Flat Top Mountain Day

We bolted down to Anchorage early this morning to see if Fran could catch the wildlife watching full day cruise. It was fully booked. We went to the bike rental place and decided that fran would take the bus to Flat Top and I'd bike there and then we'd make mincemeat of the mountain together. After some negotiation, the owner told us that we could just drive ourselves there. o.K. That's $22 saved, so we drove there and then climbed it. It wasn't too long, but it was quite steep. I love it when my foot slips out in front of me, which it did about 10 times due to the grade and loose stones. Nice view from the top though - no complaints.

Interestingly, you could pay $5 to park at the top and get a parking sticker, or you could just write on an envelope that you had paid $5 to park, place the empty envelope in slot and a self written receipt on your windshield and go with that. The honors system, nice.

I also noticed on the drive up that the road to the parking lot that this was a stinking hill. I had to try to bike up it. So, in the afternoon, Fran went to look around downtown and I took a sleek hybrid for a ride.

I would not describe Anchorage as bike friendly. True, there are lots of cycling paths and they are not clogged with foot soldiers, but if you have to stop every couple of hundred meters and deal with right turning traffic, what's the point? The roads were very dodgy with constant "right lane must turn" situations. That plus no restrictions on cell phone use and plenty of road works and you get the picture. Nevertheless, I made my way to the mountain and started to ascend. And ascend. And ascend. This bugger was steep and long. My heart rate was about maxed out and I had to try and slow down my cadence to survive and still it went up. I stayed with it, but started to doubt my ability to make it to the top. Where did this end? Would I have time to clip out if I could go no further?

With the end getting close and the heart rate stuck at max, I turned a corner to find the road increasing in grade. Only a few hundred meters left, the legs were dead, the lungs were dead. My speed had deteriorated to 5 miles an hour. I started to weave and finally with the end in sight, I clipped out and stopped - a beaten man. As I gasped for breath leaning over my bike, I realized that I was in the big ring. How did that happen? After a couple of minutes I finished the climb and then it was brakes on all the way on the decent. I mapped my ride the climb, but it did not give me the climb data. I will find out the details of that hill, and perhaps try again tomorrow.