Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
July 30, 2008 at 12:50
filed under cycling, Vancouver
Tagged cycling, fixed gear, Vancouver
My bike commute is short yet hilly – 12.5km but no sections to get your rhythm going. I can live with that although it means that I need to get out of the saddle frequently since I don’t have the luxury of gears on my fixie. Don’t get me wrong, I like climbing but the downside is that I must include sufficient time to hit the showers before I get to class as I am in desperate need of a shower and a cool-down when I get to campus.
The ‘pièce de résistance’ of my commute, although it is a relatively short climb, is Burnaby Mountain. The main section of the last climb is roughly 3.5km and covers about 275m of vertical for a gradient of 7.9%. To put this in perspective, the climb on which the Tour de France was won this year is L’Alpe d’Huez, and although it was the third ‘Hors Catégorie’ climb of the day for the Tour riders and it is much longer at 13.8km, it averages a 7.9% gradient.
I keep repeating myself this fact as I hammer down on my fixed gear to keep the legs going.
Guy
What, that a tuff one on a fixie indeed and the shower is mandatory. But the way back home might be insane and tuff on the skids patchs!! And a fun ride! You should add some pix of your commute to picture your ride.
G
Emanuel
I’ll work on getting some photos of the ride and for the purpose of clarity, I did put a break back on to my fixie specifically for the descent back from this commute – it was too much work without it!
My (almost) daily climb - part 2 | Thought Patterns
on June 5, 2009 at 20:43
[...] already posted about my climb up to my University in the past and I thought I would get it in pictures since [...]