Yesterday I tackled my first col of the season (mountain). Last year my favourite 'go to' route was Cypress Mountain - so I decided to give that a shot again. Although I had been cranking out the miles on the indoor trainer, I was worried that my legs and weight wouldn't fair so well on the climb. Surprisingly that wasn't the case...
Here is a shot of the top of the climb - was a little chilly on top with the snow banks piled up on either side of the road.
My overall route and times are recorded. Apparently this was my third fastest ascent from the power lines to the shed - this was quite surprising for a couple of reasons:
A.) I wasn't trying for a personal best, just trying to get a good burn going through the legs and maintain a decent pace.
B.) I spent a good 30 seconds to a minute messing around with my front derailleur as it wouldn't shift from the big ring to the lower for the climb.
I'm not sure if this is the result of winter training or not but my best recorded time up this mountain was back in summer and I was easily 4-5KG's lighter.
Snowbanks up the climb...
This is just past the final climb, its a fairly level coast over to the Ski Lift parking area which is where I do a quick U turn and head back for the decent.
The classic selfie while suffering..
With decent speeds surpassing 70 KPH, it was a fun ride down, although once you hit the shade it gets dang cold. Pretty excited that I could get up this climb so quickly - hopefully this will result in some great PB's (personal best) this year!
Thanks for reading, Ride safe everyone!
B
You climbed 1300 metres in 57 km at a whopping average speed of 26kmph. Bloody hell, that is incredibly fast!
no no no.. lol I wish. The climb is about 12 km's - not sure what my average speed was, might be able to find that out for ya. The average speed shown is for the entire route, so that would include the flats before and after the climb and the decent of the mountain which is basically 10 minutes at 60+km's.
This looks absolutely beautiful! Wow! And I am with @twowheeledmonkey, How fast were you going!? That is INSANE!
It's such a beautiful ride up there! I'd recommend to anyone visiting Vancouver. I guess it made it sound like I was going much faster than I was! The climb is about 12kms and the average speed included flats and descent. I'd say my average speed on the climb would be closer to 13-16kph (just a guess).
WOW!! This looks like a beautiful ride!!
I really need to work on my climbing, but it'll probably be when I'm out of town loaded up. THere are a few hills out of town, but nothing like what you rode! That's a pretty amazing ride, and fast.
Where are you from @robmolecule ? I absolutely love climbing - its a unique suffering that I just crave. Must be the high you get when you're at the top, getting ready for the descent!
I'm in Buffalo. It's flat other than bridges. I lived in Pittsburgh but wasn't a great cyclist then. It'll take some getting used to but I'm going down there again with my bike in August.
ah fantastic, I hope you get some great rides in while on your trip!