The Art Of The Climb - A Time To Breathe
For years I’ve had the opportunity to teach others “The Art of the Climb.” It truly is a skill, one that can be mastered if so desired. Whether or not you see the hill from a distance or are faced with it suddenly as you turn a corner, the success you will have in conquering it will depend on your preparations prior to that moment. Those skills to climb are rather simple to understand, yet might be difficult to execute if you don’t have the will to push forward.
That first pedal stroke is simply a decision that you are ready to move forward and not roll back. Your foreword momentum depends upon your actions from head to toe. Just like walking, riding a bike can be rather simple if the path is flat and smooth and our breath is steady and unlabored. In such conditions you can leisurely enjoy the ride as your thoughts wander with no obstacles set before you to cause you to fall. Sounds great, Eh? Well, this to me is not reality. In real life we always have to step around ruts, rocks, obstacles and problems, changing our course at a moment’s notice. This keeps us on our toes and demands balance. So, to a degree, we all have been preparing for those climbs with each day that we choose to step up, climb on, grip tight, and roll forward.
To focus on the goal and not the obstacle is huge in helping you establish confidence, balance, and courage. Remember, simply spoken “The Peak verses the Pothole.” Where do you want to end up? Your focus is the key.
As I train new riders, one of the first things I look for is how steady their front wheel is as they ride. If I see any unsteady wobble I know instantly they are looking directly in front of their tire to the rocks below. Sounds like the right thing to do, Eh? After all, you’ve got to see what you are going over. Wrong!
I cannot stress too emphatically how important it is to set your sights in the distance, far ahead from where you are at to that next bend in the road or rider you are chasing. The key is to glance at the road directly in front of you, yet set your sights to where you are going. This will steady your ride, smooth out your steering, and make your journey a much safer one.
Now, do you ignore those boulders below you? No, you simply force yourself to glance at them so you know where they are, and then set your sights beyond that mark. This makes it easier to maneuver around or simply go through them when we know we can. When a new rider “Gets It” I see it immediately in their riding abilities. It’s like seeing that five year-old, who just learned to ride that morning, barely missing your neighbor’s Mercedes Benz – to later watching him jump off curbs and eagerly looking at that dirt trail that will take him to the mountains.
Now that you have gotten this far and are prepared for the mountain that looms before you, I must warn you with this last and final step. . .if you master it there will be no stopping you! There will be no limits to how high you can climb. There will be no mountain that you won’t desire to conquer. This skill is “How to survive? – Where to take your breath?” It is a painful skill to learn, but the strength in the Spirit that this skill will create is more precious than any other high life can bring. OK, maybe having a child can beat this, but not much more can compete with empowering one’s will to conquer the world and all it throws at you.
To teach you this skill, I would like to take you to a trail in our local park. This particular hill is infamous for being that testing ground to any mountain biker who dares to climb it. The challenge of “Cholla” is to make it to the top without stopping. It is three-quarters of a mile in length and is riddled with steep and rocky switchbacks, loose sand and off-camber routes. This part of the path has an angled slope that will slide you off if momentum doesn’t take you through. I’ve known individuals that took almost a year to conquer that mountain. Some of you are still trying and many have given up. When to take a breath is what those who succeed have learned, and is what I would like to teach you.
As you climb such a challenge your lungs will burn, your heart will throb, and your head will scream. But eventually, your lungs will be steady and your head will be listening to each beat of your own heart as it plans its moments of recovery. Here is the Key: If you try to climb this mountain full force ahead, explosive to your body’s outer limits, you will fail. When I talk to riders who are discouraged that they have to walk up more of it than they feel they should, I ask them if they have found places to recover without stopping. These are places that you can plan for if you see them. They are “flat spots” that may not be completely flat but allow you, if only for a moment, to pull back from the force you are putting on your pedal stroke, to calm your breath down, and slow your heart’s beat, if only by a little bit. Some of these sections are only about four feet in length but that is enough to make a difference. The key is to see them, plan for them, and finally, relax and take that deep breath. Let your head talk to your heart at this time.
