Up, up, and away!

Last year I never got out to do Logan's pass even once. This year I hadn't done it, either. So, yesterday John and I headed out to ride Logan's Pass. His wife, Sheri, decided to join us. We were planning on riding both sides, she was just going to do one.

We drove down to Sunrise campground and unloaded. Off we went. The wind was howling - but never from the same direction. Great. We stopped for a couple of pics at the bottom - and then John and I left Sheri and began to ride in ernest. John set a pretty good pace, and I dropped back a bit to get a pic. I guess I shouldn't have done that, 'cause shortly after John decided to do a little interval and hammmered away. We were coming up on a corner and as he hit I saw him rise and just knew what he was gonna do. We kicked the pace from 14km/hr all the way up to 25, and I saw him glance back a couple of times to see where I was. Dirty rotten scoundrel! He's not supposed to do this kind of crap until later!

I kept the gap the same, but couldn't close it. Then I settled in to recover. John gradually pulled away from me. A few times as we came around the corner the wind changed direction and where I'd expected a bit of a tailwind I ended up with a full-on head wind! Climbing grades of 7-12% is tough enough, throw in headwinds of 40km/hr and it gets ugly. There were places I was standing and hammering in the granny just to keep going.

I got a kick out of watching some of the tourists faces as they went by, amazed that anybody would want to do this!

Near the top, about 3km away, I came around a corner and saw a guy standing in the middle of the road, taking pics. I realized that he was taking a pic of me and decided to give him something exciting to photograph. I stood up and kicked it up a few notches. When I went by him I was doing 20km/hr on a 8% grade. (Of course, my HR was at 185) He waved and cheered me on.

I went hard, and when I hit the top I'd lost about 5 minutes to John. I told him there was no way I was going to do the other side today. In checking his HR - his max HR was only 163. I'm in terrible shape!! We hung around at the top for about 20 minutes, and then headed down to meet Sheri and ride with her back up. About 3km down we caught up to her and flipped around. She pushed it hard and made it to the top for the first time ever. Good job Sheri!!

We took some pics of Sheri at the top, and then just as we were getting ready to head out, a cyclist came up from the other side. I went over to talk to him, guessing that he was from Great Falls - turns out he was and we chatted for a couple of minutes and then I turned and headed back. I'll probably see Ron at the Belt Omnium next year, as he's planning on doing it as well. John and Sheri had already left.

Now the fun part - descending! Scary today because of the wicked cross winds, but also a whole lotta fun 'cause I can further develop my descending skills. I caught up to a motorbike and drafted off of him for a bit, as there wasn't any room to get around him, finally hit a section I could pass in, and laid it down, went around him and 3 other cars - that was fun!! (I always love the looks I get when I pass cars coming down a mtn pass.) I caught John and Sheri and we zipped down the rest of the mtn. John and I would stop, wait for Sheri to go by, then chase her down, get ahead, and repeat. Was a whole lotta fun, and we got to meet and chat with some interesting people at the pull outs while we waited for Sheri.

Near the bottom John was up ahead of me, and there was a BMW SUV between us, the BWM couldn't get around John (he was doing 60km/hr in a 40km/hr zone) and I just sat off of his bumper. Finally he got to a point where he could pass and accelerated to go around John - I laid it down and managed to stay in his draft all the way around John, and for a few hundred yards after that - then he laid it down and took off. No matter, our parking lot was right there (I almost missed it!)

Finally, we got to the bottom and this guy in a truck pulls into the parking lot where we're at and drives over to us, rolls the window down and says, "you guys were WAY over the speedlimit!" - I shout back, "Every chance I get!" He smiles and gives us the thumbs up and pulls away. Speed limit was 45mph, there were a few places I got up to 50, but it wasn't particularly fast because of the cross winds (I was on the brakes a whole lot more than I'd have liked.)

In looking at my data afterwards I see that I spent pretty much the entire climb in zones 4 and 5. Hit 180+ many, many times. Maxed at 185 5 times. I've really gotta get doing more intervals and riding more regularly. I haven't been on the bike since the triathlon in Ft McLeod a week ago. That's not good.

School starts this week, so I'm hoping that I can get into a better routine and get some good training miles in every day. If not on a bike, then by running. I've gotta get this weight off!