Quote Originally Posted by Sardine View Post
About mountains, how do you build up to climbing them? Do you just keep riding steeper and longer hills or is there some other training involved? How long did it take before you managed your first summit? Thanks.
You got it right. I just started riding steeper and longer climbs. I also dropped a bunch of weight. Now it's stalled out again with 20 more pounds to go.

The first mountain I climbed last year was after dropping from 214 to 185 pounds. I climbed the Tahoe side of Kingsbury Grade, which is only 3.5 miles long. No problem with that climb. The next day I climbed the Reno side of Mt. Rose, which is 13.7 miles long. That was the most miserable experience I've ever had on a bike, thanks to being 60 pounds over ideal weight, riding a 32 lb mtb because I didn't have a road bike, and not eating enough during the ride.