With the kind of 2024 I've had so far, my mileage is nearly nonexistent, the stress level is stratospheric, and the wonderful cool weather taunts me through the windows. But today, after a particularly trying morning and early afternoon, I said "forget it, it's time to ride." So I got out
the Nashbar "Alumispeedy" cantilever-frame bike and decided it was time to see whether the 1x9 "frankencassette" I'd recently built would perform on some serious hills.
The eastbound leg through Moon Valley and past the wreckage of Paradise Valley Mall was pure chamber-of-commerce stuff - some not-too-tough climbs, some easy coasting descents, sunny skies, a perfect temperature, and a nice tailwind. I was feeling rather strong considering my lack of mileage, knowing that a lot of it was the breeze and grade and not my untested legs.
Made it out to the east side of Mummy Mountain in fine time. I decided to tackle a serious climb right off, so I turned right on Hummingbird and pedaled up to where the asphalt goes steeply up the hillside. I knew this climb all too well from my racing days mumblesomething years ago, but I hadn't actually visited this lil' hill in, um, decades.
And so I attacked, and was rewarded by a very responsive bike under me, with the cassette nailing every tough uphill shift. And at the top of the first visible climb, my body said "Hey, remember the 'haven't ridden much' stuff?"... and so I took in the scenic view as my lungs recovered a teeny bit.
Oh wait - there's more climbing, isn't there?
I survived this lil' test, enjoyed the descent, and then turned face to another familiar, short, but super-steep climb up Desert Vista. The top of this particular hill was where I met what I thought to be the most amazing woman of my dreams over three decades ago - but alas that particular relationship was a disaster in many ways. But at least I could get some training out of it today.
When I reached the top, I felt very lightheaded, and had to sit down and snack for a while. So I forgot to take pictures. Then a fast swoopy descent, a turn onto the correct road, then a U-turn after I realized that it was the correct road but the wrong direction, and down past the ultra-expensive resorts and links.
Crossed a busy Lincoln, stomped up the north foothills of Camelback Mountain, raced the traffic on McDonald (E-I-E-I-vroom and all that), pedaled the side streets of Paradise Valley, and was feeling somewhat OK.
That of course was the cue for
both my quads to start cramping.
Turned my nose into the wind and tried to keep my power output on that ragged edge between too-slow and Cramp City. Took a scenic shortcut around the mega-mansions of the Arizona Biltmore and did my best to avoid the high-velocity dimpled spheroids.
Decided to panda to my baser instincts instead and have an early on-the-road dinner and let my legs recover somewhat.
Feeling a lot less teri-yucky, I pedaled up the Arizona Canal path as the sun began to plummet beyond the horizon.
Made it back home well-lit in the dark with sore legs, 37 miles on the odo, about 1200 feet of total climbing, and a resolve to not try to bite off (figuratively) more than I can chew when regaining fitness. But the weird-ass 11-12-13-15-17-19-21-26-34 'frankencassette' did fine across the well-used range.
(Shut up, legs. No, we're not Jens, but shut up anyway. Ow.)
And with that... "Good Day!" (that white house in the back of photo #4 was Mr. Harvey's winter quarters for several decades).