Everesting Monitor Pass (West)

Strava File: Everesting: Monitor Pass (West)

This is my 5th successful Everesting attempt. Here are links to the other 4: Geiger Grade, Monitor Pass, Nevada 844, and Under the Freeway Climb.

The Climb

Strava Segment

This side of Monitor Pass is 8.2 miles at 6%. It starts off easy, then there is a tough section that's 1.3 miles at 10%. This part is long and straight, so it doesn't look as steep as it is, which can be very demoralizing. It's also exposed to the elements and heat can be an issue. Luckily, if it's windy it's most likely a tailwind. (Don't worry, I had plenty of headwinds when I did the other side.) After the steep part the road levels off for a bit, followed by a short downhill. Then the road kicks up again. There are more curves and some trees, so this section doesn't seem as bad as the first steep part. Around mile 7.5 you'll reach what looks like the summit, but you have to go down a short hill and back up again to reach to true summit at mile 8.2.

Factoring in the downhills, it takes 11 repeats to cross over the 29,029 mark.

The Ride

Total time was 17:01:58. Ride time was 14:57:43. I was really hoping to cut down my off-bike time, but as you can see I failed at that goal. I did stop for 11 minutes to help a guy fix a flat tire, so let's just round off-bike time to 2 hours. I don't know what it is with the off-bike time. I always hit a bad patch (this time after climb #6) and take a long break to recover. Then on the later climbs I feel like I can't get enough food in me unless I stop to eat. I'm always battling not being able to eat enough. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now. Every since my first Everest I've wanted to cut down my off-bike time. I've failed every time.

My other goal for today was to try to keep my climb times more consistent. In the past (and also on some failed attempts) I have tended to ride a little too hard early, which I pay for later. I made an effort to take it easier early on.

Did it work? I'm not so sure. Someone way smarter than me would have to go over all my old charts and compare them to this one. Here are the other ones I have.

NV 844

Under the Freeway

Geiger

Subjectively, I didn't feel like it really made a difference. It's not like I was feeling fresher than expected towards the end of the ride. It felt like a similar pattern. I started off well, then gradually got slower. Then I hit a bad stretch that made me want to quit, which was climb 6 this time. (Strangely enough, it doesn't really stand out so much on the chart like climb 6 from Geiger or climb 16 from NV 844.) I recovered and rode better for a while, then eventually fatigue set in towards the end.

I always have a bad climb somewhere in the middle. I'm convinced that this is mostly (perhaps completely) mental. I think my mind is trying to give me an excuse to quit. "Look, you're going slow. It can only get slower from here. How can you possibly continue for X more hours of this? You're already in your easiest gear."

I've quit at that point a few times before. If today was my first Everesting attempt, I wonder if I would have quit. I was fortunate that I had the experience to know that I would hit a rough patch, but if you just try one more climb you might be surprised at how quickly things can change for the better. That's Everesting's greatest lesson.

I like to think that cycling can teach life lessons, even though I'm not always the best at putting those lessons into practice. There are so many more lessons to learn. I'm eager to set new cycling goals and to learn from new challenges. I've had this feeling for the last few months that I need something new to focus on. I'm not sure yet what that something is.