spingineer

I always thought it would be great to know how much climbing there would be on a ride. This way, it would give me a gauge on how tough the ride could be. However, there is another side to this. If you advertise a certain amount of climbing, you may not think you will be capable of completing this.

This was especially true on my last ride, where the century was advertised as 11,000 feet climbing. Now, I have never done any ride that was > 10,000 feet climbing (even after all the doubles I have done). It turned out the ride was 12,000+ feet climbing, and I did not die at the end. I still had enough to do some more climbing.

10,000 feet was what I had in my mind as the barrier to which I could climb. This prohibited me from doing some rides which I could have done, but thought I didn't have the strength, or the stamina to do. Now that I've done 12,000+ feet climbing, it's not all that bad.

I guess my point is, sometimes if you advertise a ride has so much amount of climbing, it discourages some from actually trying something that is within their reach. I'm glad I did it, because in the end, the rewards were out of this world views. I'm still not a fast climber, but as long as you don't time me, I'll be fine.