It is alright to pace yourself and take that mountain slower than you wish to ride it, but when the mountain is long and hard sometimes that is what is needed to make it to the top. For those who feel that there is only one way to make it to the top, I would like you to rethink your idea. There have been many a hill I’ve walked up, but not many I have not peaked. Giving up on a mountain should never be an option if it is important enough to conquer. In closing, I would like to tell you about one other mountain I compare to all the rest. My friend, Laura, and I found it back in 2003, on a crisp May morning as we ventured through the state of Washington enroute to Mexico. Here we were, two girls on road bikes pulling 60 pound bike trailers, two days out on a journey that would last another nineteen. Our bodies aching from the torture we had put them through to this point, yet we were set to not have anything stand in our way to complete our journey. Then, there it was. . .Union Hill. The steepest, longest, most gut wrenching experience we questioned could be ridden without dabbing (placing our feet down). It was challenging, tough, painful, but not unconquerable.
We made it! And from that point on we compared every other climb to “Union,” riding on with an invincible feeling of accomplishment. Lighter in the saddle, we rode everything else that came our way with much ease, and thinking that nothing would ever top the challenge of Union. “Never say never”!
Before us stood the mother of all steep mountains. I refer to this one as a mountain even though it was much shorter in distance then Union Hill. Its grade was beyond anything we could have imagined pulling ourselves up and over, let alone 60 pound bike trailers gripping our rear axels. As we stood at the base to plan our attack on “Little Union” (how naive we were to think there was anything little about it) we realized that if we were to dab during this attempt there would be no riding it the rest of the way. We would have to disengage the trailers from the bikes and hike each up separately to the top. Shortly into the quest I could hear a car come up behind us. I silently plead in my mind with the driver to just go around. “Please, don’t stay back there to watch this painful attempt” I silently begged but to no avail. I could sense that as the climb continued the traffic began to pile up because none would pass that first guy who chose to not go around us just minutes earlier. I felt the burning of eyes searing into my back as the pain in my body escalated to excruciating. There was a very fine axis point of where our bodies needed to be positioned while being out of the saddle. This was in order to not let the rear tire lose traction and the front one lift up from such a steep incline. It was very tricky to stay in that tight range all the time while pulling as hard as possible on the bars to give enough force for the next pedal stroke. The pain of having to use every fiber of my being just to provide enough strength for that next pedal rotation was indescribable. My vision was focused, somewhat, in a haze, on the gray pavement just below my feet with each rotation of the clipped-in bike shoes being blurred in the foreground of my vision. It was all so surreal. Like a movie picture played in slow motion yet it was my very painful reality.
I could sense Laura just in front of me going through the same agony that our breath and groans couldn’t mask. By this stage of the climb I no longer cared that we had created a traffic jam on this little country road. The blur of gray pavement was only once interrupted by brown shiny pavement and then once again back to gray. Would I throw up before reaching the top, or even worse, would I pass out while still upright on this bike? If the latter were the end result, would I survive being dragged down this hill into the traffic behind us? I had to stop imagining the worst and just focus on staying in motion. Then, as it had begun, with one pedal stoke on an easy slope, it leveled out to a summit where we both stepped down to a stop. Bent over our bikes in shear exhaustion, we looked to the left as the first of an entourage of cars slowly weaving around us to continue on their journey. Much to our surprise they all began honking their horns and cheering as they passed us on their way. Those jeering eyes that I felt piercing into my back just minutes earlier weren’t impatient strangers wanting to move along, instead they were strangers staying silent and marveling at what was happening before them. Just waiting to outwardly encourage us but in fear that the honk of their horns might throw us off our concentration enough to stop us on our quest. Yet, all along they were there to cheer us on that steep country road.
I’m sure the stories they told of what they witnessed were full of humor, especially from those who had a front row view of our climb. I can just hear it, “Wow, you wouldn’t believe those two girls. I’ve never seen such determination, especially when that one out in front turned her head to the side, threw up and continued on as if it were a walk in the park.”
Yeah, remember that shiny brown pavement? Well, that was Laura’s Power Bar that had decided it was done with the ride before the ride was done with it. She has been such an example to me in every mountain that she has ascended. Laura never gives up and just seeing and knowing that about such an amazing women gives me strength and courage for my climbs.
Yes, Little Union is my Mountain to compare all mountains to, even to cancer. Whether your mountain is long or short, bumpy or smooth, it is YOUR Mountain! and only you can get over it if you choose. Remember, to look for those times to breath and recover. Your time to breath, for now, might be resting at the side of the road gearing up to get back on and move forward.
Your heart beat might be steadied by those behind you as they encourage you to focus and keep your sights on the distance, toward the summit. This is helping you to remain focused on the goal and not on those obstacles that may trip you up. Whatever it is that keeps you moving forward, just do it. But, as you move forward, do not forget to BREATHE!