Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
June 5, 2009 at 20:43
filed under cycling, Vancouver
Tagged cycling, fixed gear, SFU, Vancouver
I’ve already posted about my climb up to my University in the past and I thought I would get it in pictures since it’s been beautiful these past few weeks. I’ve been enjoying the climb more and more on my fixed gear and of course that’s much easier when I’m not climbing under light drizzle. It makes the descent more enjoyable as well.
Here it is:
Nice start to my mornings, check out the gradient profile: short but mad steep.
Yeah that’s right, there’s some 14% gradient in there. It’s short so its not that bad except for the fact that I’ve got three similar short bursts to do up some steep hills like this one in the first 5 minutes of my commute, not a mellow warm-up: I’m mashing right out of the gates!
It takes me roughly 20 minutes to get to the bottom of Burnaby Mountain. Going up to Simon Fraser University; here’s the climb profile.
It’s a nice 3.5-4K climb that I breakdown in these photos.
The climb is steady right as you get going yet you can’t find your tempo right away as you might still need to stop for the traffic light. In any case, you know that the first curve will immediately let you know how your legs are doing today.
There’s quite a bit of traffic on this climb so you need to hug the right and this first turn is steep. Usually at this point I am already wondering why I do this without gears…but that thought only lasts for a fraction of a second!
The gradient is steady after the turn and at this point I just put my head down and hammer down. Here’s another difference with riding this climb on my fixie: on my roadie the stiff bike shoes are really good for energy transmission while on my fixie, in my everyday shoes, I can feel the power being lost. I’d prefer to ride my fixie with my clip-ins but I’m worried about theft. I’m working on a storage solution at the University so I can change that.
Still going steady.
The bus stop, when unnocupied, offers some room to swerve a bit and take a mini-breather, if you need it.
This is the last stretch of the first third of the climb. There’s a mellower section coming up so you can power-up again to finish this section strong.
This section mellows out as it it the entrance to the Burnaby Mountain Conservatory so it’s usually nice to be able to get the cadence back up. Not for long though.
This second segment is actually shorter but the road is in worse shape so depending on traffic it might be a bit annoying as you don’t really want to hug the right but you might just have to.
The traffic lights offer a false sense of accomplishment as you’re not there yet but it’s the chance to once again get the cadence up and prepare for the last third of the climb. It’s usually around this point that I get ambitious and that I tell myself that if I wasn’t heading to class, that I’d turn around and do the climb again. But there’s still tomorrow…so to campus I continue on.
This portion has some messed up pavement so I’ll be riding almost in the middle of the right lane. That’s OK since by this point in the climb most drivers will respect the fact that you’re still on your bike and give you a break. Ha, I guess you don’t know how easy it really is until you’ve done it a few times.
Another classic curve that would be a good spot for an attack if in a race: steep and you can quickly look like you’ve put some distance into your followers. As for me in my climb, I pretend I’m trying to stay in someone’s wheel as they attack and are dictating the pace.
The light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. That last curve up ahead is where it opens up revealing the campus. One time, they were doing traffic control on this straightaway with one of those sign that tells you how fast you are driving. Two guys were sitting around monitoring the process and as I rode by I joked with them as my speed didn’t come up on the sign.
When the times comes, it’s back down so I can do it all again tomorrow. High RPMs and the reason why I went back to a brake on my fixie…it would simply be stupid to go through a tire a week to handle this descent.
Guy
En effet, ca chauffe les cuisses le matin… Le retour doit être vraiment motivant!