom, where, thank God, the sun was breaking out.  I was glad to be able to start peddling again and work those leg muscles to generate a bit more heat.  

My elevation chart, plotted on my Garmin GPS yesterday-->

I had considered doing another mountain before heading home, but after that hellish descent, it was time to consider another day.  Just around that time, one of my good riding buddies, Oleh, called me on my cell. He had read the multiple email messages I had sent on my iPhone that morning looking for my friends, and invited me over to his home on the North Shore for some hot coffee and a tuna melt on a bagel.  How could I refuse?

My route yesterday. You can see the switchbacks going up Mount Seymour. The straight line from North Vancouver to my home is an artifact.  I ended my ride in North Vancouver--->

So, my ride was shorter today, only 82 km, but I'm happy with the result. Despite the brutal cold, I managed to complete my first big mountain climb of the spring. And, I'm resolved to work harder at power training and take caloric and nutritional intake between rides seriously. I know that if I deal with it, - my goal before June is to lose 10% of my current body weight - I'll have at least 10% more kinetic energy that can go into moving my bike up the hill. 

To all of my fellow GearUp4CF teammates: If you have not done so already, I'd highly recommend, though perhaps in sunnier weather, to fit in some big hills into your training rides as soon as you can.  This is a great time to do it so that you can make adjustments - power training, weight management (if you need it!!), and simple endurance training, over the next six weeks. 

And for those of you who are simply reading in astonishment at what this band of cyclists are about to embark on, and what we have to do to get there, just know that your donations to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation  makes you part of our team, too.  We need your help.  What we are doing, together, is to give hope to the children and young adults we are riding for.  Hope that they will have better outcomes.   Hope that they will have full and healthy lives.  And hope that there will soon be a cure for CF.

If you have not contributed yet, simply click on the 'hot linked' names of any of the riders in this Journal, or click on www.gearup4cf.org.  You will find tax deductible donation links to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation there.  This would be a perfect (and very welcome!) opportunity to show your support.

- Stan


Would you like to sponsor a favorite rider? Click on their name anywhere on this journal to open their "bio" on the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis GearUP4CF web site, click on the button "Sponsor this Rider", and you will join our team!