Buffalo
For reasons I am unable to explain and don’t fully understand myself, I am riding up another mountain.
Why are you reading another story about riding up a mountain? Why did I ride up another mountain? Because mountains are the place stories are written.
The flat lands are where time passes by, seasons come and go, and wheels roll with little effort. The mountains, merely by existing, create a challenge, create uncertainty – provide a blank page. Any attempt to reach the top, regardless of the manner or the degree of success, creates a story. The mountains, catching the eye and with it the imagination, draw you towards them.
In the last two days I have ridden up Tawonga Gap, Falls Creek and Hotham: today it is Buffalo. Falls Creek you ride for the incredible scenery, Hotham for the badge of honour, and Buffalo, why do you ride Buffalo – for the magic of a mountain.
I did not arrive fresh at the base of Falls Creek, having already ridden Tawonga earlier that day, and suffered to the top in a way I have not before. The big existential questions of ‘who am I’, and ‘what am I doing here’, pondered with each pedal stroke, before adding the more haunting question, ‘if I turn back now, who will I be’.
Two years ago I started up Hotham in a storm that worsened the higher up the mountain I pushed: eventually the conditions became atrocious and I accepted the inevitably of the situation and turned around before the top. Yesterday, fatigued from the double of Tawonga & Falls the day before, and the weather worsening the higher I climbed, I again turned back before the top. Despondent by the time I reached the bottom, more at my lack of will than the missed badge of honour, my thoughts turned to Buffalo, the previously felt anticipation now replaced by uncertainty.
I have been here before. Last time, I did a job on myself. I had compared the average gradient (4.8%), and distance (21km) of Buffalo to Lappo (5%, 3km), looked at my better times up Lappo, and set a target for Buffalo. But what I didn’t know, is that while the climb is claimed to be 21km, it is only continuously upwards for 18km, then it drops for a bit, runs flat for a bit and then rises some more, so the average gradient for the 18klm that I had used for my calculations is higher than it is for the 21km climb.
Why does this matter? From the start, the gradient I was riding was higher than my estimate, which meant the climb would flatten and get easier towards the top, right ….., so you go hard from the bottom, and it starts to hurt, but that’s OK, because it will get easier, right …
My legs screaming, my chest heaving, I literally flew past other riders: they actually cheered me on as I swept past them, and I could hear them comment – ‘he’s on a flyer’. Little did they know, that not far beyond them, I blew up so bad I could barely keep the bike upright, and then I suffered all the way to the top.
The embarrassment felt at the time eventually gave way to humour, and it became just another example of foolishness through miscalculation I had brought on myself.
An amateur, I hear you cry. Well, yes and no. I am in good company. Rohan Dennis, who you will hear more of over the coming years as his status in the pro peloton rises, admitted recently to similar confusion during one of the biggest races, when he was leading the race and hitting the final slopes of a major climb. He left it in the big ring, thinking the gradient flattened ahead, only to have Richie Porte, Froome and the other big names ride past him, all of them spinning madly in the small ring and each of them heckling him for his poor choice of gears as they passed.
Sometimes you can observe the mistakes of others and learn from them, at other times, the observations provide comfort at the commonality of our own mistakes.
So, I start up another mountain, as much from habit as from desire, another long climb providing the opportunity for rumination on these thoughts and others, the legs telling me I should have no hunger for another test, another story, but the ego, deflated by yesterday, is hungry for another.
Riding a mountain is enjoyable when you feel powerful, when you are fresh and full of energy: there is no steepness you cannot overcome: the story written one of exhilaration. When you are deeply fatigued, there is little joy, every steepening a potential ending: the story one of struggle and perseverance.
Paul Sherwin, in-spite of being a British national champion, was known for his struggles in the mountains, especially during the Tour de France. Sad news in the morning of the passing of Paul Sherwin, who along with Phil Liggett, were known as the voices of cycling.
Why struggle? There is nothing you can see from the bike that you cannot see from the car. But you cannot feel the crisp air from inside the car, you cannot hear the call of the birds, the thump thump of a wallaby darting away unseen. And there is something else you miss. Buffalo is granite country. And when the sun hits the wet granite it gives off a beautiful distinctive refreshing aroma. Your oil burners, incense, diffuser reeds, they are merely an echo, a dull echo of what I experience now. Yes, you can smell it when you get out of your car, at a lookout, for example. In those situations, the smell will merely hit your nostrils, but riding up through it, my lungs are full with the scent, and it is so good I want even more.
The struggle continues, above the scented forest to the views of the distant ranges, the laboured breathing and pained expression symptoms of dead legs.
The struggle over, I now face the descent, rated as the best in Australia, it brings not just relief but pleasure through curves, dips and sweeping corners that flow from one to another: truly one to saviour.
When you go to the mountains looking for a story, remember this, the struggles of the climb bring benefits unexpected, but only to those that endure the struggle.
