Epic climb

Last week we decided that we needed to seek out some seriously big steep hills to ride this weekend and around Brisbane the climbs don't come much bigger or harder than the ride from Samford to Mt Glorious.

All week the banter over coffee seemed to revolve around just how hard this climb would be. It seemed the more we talked about it the longer and steeper it became.

Well today finally arrived and it was with some mild trepidation that the Cyc'd boys plus their super domestique and renowned climber Jase headed off to Samford. Jase had promised to find a flat way from Wilston to Samford. There may in fact be one but via Bunya definitely isn't it...thanks Jase. At least the legs had warmed up by the time we got to Samford with the route Jase had us follow.

As we cruised through Samford spirits were high although there was an uneasy feeling that our peaceful Sunday ride was about to become a whole lot harder.

With a final quick stop before the climbing started the lads were ready to go. Perhaps it was the nervousness of the group but we found lots to laugh about particularly when Dammo told the story of a guy who recently walked across the Simpson desert for charity and underwent a full body waxing as part of his preparation. As you could imagine this had the lads almost in tears.Things could have got a bit nasty as Jase refused point blank to carry all of our water bottles to the top but nonetheless we headed off five riders on and UP into the unknown. Dammo again pulled out one of those classic motivational lines when he said "remember guys when you get that first senstation of pain the body has only reached 30% of its thresehold so harden the f*#k up and keep riding!!". Thanks Dammo for those truly inspirational words.

The initial climb was almost a pleasure as we rode up a reasonable gradient which saw the light hearted banter continue until we were suddenly confronted by the 15 per cent gradient which seemed to go on and on and on.

Jase paved the way and Dammo showed good form to follow. Gav punched out a steady tempo while seated. Kent remained focussed on the job at hand and went to school on Gav's use of the entire road to make good progress.

Brad likewise was working hard and slowly but surely the kms passed and finally we emerged at the top of the road only to find that we still had a about 2kms of climbing ahead of us. We regrouped and rode into the coffee shop at the top of Mt Glorious for a brief stop before heading back home via Mt Nebo which while progressively downhill still has some nasty little pinches which require the legs to work hard.

Coffee at Brot at Ashgrove was a real treat and the boys were pretty shagged but happy having done a very solid 80k ride and ticking off the Samford Mt Glorious ride in the process...great work guys a tough day in the saddle.