Ramping Up!

 

Well, this morning, I finally made it to the ramp!  I parked my car at the Sr. Center which is just a few miles from the ramp and plotted my way to the ramp, through the neighborhoods, from there. 

Down one road,  I encountered a group of men who saw me and fanned out in a line across the road.  I kept my eyes on them and when I got close shouted "Hey!" and blew right through them.  Whew!  Next time I will take a different road!

Once at the ramp I met a woman running up it and pushing a baby in a carriage.We greeted each other and I asked her how bad was the hill?  She told me, "You can make it!"  And so I did....I hate to say easily...but it was quite easy.  Then across I went and down the other side.  I quickly discovered that the back side of the ramp, coming back up, was the much harder side...but even that was quite manageable......on the first repeat! 

The bottom of the drawing is the front side of the hill

Here is my rough diagram.  The dotted lines are the turn arounds.    You are riding up and over a bridge that crosses the highway , then down the other side...repeat. On the back side...you have an up, then another up and around a tight corner then up and then up again until you cross back over the bridge.

I did 5.5 repeats in a row and of course each time it was  harder...but it was not that hard and I got bored.  I even hate to say that.  But I did.  I took a little ride to explore "the new land" and found that it dead ended along a highway with an on ramp!   Imagine that!  Not only that...but a bike path started at the very bottom on that ramp! Albuquerque is so very bike friendly!  I was in my glory!  Another ramp to practice on.  That too was a piece of cake...and I hate to say that.  But I got some good practice in and can now design a loop that will include two sets of ramps and will give me some miles at the same time.

I saw some beautiful things that I  had wished I could have taken pictures of...these metal coyote sculptures that were set in the middle of the desert with a rock wall in the background...the beautiful mosaic designs and colorful sands of the landscaping on the highway median as seen from above.....on my next round, I will photograph it before I start my speed rounds.

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I Finally Found My Ramp!

Well, since I qualified for the State Championships in Las Cruces, and discovered that the route was flat except for an on ramp onto the highway and then that ramp in reverse on the turn around, I have been scoping out ramps all around Albuquerque.  I like to practice.

However, I could not find a suitable ramp.  And when I did, I could not find a suitable time to ride the suitable ramp!  I wondered if Sunday or Saturday mornings, really early might suffice...but I never did quite figure out how I was going to ride on an 8 lane highway and turn around and get off it!  So, I did nothing.

Finally on this past Friday afternoon, I spotted my ramp!  It went across the freeway, but was a part of a pedestrain walkway...and it had a steep ramp up and over and then another ramp on the down side of the freeway that would enable me to do hill repeats.  Did I say hill repeats?  I had banned those little words from my vocabulary.  Here are a few pics of the ramp.

Here's another view.....

 The orange brown is the ramp...it is quite long...on a slowly increasing grade until it pitches sharply up as you can see in the first and second  pic.

And another view....

It was very interesting how I had to get to this ramp.  I had to wind  in and out of  neighborhoods and  apartment  complexes and ask people how to find the "pedestrian walkway."  It is along the South Valley side of 1_40.  Once I found it, I noticed that there was plenty of room to park and it seemed like a reasonable neighborhood.

So, wish me luck,  Early Monday morning, I  will do my first trial run over the ramp and back and see how many I can do.  Then I can work at  increasing my efforts week by week and incorporate this into the rest of my training!    I don't know whether to say "OH! JOY or not!"  Will  keep you posted!