21 November 2009

Alba

It was chilly and the roads were still wet in the shaded parts from yesterday's rain. I headed up Hwy 9 and Glen Arbor to Ben Lomond, and then registered for the Low Key Hillclimb.

Riders were sent up in small groups of about 10, with the faster riders going before the slower riders. That made sense from the perspective of recording finishing times. I figured I'd be somewhere in the middle third. On the fast end, there was the guy on the recumbent with the electric motor, and on the slow end, there was the guy towing his daughter in a trailer.

I started at the tail end of the 5th group, which was really slow at the beginning, so I moved ahead of the group except for 1 guy before it even got steep. On the first part of the steep part, I went by the last guy. About 1/3 of the way up, a guy in a red jersey went by me. I don't know if he started in my group or a following group. He stayed in sight pretty much the rest of the way up. Before Alba School, I overtook a rider that started in an earlier group. Just after the vandalism rock, there was a photographer off the left taking pictures of the riders. On the final little kick just before the road curves to the left at the top, I overtook another rider from an earlier group. There was a sign off to the right saying, "200 paces". I shouted out my number, finished, and then collapsed onto my bars for a few minutes. I think my time was about 33 and a half minutes, or about a minute and half slower than I did the same climb 2 weeks earlier.

After recovering, I headed down Empire Grade.