Date: 12.10.11
Ride Day: Mount Lemmon
Remember when I was talking about those Double D's up to the northeast of Tucson? Well, for some reason I woke up today with a banging headache, dehydrated, and hungry, and decided that it would be a good day to climb 5450 feet.
I ride with music. Used to think it was dangerous. It can be. So can a piano string.
Music in general can kick your ass into unhidden gears, and I always look to it when I need a shift in the paradigm tranny. And today, the music helped me big time. Nickelback and Prince seemed to do the trick, since Nickelback songs are mostly about angry stuff, and angry stuff is rocket fuel. And Prince, well, that Purple Rain album I could loop all day.
I was nervous, like prom night nervous, as I drove towards the start and I saw that fucker staring down at me. It was spreading it arms and beckoning me to bring it and it had not just the element of surprise, but the goliath angle as well.So, 76 degrees at the bottom, and 40 at the top. Planned on it bit but not long enough. I wanted to stop a couple of times, but then again, finding that mean between rashness and cowardice doesn't include quitting.
Four very inquisitive deer met me at the top, and also one dude named Phil, who was coming from the other direction, and the two of us hung some serious brain on the way down. I took some genuine chances, given that the drop off on most of it was hundreds of feet into rock. And yeah, I thought of Woulter Weylandt and those images from last years Giro D'Italia.My fingers were so cold that on the descent I couldn't tell where they were, and I couldn't tell if they were on the brakes, which is an unadvisable way to descend a mountain. I may not have been as reckless if I hadn't been able to follow Phil's line.
I got a late start because I had to force feed myself food and water so I wouldn't die on the way up, so as result, the last couple of thousand feet of descent are in my brain, and not on camera.
Oh, and when I got to the bottom, I gave that mountain the finger. The video is a wee dark, because the sky was dark, that's just science. Watch the 720P version, MUCH better.
