Felt like a Panzerkampfwagen IV driving into France

At 4pm, I told my teammates I would be disappearing until sunset. One of my coworkers goes, “If you go fast enough, you never have to stop.” My manager goes, “TIL Jiawei is a supersonic jet.” It turns out, I’d only have to be barely supersonic to never have to stop. The circumference of earth at 40 degree latitude (Denver) is 30,600 km, so to never have to stop while traversing the earth at this latitude, one would have to move at 1275km/h. This is only slightly faster than sea-level speed of sound (1235km/h). I just have to move a few degrees North while traversing the same latitude for my circumnavigation to never have to stop. Next step perhaps Estonia?

A few days ago, I set a goal of climbing 8848 meters in the month of June, and I was way behind schedule, partially due to busyness, partially due to business, and partially due to laziness. So, in order to maximize my number of feet climbed before sunset in the mountains (~8pm), I was going to drive to my destination, something I don’t do often and something I rather dislike.

Bibs, with shoulder straps left off for now, jersey (skin tight so aero one cannot breathe), toolpack, spare tire, water bottles, helmet, gloves, sunscreen, heart rate monitor. And I was ready to go. A 12 minute drive later, at 4:30pm, I was at my destination - the parking lot at the bottom of Lookout Mountain.

Weather was 90 degrees, cloudless, and somewhat windy (~8mph winds by my estimate). So, tons of spray-on and slather-on sunscreen later, I was ready to head out. Since my vehicle was at the bottom of the climb, I elected to now bring any food and only one aqua bottle.

Getting straight into the climb was kinda rough. I’d only done one other ride in the last 2.5 weeks so my cardio was killing me two minutes in. Barely ~180 Watts and I was already breaching 175 heart rate. When I started the ride at 4:40pm, there were barely any folks climbing with me. Perhaps others all had more fixed work hours.

For my first climb of the ~1300 ft mountain, I elected to push somewhat hard, maybe 85% effort the whole way. By the time I crested the final steepish part and sprinted the final flattish section, I was pooped. Quick loop around the parking lot at the top and I made my way down without stopping. The climb up took about 31:30 and the small loop and descent took me until 5:25pm.

At my car, I switched to my other bottle and inhaled a dried fruit bar. And I was off again. The second climb was a medium (~70%) effort. By now, there were a lot more folks around. I imagine many dentists’ hygienists had gotten out of work and were doing domestique training on their Trek and Cannonfail bikes. The female to male ratio today seemed extraordinarily high - probably over 1:2, which I certainly have never observed before on a climb. On this second climb, I also experienced the mother of all headaches, until I loosened my helmet. Maybe it was too tight?

34:20 later, I was at the top again. Another quick loop in the parking lot and I made my way down. This time, I combined the remaining water from my two water bottles into a single water bottle filled about 2/3, so about 16 ounces total. Ate one of those lovely Kirkland granola bars, and I was on my way for another climb. This would be the last one as there wasn’t enough sun to do a fourth climb, since I didn’t bring my tail light and multiple sections of the climb were well shaded. It was 6:28pm.

For the third climb, I elected to push at about 80%. This time, the mountain was crawling with superdomestiques. Passed (and got passed) by 7 people on the way up and saw countless people when descending. One poor superdomestique tried to stay ahead of me by sprinting for a few hundred feet and then soft-pedal until I caught back up, but that ended 0.8 miles from the top when the poor man’s breathing started sounding like a GE90 turbofan jet engine. A short stop at the top where I snapped a few pictures and I was again zooming down.

Throughout the whole ride, I had Parc fermé by Benjamin Biolay & Adé and Fleur de Lune by Françoise Hardy stuck in my head playing on repeat. I think there’s something wrong with my head. Literally felt like I was driving a Panzerkampfwagen IV through the Ardennes Forest on the way into France. That’s how good this ride felt.

But this was only warm-up for the weekend. I’m still way behind schedule so I have big ambitions for the weekend. Hoping to do upwards of 10,000 ft this weekend, but we’ll see how these legs are.