Summon your inner bulldog

Last week, ride buddies Pat, Marc and I rode up Ebbetts Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains south of Markleeville, down the back, then turned around. It was election day, the last warm weather, fall mountain ride of the year for us. Two days later a storm came in bringing snow and sub-zero temps to the area.

But on this day, the aspen groves shimmered bright golds and yellows, the air was cool and crisp, and the views from the mountain’s cliffside road offered spectacular vistas of big pine and cedar forests, late season streams with receded runoffs, and huge outcroppings of gray and black granite.

Ebbetts Pass is a beautiful, tough climb of about 3,000 feet of altitude from our start just up the road from Markleeville. It tops out at close to 9,000 feet above sea level. Ebbetts, front and back, is one of the five climbs of the famous Death Ride, which also includes nearby Monitor and Carson Passes.

My first climb up it a couple years ago was in the early summer heat. Like all first times on a big climb there’s the added challenge of not really having a sense of when the sucker's going to end, and how much energy it’s going to take. Of course, when it’s sunny and warm, it’s tougher since you sweat a lot and get tired faster than in cooler conditions.

Last week the Ebbetts climb was tough, but not a struggle, since I’d done it enough to know a good pace. Besides, this time the air was refreshingly cooler.

The descent down Ebbetts's backside was nice and fast, with no cars to slow us down. We stopped at the bottom at a sunny spot near a small lake. After eating snacks and trading our usual barbs, we got back on the bikes and headed back to the top.

Wow, what a difference

As I started, I noticed right away how much better I felt and how much easier it was to pedal with some pace than the last time. That time I was dog tired, hot, and seemed to be moving forward a few inches at a time, like someone crawling in the desert in search of water.

Then, it was the last leg of a hellishly long ride. It turned out to be around five hours in the saddle, after we initially figured it would be a nice tidy three hours or so. 

It was in late May, just before Memorial Day weekend.

That day, ride buddy Marc and I rode up and down Ebbetts, and then Marc had an idea: Let’s keep on riding through the flat valley and then up Pacific Grade! I didn’t think much of it, felt fine, and we kept pedaling.

Now, if I had known how tough getting up Pacific Grade was going to be, I probably would have opted out. We ran into another rider and Marc and he chatted as I rode ahead, noticing that the rollers on this nicely paved two-laner were quickly getting steeper and steeper.

It wasn’t long before pedaling up them started requiring annoyingly large amounts of energy and focus!

And soon it turned into a series of nasty steep 26 percent grade switchbacks! This was soon killing me. It was taking everything in my power to keep the bike moving up this thing. I seemed to recall Marc saying this cliff-side stretch had 1,000 feet of climbing. That’s ordinarily no big deal if it’s spread out over a reasonable distance. But when it seems like it’s all in less than a quarter mile or so, different story! You’re gonna get hammered!

I checked the ascent calculation on my Garmin. That was my only estimate of how long this merciless beating of the legs and lungs would last.

Looking up to the next switchback you got punched with the prospect of pedaling up another steep pitch to a ledge on a nearly vertical forested mountainside. You’d make it to the turn. Then there was another wicked pitch. Then another. And on. And on.When would this sucker end? There were small spots at the switchbacks to pull over and stop, but I knew that was a bad idea, so I kept at it.

Stopping would have been good for catching the breath, but holy moly, it was so steep, I had doubts whether I could get enough speed to ride the bike from a stop. Too steep!

I kept slogging up this bear, continually looking at the Garmin to see when the 1,000 feet would be up, and this torture session would end. With little or no energy left, I finally got to the top, and Marc and the other cyclist dragged themselves to the top a few minutes later.

As usual, after we caught out breath, Marc lobbied to keep on going, talking of lakes ahead we could ride to that he hadn’t seen yet. I agreed, but soon realized we were immediately descending fairly fast for quite a few miles. Too many miles, I was sure of it.

And that meant only one thing: We would have to climb back out to the top of Pacific Grade, ride down its cliff of switchbacks, and THEN, climb up the backside of Ebbetts to get to the final descent and the promised end: the truck.

So, yes, because we had to get home, we did that! All of it. And we paid the price, oh yes! The backside climb of Ebbetts Pass isn’t as long as the front side, and doesn’t have nearly the steep pitches of Pacific Grade.

Still, it’s no day at the beach, it’s a drawn out slog, a challenging climb. And when you’re beat, low on water and the afternoon sun is on your back, oh yeah, it’s a much more raggedy ride than with fresher legs and cooler air.

So as I struggled to keep going, I thought of ways to take my mind off this cruel rough patch. I had pieces of jerky caught between my teeth from earlier snacking, so I reached in my back jersey pocket and found the baggie holding the green little plastic toothpick with a little dental floss strung tight across it, pedaling all the while.

I managed to work open the sealed top of the baggie and grab the little tooth prober with one hand. I worked the meat pieces out of the crannies between my teeth until they were all clear, and yes, that felt like something of a victory, small as it was! I’d climbed a little way at least, without my mind ringing out how bad I felt.

I put the toothpick in the baggie and stuffed it back in my pocket. It was then that I noticed that the ongoing pitches in this climb were really starting to rough me up! My breathing was thick and heavy. I put all my attention on taking deep in-breaths, as deep as I could, pushing my stomach outward with the intakes, working on a rhythm.

I forgot about my legs, which felt like they actually were made of lead, and just kept inching up the mountain with my breathing keeping my legs and the bike rolling slowly along.

I saw shadows across the sun-splashed road ahead, and made them goals to reach, then found more shadows farther up the road to focus on. Thoroughly whipped, I finally made it to the top, where Marc was chilling out.

Not interested in prolonging the ride any longer in the least, I rode past him to the front side descent, mumbling something about not wanting to stop then. To the descent I went.

I couldn’t help thinking of that last suffer-fest on that same backside climb last week. Wow, what a difference it makes being more rested and having cooler air!

I pedaled hard all the way up, and never had to resort to mind games to keep it together. Probably got to the top about 15 minutes faster than before. Comparatively speaking, easy peasy. Those same-climb comparisons are always interesting to note. Well, most of the time.

I've found that when a climb is taking me to the cleaners, beating me up, and trying to grind my will to a halt, it helps to think like a dog. More specifically, a bulldog. Taking on a bulldog mentality means you simply have no intention of being denied your goal. It’s a matter of thinking like Gus, the bulldog you’ll see in the following video. He’s decided he’s on a mission to get the plastic pool through the doorway, water or not, no matter how impossible that may seem. Check it out:

Now that’s literally bulldog mentality! If Gus were a cyclist, he’d have the determination to climb with the best of them!

So until next time, remember to always put on a helmet before every ride. And then, do your best to keep the rubber side down!

-- Mark Eric Larson

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf