Biking Mt. Washington

Today my friend and I biked Mount Washington bottom to top and it was a TOUGH ride. I grew up skiing Mt. Washington almost every day in the winter with my Dad but never stopped to think what it would be like to do that hill in anything other than a car. Over the last two weekends we’ve biked local mountains in Vancouver – first Seymour and then Cypress so since I’m on the island this weekend it seemed fitting to do Washington. It was WAY higher. First of all the distance – 17kms instead of 12-13 that we had done previously with an elevation gain of 1175m. The hills were long and steep. The one good thing was that there was more recovery time between the steeps than there are on the Vancouver Mountains – at one point there was a bit of a downhill followed by a flat which was great. But that was followed immediately by a steep uphill that seemed to go on forever.

I did the 17k in an hour and 29 minutes averaging 11.4kms/hour on the ascent. Not bad for me – I’m getting better at climbing. The great thing is as soon as we got to the top I felt great – the pain (and there WAS pain) of the uphill was forgotten and it just felt great to be there. There was a group of mountain bikers at the top who told us we were crazy for biking up, we agreed that good possibly be true. But it felt great.

The descent was cold. There are still patches of snow at the top of the mountain and flying down got a bit chilly. But other than that it was a great ride with some beautiful views along the way. Well worth doing. Can’t wait to do it again next time I’m home and see if I can beat that time.

Now I’m off to make a big salad for dinner – greens, red pepper, tomato, avocado, strawberries, mango, lentils. Yum!

Tomorrow is a run day.