Big Day

We decided to ride Mt. Lemmon today. The climb to the end of the road (Mount Lemmon Ski Valley) is 26 miles from the start of the climb, and that's where we set our sights. Getting across town is about 30km from our place, we stopped for a water fill on the east side before heading up. As we approached the base, there's a sign that warns of extreme wind. Considering how strong the wind was yesterday, this worried us. Today it was just Devin, Gerry and I... Trish wasn't feeling well and took a day off.

We settled into a pace that seemed suitable for a 2 hour climb. The pavement is perfect, the grade is gentle, and the scenery is fantastic. We only battled wind for the first few miles, after that you get back into the mountains and it proved to be a non-event. After an hour and a half of climbing, I was feeling weak. We pulled over to put on our windbreakers and such, and saw a guy coming down the hill who was wearing more clothes than I wear riding in -10C weather, seriously. The north facing slopes on the top of the road did have snow, but it wasn't that cold. Your hands got a bit chilled without gloves, but you could ride for hours in that temperature without losing significant amounts of body temperature. I think that guy just was used to feeling the surface of his skin at plus 40C all the time.

We trudged up to the ski area (actually, Devin didn't trudge, he powered his way up). Ski area peak is 9,157 feet, Tucson is labelled at 2,584 feet. The road to the ski area doesn't go to the peak, but there is some up and down on the road. All in, I'd say it was a 7,000 foot climb (not including the climb to our house perched up in the mountains on the west side of town). This was the last day of operation... had I made it there earlier by an hour I would have sought out some rentals to give it a try. Looks like a good learning hill, it's may be a little bigger than twice COP. We were the only two in the restaurant, and service was impressively prompt. We both ordered meatball soup (just what you need after climbing), and it was on the table n 45 seconds. Our Cokes came out fast, and I pounded my first glass right away. The waiter came out with a second glass, plus a pitcher of Coke, plus a pitcher of water. Quite insightful for a heavyweight guy who doesn't likely ride a bike. Food was great, it fixed my bonk and we put on all our clothes for the first cool part of the descent.

The downhill was fun - very little traffic, perfect pavement, mild enough grades that no brakes were needed for any turn. Took an hour to descend, but probably could be done in 50 minutes or less, as we stopped at a few tourist lookouts for some pictures. This is the road map, and disturbingly, American geography is a bit off on this picture, last time I checked Banff is in Alberta. My new bike is by far the most stable descending road bike I've ever owned, there's simply no frame flex detectable. Here's my test, I tried to take a no hands picture of the spedometer over 60kph, but the grades weren't very steep, so every time I sat up to aim the picture I'd slow down with air resistance. 57.4kph is close enough.

The route across town was uneventful and easy with a tailwind. We chatted to some other cyclists, but eventually I did end up missing a good photo op. As we crossed some railroad tracks just east of the University, a yoga chick was doing some pose with one foot on the ground and the other behind her head infront of a derelict building right in the middle of the railroad tracks. A professional photographer was taking pictures... I should have snapped a souvenir shot of my own just for the sake of recording the chance sight.

All in, the day's ride was 162km, a perfect Century, with saddle time 7 minutes short of 7 hours for me. Devin easily scrubbed off a half hour on the climb from my time.

Heaping plates of pasta all around for dinner out by the pool. The few days of wind seem to be over, it's still and warm and beautiful.