Fifty Plus (50+) - Finding Out What I'm Made Of

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Metric Man
10-24-09, 12:56 PM
This has been the story for me in 2009 so far. In my third year of serious riding I have attempted things I didn't "think" I could do and found out that I'm only limited by that very thought. We have a hill in our area known as Lamb's Canyon. The section I did today shows 563' of climb in 3.8 miles. The entire hill is 1350' of gain in 5.6 miles, which I will do next time, but today I decided to just tackle the first section as the beginning of my 34 mile ride. As in the century I did a few weeks ago, this was not near as difficult as I imagined and I am rapidly getting to the point of looking for things to challenge me further.

The bottom line is we are truly limited by our thoughts and if we push them aside we can accomplish much more than we think we can. Too bad I had to learn some of these things so late in life! :roflmao2:

cyclinfool
10-24-09, 01:09 PM
If my diet over the last 50 years is any indication it's mostly buritos and beer :lol:

The stats on that climb are about 3% average grade, thats a nice climb for 3.8 miles. The last part of the climb calcs out at 8% based on the numbers you provided - a serious section of hill. That sounds like a nice challenge to keep you busy and maybe get you addicted like the rest of us aspiring mountain goats. Congrats!
Metric Man
10-24-09, 01:34 PM
3% over the distance is probably right, but there are two sections around 8% and some that are almost flat. It's the 8% sections that get yer attention! But what really impressed me is I had been afraid to tackle this hill...and I found it was nothing!

Metric Man
10-24-09, 02:23 PM
OK, I was taking my elevation from a different source than my Garmin 305, this is the actual grade.

http://ridewithgps.com/users/1722/routes
Robert Foster
10-24-09, 04:25 PM
Having driven that route many times I am like you were always thinking how hard it looks. I plan on giving it a try but never seem to get motivated. I have decided to give the climb to Idyllwild sometime in November and once I have done that I may be over my climbing fears. I don’t know if I will ever like climbing but sometimes you have to climb it get to the good downhill runs.