Today is the first day of the Tour de France. This is The Superbowl of cycling. Except instead of being a one day event, it's like watching The Superbowl almost every day for three weeks straight. I have my favorites, and I will watch every stage that my schedule will allow me to. This race is one of those things that gets me excited to get out and ride. It makes me want to ride in places that I don't normally want to ride. For instance, yesterday, I went for a bike ride, and here is what the elevation looked like:
The route I did yesterday was an out and back route, meaning I went all the way to the end of my route, and then turned around and came home exactly the same way. That's why the elevation chart looks like an ink blot. The gray areas are the biggest climbs. This is the first time I went for a ride and did more than one categorized climb. This ride had three category 5 climbs. These are by far not the hardest climbs that you can do, but they're significant enough to mean something to me. At the bottom of that image, you can see the length and elevation change of each climb. You may also notice that I went up 1627 feet for the day.
The first category 5 climb was easily the hardest. It was the longest and steepest of the climbs. It also started with a really steep section, then came back down a little bit, but I felt like I was going up hill forever. Two miles is a long way to go up a hill... for me anyway.
I hardly noticed the second climb, but the third one was a little difficult. It wasn't so hard because it was steep, it just felt long, especially on the back end of my ride. I would like to point out, however, that the last climb put me at the top of the first climb, since I was riding back home. That meant that I got to go down. Oh yes. My favorite. I got myself up to 42mph on that descent. That's the kind of stuff I live for.
The 51.5 mile ride took me 3 hours and 18 minutes with an average speed of 15.5mph. My legs were a little bit sore, but I felt good when I got home.
I heard an interview with a cyclist named Frank Schleck the other day who crashed in the Tour de France last year and couldn't continue. His brother, Andy, took 2nd place. They're climbers. Frank said that he hates mountains, even though he's good at climbing. He hates them because they always hurt. That pretty much sums up my feelings about hills. However, something is beginning to change in me. Not that I hate climbs any less. They hurt like hell. But I'm starting to enjoy climbing for the same reason. The pain is just satisfying.
Yeah Tour de France!! And when you mean you're going to watch all the stages that your schedule allows, you mean all of them right??? Hahaha...I hope you can at least watch the daily recap!
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