Trading Wax and Edges for Rubber and Brake Pads.

It's getting really, really difficult to drag myself up the mountain this month. It isn't so difficult to get talked into a road ride with Kyle Long. Good thing for our start-of-season ride he chose the Duffey hill climb for a friendly warmup to a hopefully long and glorious bike season. The Duffey only rises about 1000m in a 14km stretch of two-lane highway beginning at the Northern end of Lillooet Lake and reaching it's highest point shortly after the Joffre Lakes parking area:



Being the immaculately prepared and exceptionally bright individuals that we are, we set off on the journey with a water bottle each, and very little clothing. I had on chamois underneath my long(ish, not long enough) Sombrio biking shorts, and a long-sleeved Lifa shirt and a rather thin nylon cycling vest to top it all off. No leggings, short socks, you know, prepared for hours of climbing uphill. Kyle had about the same, man version. And, by the way, we took off from his car at 6:12pm.

Things started off great for the first few switchbacks. We had a quick stop so layers could be removed, and from that point onward I kept going and going and going and going kind of like the energizer bunny or Tina the Tank Engine. Nothing could stop me, because I'm fairly certain I would have turned around and/or died right on the spot if I stopped moving my legs for even a moment. Finally, after a number of lonely kilometers (Kyle had vanished around corner #5,000,000) I found him waiting for me at the Joffre Lakes parking lot. It took everything I had to continue to the top even though we had cycled from spring right back through time into winter. (Take that Michael J. Fox!)

We stopped at the top for a few quick snaps to show how blue I mean excited we were to have accomplished such an... interesting endeavour:






After these photos, I went from blue to purple. Believe.

I've never been closer to hypothermia in my life. I had convulsive shakes the entire ride down and had to pull over multiple times to try to jumping-jack some life back into my fingers. Hands were numb all the way to my wrists, and I'm shocked I was even able to brake. I arrived back at Kyle's truck at about 8:40, and my shins were actually purple and my lips were blue. How does Lance Armstrong do it in the Alps? Seriously? Thank goodness for Kyle's seat heaters in his truck, and for the epic Minestrone soup at the Pony in Pemberton.

I think I'll wait till July before I do that ride again! See ya on the road/trails/ski hill/pumptrack tomorrow.