Tucson Training Camp Day 5: Finally conquered the bitch

Day 5 was another attempt at making it to the top of Lemmon - no more mechanicals! I told the group that if I get another mechanical on my bike then someone is going to be giving me theirs so I can finish the damn climb. SO, the plan for the day: Meet at Le Buzz café and then make for the base of the mountain. Mile 0-14 will be max effort TT. Once we reach Windy Point, it's gonna be a cruise the rest of the way to the top. By the time we make it back down the mountain and back to the house it should be around five hours in the saddle. Off we go!

14 miles is not a long way to go, but when you've never done a climb that long it's hard to know how hard you can push and still have enough in the tank for the rest of the way. My TT effort was 75 minutes of 180bpm +. There was a bit of a headwind through the steep part of this climb so it didn't exactly help things along but I made it to Windy Point in 1:18. Made it to the top feeling pretty good, glad to just make it without any problems as opposed to doing it as fast as I could. Good to know I've still got some race pace in my legs as well, as shown my my HR map

So that first big block is obviously my TT effort to Windy. It tapers off a little bit which I attribute to my mind wondering and not staying 100% focused on the climb - It's hard work to keep suffering for over an hour, especially when you've got no one riding next to you to help you keep pushing (the others were doing their own ITT efforts)

Once we all regrouped at Windy it was time to hit the summit. We were at a cruising pace the rest of the way. The route upwards kind of throws some hope at you, making you think you've made it. You descend a kilometre or so, only for the road to turn up again and have you go even higher. Our finish line was the General Store at the top. Once we made it there it was nice to sit in the sun and eat our purchases from the store - FUDGE

You figure it's mostly downhill from here so why not eat 1/2 pound of mint fudge and a mini bottle of coke? No one provided any answers...

Stopped for a quick pic at the top...

Didn't get to do it on my own bike, but it was done none the less. Lemmon has only one paved route, so we begin back tracking the way we came. I saw a sign not too long after...

So, we're supposed to be on the look out for BEARS for the next 25 miles?! Is that who the poop on the roads belong to? Where the fuck was this sign on the way up? It's like only if you've been to the top of the mountain do you get to know that there are bears lurking around. Don't bring any picanic baskets.

Ok! So! Descent! The grade isn't actually that steep, an upright position might give you 50km/h on the descent but Adam and I were as low as we could go and pedaling like mad when we could. I only had one oh shit moment and it was when I entered a tight corner at 70+ and thought maybe it was too fast - we were dropping the crotch rocket behind us. The best thing about this climb is that you never need to hit your brakes - ever. Once you get your bike in high gear you never have to touch your levers again. That is until you come around a blind corner and there is a family of like, 10, slowly making their way across the road with their hands all linked together. You think a group like that might want to show some hustle, but instead they just freeze up and wait to see what you do next. Anyone who has used road bike brakes at 70km/h and over know that they don't actually work at that speed, you kinda have to wait until the road flattens out before they have any effect. And these people were taking up THE WHOLE road, I'm talking two lanes, no gap and they say it's our move. 

This was red rover extreme edition. Thankfully we spotted a bike wide gap on the other side of the road that we might have a chance with. We took it and continued the descent. As far as we know, no casualties. The descent from the Palisades took us 34 minutes. Not the record but still a lot of fun. Half an hour downhill is unheard of back home. Probably the highlight of riding so far

It's a 26 mile climb (42km for pretty much everyone reading this) The elevation profile isn't that steep, it's all about the distance. This day marks the end of Mt. Lemmon for me here is Tucson, I've got two more days of training here and I've already spent three on this climb. 115km on the day has left me wiped, bed time comes veeery early tonight