The mountain-top finish

By David Pacey

If you look very carefully between the swaying fir trees in my back yard you can see the top of the climb before you ever turn a pedal, but I don’t recommend it. It’s best to taste the clean mountain air. It’s best to enjoy the warmth of the last few days before the rains come. It’s best to get a few kilometers on the legs, get the lungs working and the back warmed up – and then hazard a look up, waaaay up.

The hill in question doesn’t even have a proper name, it’s just one in a line of foothills leading to the real mountains of the North Cascades, but for my purposes this is perfect. In May my hill can be the Zoncolan, in July Galibier, but today, on an apple crisp afternoon in mid-September it has to be La Pandera.

I could easily extol the virtues of this ride for its cardiovascular value, or convince you that I only torture myself getting to the top so that I can enjoy the cruise back down, but the plain fact of the matter is that I enjoy the fantasy that I am riding in that select group of riders at the front of a mountain stage on the penultimate climb in one of the grand tours. In short, I’m up for a climb and all of the contenders will be there, unbeknownst to my faithful dog Ginny, who will be my peloton of one.

I never quite get around to riding a hundred or more kilometers leading up to the climb, I find a few miles to suffice, but the fact remains that to the top the climb is ‘round about 10 kilometers. Steep. Painfully Steep. Maybe not for the pros, but I’m just an average middle aged guy, so for me 3000 ft. in 6 miles, which works out to be about 10% on average, feels like a stage in the Pyrenees any day.

Warmed up and spinning easily my legs feel good as I approach the first part of the grade. I’ve made up my mind not to end up in the groupetto today. Once is on the front as we begin to climb, riding tempo, and, typically one of the Kelme riders has gone on the attack, but there’s no panic in the pack, no need to answer just yet.

Then there’s a milder stretch, a chance to get my wind and assess my strength, before the hill ‘ticks up’ and the fun begins.

The big boys aren’t wasting any time today, the moment the hill begins to bite they’re out of the saddle and on the attack. Sevilla, Mancebo and Igor Gonzolas de Galdeano lead the way, but I’m on good form today and have no trouble matching their accelerations.

We’re only a third of the way up, but already the peloton has been blown to pieces. I crack a smile, so far so good.

For a short stretch the road really turns up, and it’s putting some of the others into real difficulty, but I’ve still got power in my legs and I haven’t reached the red zone so I give my Basque teammate (Ginny) a smile and go on the attack.

Only a select few are able to answer my acceleration – Heras is there, Oscar Sevilla, Roberto Laiseka, the usual suspects. We’re halfway home and it’s clear who’s on form today and who isn’t.

Much as I’d love to breath easy from the this point, and ride at my own pace, I know that the only way to take the stage is to stay attentive and match the others’ moves.

Ginny thinks I’m insane. I can see it in her eyes. She knows this climb as well as I do and can’t quite figure why we’re pushing so hard today; but she can’t see, as I can, the faces of the imaginary riders as we struggle toward the summit. She can’t tell that we’ve got them where we want them, that this our day. She can’t know how it helps to ease the pain to imagine that I could keep up with these magnificent athletes.

Roberto Heras attacks again and immediately I’m out of the saddle and onto his wheel. Am I dancing in the saddle?? At 40 years old, six-foot-three and 190 lbs. it is hard to call my efforts dancing, but I’m up on the pedals and the bike and I are driving up the hill as fast as we ever have.

One last hairpin turn and then the final ascent, I can feel the ‘flamme-rouge’ burning like a coal deep in my furnace and I go flat out up the final kilometer. The hill really bites here – it’s a spur of an old forestry road that shoots straight to the top of the mountain at what must be more than 18%. My lungs are burning and I’m really suffering. It’s not Angliru, but it hurts. No one will best me on the line today. I offer a small salute before I nearly collapse next to Ginny. Her wet kisses are a slim substitute for a pair of pretty Spanish podium girls, and there will be no golden jersey, but we both know that today I’ve put time on my two greatest rivals – old age and complacency, and that… is victory enough.