ramps, grunts and drags

Lance describes sprinter hills as inclines he can ride up in less than a minute. Hence, he sprints them. My friend Rock describes some climbs as grunts. I ride up ramps, pinches, pitches and drags.  

A drag is not steep, but it’s long and usually straight, so you can see the work stretching uphill in front of you. A pinch is short and steep and the only gear left is getting out of the saddle. A grunt is a bit longer or steeper, and being in the saddle is not an option. A ramp is a steep pitch that’s part of a much longer climb.

Nouns can’t describe the grand climbs of the Tour de France. Only adjectives suffice, and barely. The Tourmalet is unrelenting, the Plateau de Beille hellish. The Col d’Agnes is remorseless, the Peyresourde grandly unhelpful: it allows you no rhythm.

Graeme Fife avers that a cyclist never conquers these climbs: all he can say is that on a given day the climb did not defeat him. He, like me, takes a climb in one hit—no stops for snaps or snacks. The only valid reasons not to continue to the top are an overwhelming need to piss, to remove or don clothing, or to get the stinging sweat out of my eyes so I can see. It’s a matter of honour.

Grand climbs are not always the hardest. Tasmania’s C137 from Ugbrook to Sheffield has two of the meanest climbs. The southern ascent of the Gog Range immediately after crossing the Mersey River is two kilometres of pure pain with a maximum grade of 18 per cent and regular 14 per cent grinds.

Over the top the descent is brilliant, but the C137 flatters and deceives. The kilometre long climb to Paradise, visible across the Minnow River flats, looks innocuous. But it’s already a horrid drag before the broken bitumen hooks left to reveal an unseen, brutish, lung-busting grunt to the top.  

Michael Waterford is an anaesthetist. I rode with him in Tasmania. He climbed the Gog aged 73. He’s a Pom; raced as a younger man; likes the vino. He rides a beautiful fire-engine red Italian-framed machine. On one side of the down tube are the words (in Italian) Down with skinny young men, and Don’t talk to me when I’m climbing on the other. Yes, indeed, Michael.

In tonight’s Cycle class Kirsten drives us up hills, thrashes us on town sprints, and threatens us with bastards from the bunch are up our arses. She depends on our honour, to add gears, to push our limits.

It’s 38 degrees outside and about the same inside. I think my training regime says I’m supposed to be having an easy spin.