Favorite Hill Climbing Quote

[Nanci]

"The race continued as I hammered up the trail, passing rocks and trees as if
they were standing still."

Red Fisher, Wasatch '86

[maillotpois]

That is great!!

[tulip]

"And I would rather be anywhere else than here today..."

-Elvis Costello

[SadieKate]

Embrace your inner tortoise.


-Veronica

[bikerchick68]

Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever. Lance Armstrong

(this is what drags me up all the hills... my personal chant... :D )

[Nanci]

I live by that Lance quote, (which some credit to The Marines) and also "It never always gets worse." Without those two things, I'd be DNF'ing all the time!!

Nanci

[Duck on Wheels]

I live by that Lance quote
... whereas I can maybe see managing the first, although at my speed, those rocks might actually get so bored they'd get up and move by the time I passed them.

[AussieEm]

"I think I can, I think I can"

- Little Red Caboose

[SadieKate]

I shouldn't have eaten that BBQ pork for lunch.


- Veronica

:p

[betagirl]

"To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain"

[betagirl]

Or one that I think quite often...

"Ok you either pedal or puke and tip over"

[Nanci]

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to
make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The
body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But
the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the
mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've
always got to make the mind take over and keep going.
George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

[Nanci]

"Executive summary: It was fun. It was beautiful. It was challenging, no,
strike that, it was hard. It went reasonably well for about 65 miles. Then it
got ugly. Then it got very ugly. Then it got stupefying, Bataan death march,
lurching, staggering, crying-for-yo'-mama-in-the-middle-of-the-night ugly. That
went on for several more hours and then I finished . . . ." John
Medinger, Wasatch 100, (2000).

[Veronica]

How weird to see my self being quoted. :D

I was saying Danilo Di Luca over and over in my head on DMD.

V.

[betagirl]

"One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it's not going to be satisfying.” - Greg Lemond

[RoadRaven]

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

:- Walter Bagehot

(Also, my signature below... because i will try again tomorrow)

[Starfish]

I laugh at hills.

(I say this to myself when I see hills coming, when I am struggling on one, or when I'm signed up for a ride that sounds too hard & hilly. I often say it out loud, and I sound so ridiculous to myself that I actually do laugh, and then the next thing I know, I have a smile on my face, and I laugh more because I'm actually laughing on a hill climb. I imagine folks around town think I'm nuts, because sometimes when I forget I'm only talking to myself, my lips move, too.)

[mellic]

Just Do It

- from Nike I guess

I always scream this in my head when my legs just want to pop!

[Nanci]

Recruit the glutes!

[susiej]

Next pinecone ... next pinecone ... next pinecone ...

... as I stare at the pinecones littering the side of the road, I keep pedalling just to the next pinecone (about a foot away), then to the next, and the next, and finally I make the top of the hill in my granny gear and can cruise the 200 yards/meters to my house. Or not, because there's a car behind me that wants to drive faster than ten miles an hour.

But last week, I made it up the hill in my second to last granny gear! And without the pinecone chant. Progress! Yay me! :D The hill's pretty flat, but has a nasty sharp increase in slope at the end. Like a stinking ski jump.

--SJ

[Geonz]

I carefully learned all the verses to a great little Celtic tune about a widow with incredible endurance who outlasted the Devil before TOMRV... ("At 69 the widow laughed, 'Again, Again!' she cried... the devil said, "Well, I can see, just how your husband died.")
... but the song that was actually rolling through my brain ended up being "Ain't no gra-a-a-a-a-a-a-ve can ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-ld my body down..."
If it's a quick hill, it will be the PUnk Polka ("Jump, jump, jump, jump up and down in place - Drive a safety pin into your face - excuse me while I leave the human race, and do the punk polka.")

And often it boils down to... "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10... okay, 10 more times around... 10 more..." but at least *now* I can say "if you keep moving, you've always ended up at the top."

[bikerz]

"Don't tip over..."

-BikerZ

[salsabike]

Next pinecone ... next pinecone ... next pinecone ...

... as I stare at the pinecones littering the side of the road, I keep pedalling just to the next pinecone (about a foot away), then to the next, and the next, and finally I make the top of the hill in my granny gear and can cruise the 200 yards/meters to my house. Or not, because there's a car behind me that wants to drive faster than ten miles an hour.

But last week, I made it up the hill in my second to last granny gear! And without the pinecone chant. Progress! Yay me! :D The hill's pretty flat, but has a nasty sharp increase in slope at the end. Like a stinking ski jump.

--SJ

I LOVE the next pinecone chant! Makes perfect sense to me.

[pkq]

I have a real problem with someone beating me to the top.
-a pal

[pkq]

It's darn near downhill all the way from here.
-Ken C.

[Lenusik]

And I try to imagine waltz: one - two -three, one - two - three :):)

[Geonz]

Somebody else uses a three-count! I do too, I think because of my swimming background and breathing on "both sides," and the six-beat kick rather deeply ingrained in me. (I like 3-4 better than 2-4 anyway. So many really good songs are 3-4...)

[CR400]

"Just a little bit farther"

"Only one more hill (or time)."

"This hurts so much, what do you mean I'm only going 5 or 8mph." So I dig in to go faster.

and my favorite "Thank God for the triple I bought" with a 26. Now If I could just have a 26/25 maybe things would be better