First Col of 2018

Yesterday I tackled my first col of the season (mountain). Last year my favourite 'go to' route was Cypress Mountain - so I decided to give that a shot again. Although I had been cranking out the miles on the indoor trainer, I was worried that my legs and weight wouldn't fair so well on the climb. Surprisingly that wasn't the case...

Here is a shot of the top of the climb - was a little chilly on top with the snow banks piled up on either side of the road.

My overall route and times are recorded. Apparently this was my third fastest ascent from the power lines to the shed - this was quite surprising for a couple of reasons:

A.) I wasn't trying for a personal best, just trying to get a good burn going through the legs and maintain a decent pace.
B.) I spent a good 30 seconds to a minute messing around with my front derailleur as it wouldn't shift from the big ring to the lower for the climb.

I'm not sure if this is the result of winter training or not but my best recorded time up this mountain was back in summer and I was easily 4-5KG's lighter.

Snowbanks up the climb...

This is just past the final climb, its a fairly level coast over to the Ski Lift parking area which is where I do a quick U turn and head back for the decent.

The classic selfie while suffering..

With decent speeds surpassing 70 KPH, it was a fun ride down, although once you hit the shade it gets dang cold. Pretty excited that I could get up this climb so quickly - hopefully this will result in some great PB's (personal best) this year!

Thanks for reading, Ride safe everyone!

B