Tales from the early days

Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.

10.

Every day I climbed 1 crazy steep hill to go to work and 3 slightly less insane hills to come home. They never got easy, but I got used to them. They occupied a good deal of my attention. I became deeply interested if not obsessed with hills. I learned their percent grade and the percent grade of other hills in the area. The longer, but not steepest, hill on my route to work was 11%. I discovered Sapp Hill which I could barely climb. I discovered that if you stop on a hill, you might not be able to get started again.

By “hill”, of course, I mean up hill. Going down a hill is easy. I maxed out at 47 mph going down Easley Hill. I always wondered how fast I would go down Sapp Hill, but I never got around to trying. I don’t think I could get to 47 mph because I would have to brake for the sharp bend in the middle of the hill.

The turning point for me and hills came when I got an extra small granny gear installed on my bike. It was a few months before I made it out to Sapp Hill and I forgot I had changed the granny gear. “I can’t believe how easy this is,” I thought. “I have gotten so strong since the last time I was out here!” I felt proud for a moment until I remembered I had an extra small granny gear.

With that very small granny gear, I can climb a hill slower than you can walk it. My odometer stops reading below 2.2 mph. That extra small granny gear also comes in handy when I’m hauling a heavy load, such as when I’m bicycling touring fully loaded over hills and mountains in all parts of Missouri.

Gears are essentially levers. The moral of this story is if you give me a place to stand and a long enough lever, I can move the Earth. Or I can climb Sapp Hill.

Tales from the early days

Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.

10.

Every day I climbed 1 crazy steep hill to go to work and 3 slightly less insane hills to come home. They never got easy, but I got used to them. They occupied a good deal of my attention. I became deeply interested if not obsessed with hills. I learned their percent grade and the percent grade of other hills in the area. The longer, but not steepest, hill on my route to work was 11%. I discovered Sapp Hill which I could barely climb. I discovered that if you stop on a hill, you might not be able to get started again.

By “hill”, of course, I mean up hill. Going down a hill is easy. I maxed out at 47 mph going down Easley Hill. I always wondered how fast I would go down Sapp Hill, but I never got around to trying. I don’t think I could get to 47 mph because I would have to brake for the sharp bend in the middle of the hill.

The turning point for me and hills came when I got an extra small granny gear installed on my bike. It was a few months before I made it out to Sapp Hill and I forgot I had changed the granny gear. “I can’t believe how easy this is,” I thought. “I have gotten so strong since the last time I was out here!” I felt proud for a moment until I remembered I had an extra small granny gear.

With that very small granny gear, I can climb a hill slower than you can walk it. My odometer stops reading below 2.2 mph. That extra small granny gear also comes in handy when I’m hauling a heavy load, such as when I’m bicycling touring fully loaded over hills and mountains in all parts of Missouri.

Gears are essentially levers. The moral of this story is if you give me a place to stand and a long enough lever, I can move the Earth. Or I can climb Sapp Hill.