Day 8 – I hope you had the climb of your life…

Jack Daniels Remaining: 270mls
Kilometers Ridden Today: 34kms

For some unknown reason, I had set in my mind the idea of doing a hill climb to one of the ski resorts that endower the surrounding peaks of Queenstown. This is despite a week or so of riding, and with a day of down-hilling ahead of me. Initially I was considering the Remarkables, until I remembered it is a gravel and very treacherous road to the summit. So it was Coronet Peak. Richard and Shawn chose to take on the challenge with me. As usual, of course, they pumped out an hour of riding before breakfast and set off for the climb 20 minutes after me, eventually catching me towards the summit. Here I am being quickly hunted down by Shawn....

Now I have never been up Coronet Peak, but a quick Google search lead me to believe it should be a fairly doable climb – and would  be categorised as a category 1 climb if a race. The ride out from Queenstown was along the undulating road that takes you to the Shotover river/canyon, then onto the scenic arrow town. 7Km’s or so out is the turn off to Coronet peak. Immediately you start climbing. And you continue to climb for a gruelling 8Km’s to the resort. According to Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, gravity is actually a rather weak force. But I can tell you that when on a bike climbing from 300 meters to around 1100 meters above sea level, it is an absolute bitch.

Optimism, on this climb was defined on this ride as knowing you were already in the easiest gear, but still giving that gear lever a push in the vain hope that another gear had magically appeared in the 23 seconds since you last tried reaching for another gear.

The ride was 8km’s of ascent, with little respite, with gradients of between 5 and 15%. Almost the entire way the destination was visible, way off in the distance. Shawn passed me at about 75% of the way up remarking “who’s idea was this” as he passed… Richard passed me a little further up the road – sticking with me for a few hundred metres before kicking again for the summit (I think holding with me was more in sympathy or support…).

With the destination clearly visible way up on yonder – way number one to demoralise a rider, the climb also had an uncanny knack of hiding its next painful stretch  just beyond the next corner – way number two to demoralise a rider. As I turned each bend, hoping that the road would flatten out, the snake of road would just re-present itself again, in all it’s 7+% grade glory.

Eventually I reached the top – Richard and Shawn there waiting for me of course...

Obligatory photo of man and bike in the snow… I’m going to send this one into modern man magazine.

Some other randoms....

I think the profile of the ride also paints a pretty good picture of what we did....

We didn’t stay at the summit long, sweaty bodies and chilling mountain air doesn’t mix well, so off for the bottom we set. What took me an hour to climb, was done in about 7 minutes on the way done. What a fast <and cold> decent!

Tiredness encroached on me pretty heavily that afternoon and I admit to a small nana nap.

Richard and Paul had gone out to get Muscles for seafood feast that evening. Shawn and I looked at them like they were idiots when they said they got a lift back with Sam and Alex. A minute later, Samwise and Alex entered. They had returned early from their adventure. The fellowship was back to full strength!