When 9% Grades Are For Recovery

The warnings were made at the daily meeting before dinner last night. It was a really hard climb with some grades that riders don’t typically see. Talk of 20% grades in sections on the “dashed route” towards Althofen. Our plan was to ride to the junction where the two routes diverge and see how the legs were doing before making a call.

The initial climb of the day wasn’t too hard, just a gentle climb up to Packsattel with grades between six and eight percent. Then we had an easy descent along a ridgeline overlooking the autobahn from afar. It looked pretty sizable from the distance, but once we rode underneath the behemoth, it was completely different. It was mesmerizing in its shear scale and engineering marvel. Sure, you can go as fast as you want on that thing, but you lose sight of what you are actually driving on.

Then just as we had crossed under the bridge we were at the junction and had to make a choice. Go a bit longer at a difficult grade, or go a bit shorter at an even steeper grade. The initial thought was, “Why do we do these trips?” Do we come over here to be on vacation or is the whole idea to come over and attempt to ride things that don’t exist where we live? The temperature wasn’t too high yet, and the legs were feeling okay. We went left, and began our efforts to climb into the sky.

There is a pretty stiff climb for the first half of “the climb” that was a consistent grade for three miles as it wound through the trees before popping out on a bit of a farmland plateau just before the village of Prebl. Then you turn right at the church and the road pitches up something fierce. It begins very steep and it is easy to get going too hard before you realize that you still have another two and one half miles to the top. The average grade is 11% for that distance, with some little portions that crept into the high teens and early twenties. Flat out, it’s a helluva climb. The steepest road I’ve ever ridden on skinny tires and might even rival some MTB trails I’ve ridden. Though today I didn’t have easy fat tire gearing to crawl up.

Kristin mashed her way up the slopes as well and looked super strong doing it. Her only issue was the rising temperatures as the sun began to beat down. The humidity has been really high and the temps are consistently getting into the high 80s in the afternoon. Riding in the trees and shadows is a glorious thing as it feels about 15 degrees cooler than in the sun.

After some regrouping and hydrating at the van at the top of the climb, we began the ride down to the main highway on a stretch of dirt road that made for an interesting exercise in bike handling. Once we hopped on the main drag it was back on the pedals to climb up to the top of Klippitztorl pass. On the road up, we were passed by about a dozen motorcycles doing what had to have been 100 mph, no lie, on a skinny two lane road with us all pedaling away. It was a bit of a scare there for the first group of them. The second wave wasn’t as terrible but still unnerving. We crested the top and grabbed some water from the fountain at the top of the pass and headed down. Only to find many of those motorcycles coming back up the pass from the other direction in our lane. There were a couple of instances of trying to apex a corner in the downhill lane as any car would and staring at the helmet and windshield of a moto swerving to avoid me in my lane. Some serious adrenaline junkies out there on two wheels. Well, you know what I mean.

After all the serious fun of the climb and near death experiences with the motos we worked our way over a couple more ridges to the town of Althofen. It’s an ancient village on the top of a overlook with what has to be the perfect spot for a defensible village in early waring times. The road to the hotel was like a punch in the throat after all the gain already in our legs from the day and the heat was turning up the screws on us as well. We managed to roll in and grab a snack at the hotel before heading off to take cold showers to cool down.

After finding ourselves again, we went for a walk up to the top of the village and went inside the ancient church to take a peek. And maybe cool off a bit. Then we strolled around a bit more before heading to the nightly meeting and dinner.

Looking back at our trip to the Pyrenees three years ago, we both agreed that if there had been a climb like today in southern France we wouldn’t have been able to make it to the top without a bit of help from a combustion engine. We are much stronger and fitter than that trip and it was super fun to realize that we can hammer away for five miles of 2,400 feet of gain and somewhat enjoy it. I managed to take a KOM on Strava today and didn’t even think that there would be a segment for the road based on the number of mountain bikes around and it being an American app. Though, I’m certain that Andrew, another rider that is on the trip, bested me by a couple minutes. If I had only really tried to go fast up that thing…

Tomorrow calls for the “fun” ride of the trip. We still have a truckload of climbing to do, but apparently there is a long stretch of swoop flowy fun to be had on a descent into one of the valleys we will be using to get to our next stop. We’ll see how the legs respond, but we are pretty sure we’ll be good. We’re looking forward to soaking in the giant lake the hotel sits on.