Trails--up the whole way UGH.

[TahoeDirtGirl]

I don't know how long you have been riding but I used to push alot. The bike that is. I wasn't ashamed of it either. But I wasn't lazy about it either.

I hope this isn't Mt Tam you are climbing! OH my. I came out of the mountains last year because of the fire in South Lake Tahoe to ride and I went half way up Mt Tam and swore I was going up the wrong way. Nope, it's just a long crank...I think it's really interesting when you go somewhere different how you take for granted some of the trails you ride, and find that you have to adapt to a new one. I know riding here in the East is very different. I'm used to the long cranking hills in Tahoe and coming out here the pop up steep hills kill me. Happy Crankin!

[Irulan]

Hopefully you'll come to enjoy or at least appreciate climbs. There's the obvious reward of The Top Obtained... but besides that, I love to climb because-

- I can see improvement all the time in fitness ( gee, that wasn't so bad) and technical skill growth. You'll remember when it seemed like it took you all day to get up there, and now it only takes a little while
-find the meditative aspects of a long climb, and learn to appreciate them

[atombessy]

lovely librarian! I'm almost a librarian too (one class left and I'm official!)

hills can suck (especially LONG slow ones like you're describing) but the best way to get better at hills is....to climb hills It sucks now but by the end of the summer you'll appreciate all those up miles you put in! (I'm trying to be a cheerleader, but I appreciate where you're coming from, hope you find some other trails to play on too!)

[ima_bleeder]

You've got my sympathy! I know how you feel. I'm in the coast range in Oregon, and every ride has 100-125 ft of climbing per mile. My easy after-work 12 mile loop has about 1,200 ft of climbing in total, in three steep intervals. That's my easiest off-road ride.

As a mostly fair-weather weekend warrior for the last couple of years, I wasn't seeing much progress in my climbing fitness. So this year I decided I wanted to gain an impossible amount of bike fitness, and I set a goal to race in a local 50 mile (7,500 ft of climbing) race.

I have no problem gaining muscle strength just by getting out and climbing. A lot. But my limiting factor was always my aerobic fitness.

I've been completely amazed to find how much aerobic fitness I was able to gain by going on a lot of very long (2 - 4 hour) road rides that felt very easy (zone 1 / 2 HR) to me!

I still suck wind all the way up to the top of the mountain, and on most of the group rides I go on I'm still the slowest climber in the group. But I can look at my data from less than a year ago and see a significant improvement.

You'll get there too. It just takes time. I'd also recommend trying to find a riding partner who's maybe more your speed. I find it pretty defeating to always be going out with the really fast guys.

[lovelylibrarian]

Thanks to all for the encouragement. I go MTN biking with my husband and he is much more experienced. After 4 miles uphill with several breaks, I was just exhausted. I wasn't even enjoying the beautiful scenery on the way up.

Do you take many breaks when you are riding? My husband doesn't seem to need them but I sure do. I need some recovery time.

I am going to spinning classes about 5 days a week to improve my cardio and we MTN bike on the weekends. I commute to work by bike but it's such a short ride that I doubt I'm getting much cardio benefit from it.

I must say that one the way down from the 4 mile uphill I was really impressed that I was able to make it up that far. It was a long way down!