There are times when stopping to rest means walking the rest of the
way.
Out in the country, you can often wait for a time when nobody is
around and re-start across the road, turning the start into a
switchback as you gain speed. But in the bumper-to-bumper traffic
on Guilderland Avenue as I climbed out of the Mohawk valley, this
solution never occurred to me. I knew that if I stopped, I walked,
and it was miles to the top.
(Leastways I remember it that way; I'm not going to ask Google Maps to
measure the climb. They aren't top maps, so I doubt that I could even
if I were so inclined,)
So I shifted into my lowest gear -- which was pretty low; I left
"choose good gears" out of the "Take it Easy" essay, but that's
probably just as well, as I gather that modern clusters come
pre-selected, which may explain the fad for absurd numbers of cogs.
So I shifted my gears to granny and I shifted my attitude to "I am
climbing this hill. I have always been climbing this hill. I always
will be climbing this hill. Climbing this hill is the only possible
state of affairs." When I got too tired to push, I concentrated on
pulling the pedals up and let my feet fall of their own weight. Of
course I pushed some, if only to keep my balance, but I didn't think
of that; I thought only pull, pull, pull.
And somehow I always made it out of the valley, and when I got to the
top, it wasn't any harder to ride from Schenectady to New Salem than
it had been to ride from New Salem to Schenectady.
-------------------------
Don't look up and say "Oh, what a huge hill! I must shift down some
more." If the gear you are in now is just fine for the slope you are
on now, it will continue to be just fine as that slope goes on and on
and on.
-------------------------
Sometimes walking is easier. The driveway out of the fairgrounds
(where there is a farmers' market every Saturday) rises sharply just
before it meets the road. I must come to a full and complete stop
exactly where it would be a terrible strain to start moving again. So
I get off, use the crosswalk, and remount on the other side.
I also get off to cross a road when I have to wait for a chance and
the pavement is bad or I need to cross anti-bike curbs. Getting off
also reassures motorists that I'm not going to dash out randomly, and
it makes it easier to move out between parked cars for a better view.
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.