Confessions of a Hill Climber

I am the world's second worst hill-climber. My next door neighbour's Volkswagen camper is the worst but since he weighs almost 150 kilograms the Kombi has a good excuse.

Living on the Blue Mountains has given me a keen interest in hills, however reluctantly, and I've tried everything to improve my performance. Lower gears, higher gears, standing on the pedals, sitting, ankling, and using cycling shoes all appear to work for the experts but have failed me completely. The trouble with cycling shoes is that the cleats get damaged when you got off the bike to walk up the steep bits.

A regular Sunday morning struggle from Blaxland to Katoomba seemed like a good idea at first but it hasn't helped much. Sometimes kilometre trip seems interminable. (Motorists who think the correct distance is closer to forty kilometres might find that particular comment a bit confusing, but all cyclists will agree that vertical measurement is much more important than linear.)

Successful hill climbers fall into one of three categories: the fit, the innovative and the intelligent. A few lucky ones fall into all three.

We all know the fit fider. He's the fellow who rides alongside you on club outings, chatting breezily, and turning the cranks just often enough to stay half a wheel ahead while you puff along in your lowest gear. His parting remark before he tears off effortlessly toward the summit is something like, "Not a bad little hill is it? I must think about changing down a couple of gears."

The innovative rider uses a more scientific approach. One guy said he prefers to use the time of day to decide which hills to climb—he prefers to go eastward in the mornings, westward in the afternoons so that the sun's gravitational pull will carry him over the top. He probably loses a lot of time after lunch waiting for the sun to reposition itself for an easterly climb.

Intravenous Staminade

Intelligent hill climbers leave the rest of us far behind. Riding west from Bullaburra one Sunday morning I was surprised to see a friend racing downhill, Sydney-bound, looking as fresh as a deodorant commercial. He'd have needed to be on his bike all night to get to that spot so early. It was weeks before he admitted that he'd caught the first train to Katoomba and was only riding down the mountain. Now that's a civilised way to beat the problem.

Ask a hill climber why he does it and you'll get the same answer as that given by the mediaeval monk who was asked why he practised self-flagellation – "Because it feels so good when I stop."

Until we reach that great cycleway in the sky where all the hills slope downwards and the only winds are tail winds we'll have to battle on the best way we can, but I know what I'm going to do about it...

Im going to attach an intravenous feeding bottle to the top of my safety flag and drip Staminade straight into the vein. And if Staminade doesn't work I might resort to something a bit stronger!

To be truthful, living on the Mountains makes any serious cyclist a pretty good hill climber. You wouldn't get much joy from riding if you weren't.

Yogi Berra once said that baseball is ninety percent mental, the other half is physical. Hill climbing is about sixty percent mental – as long as you're reasonably fit you should be able to climb most roads without much stress.

Lynne and I were climbing Lapstone Hill one day, a three kilometre rise from the plains to the mountains. Just as the grade started to get serious I caught up to a big German guy who was struggling a bit. He had muscles bulked on muscles and obviously spent more time in the gym than on the bike, and I said, "Hi!" as I passed. Lynne, just behind me, said he immediately got up off the saddle and started to chase, then she passed him too with a cheery, "Hello." He went down like a pricked balloon. He wouldn't have minded too much if a man beat him in a race to the top but he wasn't going to risk being beaten by a middle-aged woman.

A short distance away there's another access road to the mountains called Old Bathurst Road. It comes out at a different spot, is a little higher, but is much shorter. Consequently the grade is very steep and once a year the Bicycle Institute organised a hill climb there.
We went off at two minute intervals and one year my son Wayne (eleven years old but small for his age) joined me. He was due to start immediately behind me but the same German pushed in ahead of him.
I thought he'd be keen to beat me after our previous encounter so, about five minutes into the ride, I looked over my shoulder and confirmed that he was closing. Then I reached the steepest section and didn't have time to think about him again until I reached the top.
When I looked back he was nowhere in sight and I walked back a little and saw Wayne coming up.
"What happened to that big guy?" I asked.
"He was walking up the steep bit," said Wayne. "I told him it got easier around the next hairpin but he just said, "Shut up and ride your bike!"
That was the last time I ever saw the man. Maybe he gave up riding after that.