Susten Pass-Gross Scheidegg-Im Back!
Im back on the bike.
Yesterday I headed out with Laurie http://biken4fun.blogspot.com/and Cameron visiting the Hillseekers Becky and Jeff Grant http://www.hillseekers.com/ , Stu and Ian McCarthy, Magnus and Kat. So we had a healthy sized group.
We started from Zurich HB at 7.30 am (ouch on a Sunday morning) and towards Gröschennen, near Zermatt. My bike had some gearing trouble (the usual, I know need a new road bike now) so Stu triend to fix it alas without a pliars we couldnt tighten the gear cable so I had to manually shift between the two cogs in front but it wouldnt be such an inconvenience anyway as we would be either going uphill or downhill and not really undulating in between.
It was amazing.
The Big Scheidegg
Susten Pass was very comfortable for me, I maintained a really steady rhythm the whole way up despite my terribly big gearing and managaed to stay below 160bpm the whole time with only Cam and Stu ahead of me. We reached the top, had a coffee and waited for the others. When we got close to Meiningen Kat and Magnus dropped off, Kat preparing for the Inferno next weekend and Magnus shaking his head and warning me about Gross Scheidegg, now I know why.
It was serious.
The moment we started out I knew I was going to be in trouble, length and climb are two words that dont instill that much fear in me normall but when I hear incline, then I begin to get worried. I cranked and grinded as much as I can but by about halfway the bunch were ahead of me simply cause I couldnt keep turning the chain, standing wasnt an option so I actually had to walk a little section. YOu know what its like, try getting up a really steep hill in the wrong gear, imminent death. Ian was next to me for most of the rest of the way and I just tried with all the strength I had to keep going. Cursing myself for not having at least changed my cassette already.
But I did get to the top and the view was amazing. NExt weekend hopefully Ill have had my bike sorted out with a new cassette. I wish I had the money to jsut get a new one as my wheels are on their last spokes too.
Anyone need to get rid of some money and I sure know where to spend it!
We had a surprise on the train home, resigned to sitting on the floor of the bike carriage, stinky and noisy we found some free seats in the dining car and ended up substituting for the Sri Lankan barman when he disappeared to wheel his trolley, if we had been on commission we may have made some extra money from the business we attracted while he was gone!
Super day out…heres to being back on wheels!
