what i hate most about the McDs is that every ride is straight-up, for at least an hour, over chunk. minichunks. maxichunks. pointy-edge wobbly chickety-chicken-chitty-chitty-bang-bang chunk.   Not volcanic, which becomes more uniform and lends itself to surfing. Or river rock which does the same even smoother.   Mid-stage devolution, slag falling off jagged rock, unbalanced wobbly square-edged ricochet-off-your-wheel crapass chunk. And its all straight up. From the instant you turn up Bell, its an hour climb to the top of Windgate, for a 2 hr double-bypass back over Bell.   Every other route gets harder.

I so miss Hawes, and the variations of aerobic but mostly-smooth climbing with beautiful flowy descents and just enough genuine rock moves to keep it interesting, ebbs and flows along a river drainage, sunsets.

but the McDs make you stronger. No soft kiss of the flow of water on the landscape, just a mountain and upward undulations and detritus.

Willingly pointing uphill for an hour of hard effort is never not a challenge for me. I could be rock-hard and fit, and i still cringe thinking of ascending Windgate.   And crapass chunk raises instant ire, not that its unnavigable, but because it is just so fucking crapass. but the McDs have been getting easier, more familiar, times and distances and assessments of my will and the conditions becoming a little   smoother every month. I haven’t ridden Hawes in 9 months, and maybe it would kick my ass now? I don’t feel rock-hard and fit. Strength is adaptive, built on repetition of the familiar. So i must be getting better at going straight up crapass chunk.

i rolled out the door late, with a busy agenda of tasks for the evening stacked upon me.   i can knock out Windgate\Bell in 2 hours, kinda, on a good day, with favorable conditions, if i’ve been riding a lot. i had exactly 2 hours, and I really wanted to descend Bell Pass into the sunset. So the challenge was set.   I could always bail and turn back down Windgate.

my pace was right on. whoduathunk? I’m pretty psyched to have one more repetition of the routine under me. Wingate\Bell in a tidy 2 hours door-to-door. and the sunset.