I am primarily a road/endurance rider but due to where I live, safe riding conditions require I drive at least an hour away. I live in a very large gated community that is located in hilly terrain where a nice “flat-ish” ride doesn’t exist so I finally quit my whining and learned to enjoy climbing.
As I’ve been training for over 7-8 months for my first double century at age 62, it seemed only obvious that being able to climb was a necessary skill. I’ve completed a number of solo centuries and double metrics but never a full 200.
I’ll be signing up for the Hemet Double in April which only has 6000(+) of climbing making it one of the “flatter” doubles I can find. Today I climbed over 4000’ in only 29 miles by simply hitting every hill in the neighborhood. Many of these hills average 12-15% with one (very short) section hitting 18%.
Undoubtedly what’s helping is I just acquired a new 2022 Specialized Diverge Carbon Expert with SRAM ETap and the 52t “Mullet” gearing. My previous Orbea Terra was well geared for climbing but not quite like this !
I only decided to get serious about cycling about 2-3 years ago and though it’s a bit late at 62 to have any crazy expectations, I’m going down swinging 🤣🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️
