lake mountain

Today, Sunday, I ride Lake Mountain with some of the group going to France. They did Donna Buang early in February while I’m walking in Tasmania.

It’s already warm when we meet and greet in a car park in Marysville. We spin away and drop 100 metres on the 11kms to Buxton, where we turn around and pick up those 100 metres on the way back to Marysville. This is our warm-up.

We are a bunch of nine or ten. I have not been in a bunch for over a year. I feel hesitant, wary, struggle to sit on a wheel.

Mick owns Croydon Cycleworks. He’s 47. My good woman says cyclists all look ten years younger than their real ages. In Mick’s case this is spot on.

Mal and Kathleen who came to the Pyrénées two years ago look in good shape. Mal’s racked up the kilometres: there’s no belly; he’s whippet-thin. Kathleen, a novice two years ago, is no longer: she’s leaner, tougher, there’s now an athletic-looking gap between her thighs.

Frank is a friend of Detective Darren: he accosts me in the car park, says Darren has told him all about me. Frank is every inch a gun: he races; he’s mean, muscular, and not to be messed with. I’m unlikely to see much of him because I couldn’t stay on his wheel for 30 seconds.

Adrian is closing on 40, a free spirit from the Isle of Wight, a former racer freelancing his mechanical talents—and the thing between his legs—around the globe. He’s doing six months at Cycleworks. He’ll join us in France from the UK. The two of us chat as we pedal side by side to Buxton and back. When we start to climb he’s gone.

Big Nick Thompson works at the bike shop and has done for seven years. It’s a surprise to both of us that we’ve never ridden together. I tell him this at the top of the mountain, and point out that we still haven’t done so. 

Ard (his real name but lengthened to Aardvark) and his mate Mick are older and bigger. Older than me? I can’t tell. Bigger than me? Yes. My fears that I’ll be last up Lake Mountain slide away. In fact I am second last: Katleen is behind me and Ard and Mick don’t make it.

There’s one more bloke: the other guy. I guess I’ll meet him another day.

I have never pedalled the 21kms from Marysville to Lake Mountain before and wrongly assume any tough sections will be near the top. But no, the first seven klicks are the hard part—seven, eight and ten percent grades, maxing at 13.

My lack of climbing finds me out. I don’t want to use the triple but when the going gets tough I click the left shifter. Nothing happens. I try again, then resort to getting off the machine and dropping the chain manually. I remount but the chain falls off the third ring. Again and again. I push it up to the middle ring and struggle to push off.

A bit further on I happily stop for a leak. Then to watch Mick fix a puncture, his first for years he tells us. On the steepest ramps I could get off and walk past myself: I’m barely turning six kph.

When the gradient subsides to five per cent, I stop to wring the sweat out of my headband so my eyes are not stinging. Mick catches me about eight clicks from the top and I keep him talking so as not to grind my weary way up there alone.

Three years ago I descend like a maniac, but I have descended nothing in those three years. Mick, Nick, Adrian, Frank and the other guy are soon out of sight. They’re off the bikes and stripping off sodden jerseys when I hit the car park. Only Mal and Kathleen are behind me.

I decline a visit to the bakery. I’m happy to have climbed a mountain, modest though it is. Mick gently let’s me know that I have many mountains to climb before I climb the Alps in France. He’s right and I know it.

Today’s ride is 66.7 kms at 22.5kph.