A Peak Ride to Baudichonne

This morning I woke naturally at 05:30 before getting up and ready. By 07:00 I was on the road cycling towards Geneva and I arrived 20 minutes early. By my standards that is quite close to the expected time.

Familiar Climb

I chose this ride for a simple reason. It was a climb to La Baudichonne. This is a hard, sustained bike ride. The course that we took involved 1300m of climbing. Due to my Nyon start it involved 1500m of climbing. This was a pinnacle ride, as well as a peak ride.

Speed and Distance

It’s not just that there was a big climb. It’s also that this group rides quite fast so you’re making an effort on the way towards the climb. By the time we got to the climb I already had 21km of riding to get to Geneva and 50 by the time we got to the start of the climb. That’s already a respectable distance.

Pacing Mistake

I question whether I started the climb too slowly. I didn’t want to accelerate too slowly and leave someone in the distance, but at the same time I didn’t want to push myself too hard either. I suspect that I didn’t push hard enough for the first few kilometres. I ran out of endurance and wanted to stop at the P’tit Bar but no one else did so I felt the pressure to keep going.

Moral Support

Aside from those pressures I also had the pressure of having someone riding alongside. It’s nice not to left in the dust but it also added pressure for me to keep going. Usually on this climb I stop two or three times. This time I did it, almost without stopping. I stopped for a few seconds because my legs were so tired.

Wrong Gears

The biggest challenge when I climb is that I don’t have the diversity that I would like to make climbing easier. I often find that I would like to shift down two more gears, to make it that much easier. If I could do that then I could spin my legs faster. That would make the climb easier.

Overloaded

I didn’t drink all the water I brought with me and I didn’t consume as much of the energy as I had with me. Given what I drank I would have been happy with one half litre bottle, especially since fountains are still running this summer. We also cycled at a cooler time of day.

And Finally

I know that the peak group is the strongest group. I know that La Baudichonne is a hard climb. I know that the peak group is fast. It’s for all of those reasons that I would usually ride with the easy or moderate group.

Today I tried to ride with the peak group and I could keep up on the flat. It’s on the climb that I was slower and I believe that this is due to having much more water than I needed. We’re in a heatwave so the water was reasonable.

If I had two more easier gears I would suffer less on these long climbs. If I had an easier gear I would get less fatigued part of the way up.

Finally, I was faster than myself on the same climb so I did achieve a good time. In another group it would have been more notable.