![\"Scan](\"http:\/\/www.hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-content\/7Peaks.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For someone who proclaims loudly that they hate climbing, I sure do seem to do a lot of it.<\/p>\n
In the last six months, I have ridden up five mountains. I know, only four stamps above but I did Donna Buang as well (a week before tackling Mt Buller again – which went way better this year than last year<\/a>). That’s real progress considering that until the middle of 2010<\/a>, I had never ridden up anything steeper than Yarra Boulevard in Kew. Now I’ve conquered some of the bigger climbs in Victoria – some of of them, twice!<\/p>\n It’s taken me a long time to get in the right head space for climbing. I’ve accepted the fact that I will never be as quick as other, stronger riders but I can do it if I’m willing to plod along. Because of my prolapsed disc, I climb slowly – which can be incredibly frustrating when you’re always the last person to reach the summit. But I figure it’s better to reach the summit ages after everyone else has than be parked on the couch doing nothing at all. At least I’m trying.<\/p>\n I suppose I have been very slowly seduced by climbing. I get why we do it. It is<\/strong> really satisfying to reach the summit. The new bike helps too. I didn’t think I’d notice any difference but the stiffness of the carbon frame does make it easier to settle into a rhythm. I never really noticed any flex in my Cannondale but I have noticed that I seem to be more efficient with my BMC so the flex must be there somewhere. Both of them have Ultegra so it’s not a gearing issues (the only difference being that my BMC has electronic shifting). I dunno… it just seems a tiny bit easier. Maybe it’s a mental thing and I’m trying harder because I think the bike deserves a better rider. *lol*<\/p>\n There are thoughts brewing this year of tackling Mt Hotham. I have a real mental block when it comes to Hotham. It seem impossible to me. It’s such a long climb, sections of it are incredibly steep and everyone I know who’s climbed it all say how hard it is. Not exactly encouraging me to do it. But I’ve decided it must be done at some point. So maybe this is the year I’ll shove all my concerns to one side and just do it.<\/p>\n However! There is an upside of course. It’s a hell of lot more fun coming down the mountain than it is going up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For someone who proclaims loudly that they hate climbing, I sure do seem to do a lot of it. In the last six months, I have ridden up five mountains. I know, only four stamps above but I did Donna Buang as well (a week before tackling Mt Buller again – which went way better this year than last year). That’s real progress considering that …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[85],"tags":[425,422,338,103,141],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2262"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}