Today I suffered. It was supposed to rain and I was not very
excited to ride in it, because my new Argon 18 is only two days old. But everything new gets dirty at some point, and I am in prime Vermont
riding country. There is also a rule about not riding because of rain which
states that perhaps you don’t have the proper conviction to be a cyclist if you
bail out, and I don’t break that rule. So I rode about 100k with two very nasty
climbs in the middle, and it was hot, and humid, and there was no shade.
It did
not rain, but it’s the threat that counts.
I wanted the climb to be over long before it was designed to
be. It was the last climb of the day and it felt like the mountain was growing
beneath me. My jersey was open and my glasses were filmed with salty sweat and
just as I crested, and was about to be rewarded with 4 miles of 10% graded downhill and 40mph winds in
my face, I saw the shape of a young woman pushing her touring bike, full of
gear, up the opposite face of the climb and then she yelled: “Are you are at the top?”