Could be the hardest ride of my life

Thankfully we had bought snacks upon heading back up the mountains this morning.

I was eating guava paste and chocolate and cake and peanuts AND was still astonished to find that I might as well have been emptying the packets straight onto the road, as all these calories didn't seem to be working. It was a fascinating situation and a tribute to the amount of energy needed to bike up mountains. Astonishing. But I love to eat. And I love to pedal. So I just keep endlessly repeating both activities.

As a cyclist, I've had many a good hard ride in my time (which, upon reflection, has been no small amount of time). The 100-milers, the bitterly cold and windy between Washington and Idaho, the Thailand island with fierce fall-over grades. All these rides were tough for their own unique reasons, meriting each their hyperboles in my history.

Today's goes in the history. It gets the award for longest unceasing climbing push. I might even call it the hardest ride I ever did. I can't remember the last time I was shaking slightly upon dismounting my bike--maybe years ago when I was just starting out--and I think it's a gift in this way to find my edge again. It's not like climbing to Cornell, which is steep, and where I can stand in my pedals and roar forward because I know it's only 20 minutes of it. Here, it will not end. At least not reasonably. Endless climbing.

Two hours in--as I write this over eggs and rice--we've gone all of 15 kilometers, with an average speed of 7.9 kph.

Elise has climbed all over Australia and Romania, but for me this ride feels  momentous.

The road is smooth, the traffic is light, the temperatures are cool, and we are in the clouds. Like being in an airplane, where you look out the window hoping to see a landmark, but all you see is grey fog. At some points we cannot even see the upcoming rise in front of us.

My biggest thrill came from parasiting myself a free ride. I was going up a rise, grappling away, and a fourteen wheeler is roaring slowly up right next to me, grinding into gear. This is all in the careful timing and balance: I reach out and grab a metal handle piece at the rear of the truck. Whoosh!--a bit like water skiing one-handed--and voila I'm being towed. Once I got my balance (staying close enough to the truck but not too close) I was grinning like an idiot, how amazing to be gaining some elevation without work, save my left arm. I let go after a little time though, as Elise didn't have a truck and I didn't want to get too far ahead. 

What a hoot. That is always a dream of mine, to ski behind a truck like that up hills.

Later:
The end of the ride had a long descent, careening us into the town of Yarumal where we spend the night. Contrast again (Contrast as a theme of this journey): this descent in comparison to the hours of crawling speeds was that much more glorious, I indeed got a little choked up, whizzing past the green hills in my own breeze and into civilization.

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