ABOUT the Great Balkini

I have finally come to terms with my nemesis. Last month I set out to prove that the physical work of riding uphill is indeed 90% mental. I chose the challenging terrain of Mount Desert Island (MDI) in Maine with which I’m somewhat familiar.

Even at the highest levels of the sport, hills quickly separate riders of otherwise equal skill. In this case, size matters, and it is the small of stature who possess the special gift for flying uphill.

My adult bike addiction began at 30, and for the first ten years I rode almost exclusively on the dead flat roads of Miami. There the legs spin all the time or the bike goes nowhere. That kind of hard riding is easier than climbing. It’s more about focus and technique than raw strength and hard work.

Moving to the New England seacoast, I adapted to more a little more variation in terrain. It took a few years before our seacoast hills morphed into mere bumps. Armed with this hard-earned confidence, I spent a month on Mount Desert Island a few years ago. At first every ride was a chore and I had to force myself to get on the bike. A month later the long climbs were almost enjoyable.

Descending is another story. In cycling, traveling over 30mph feels like flying, a feeling seldom experienced around here. MDI is riddled with 30 mph descents. Acadia National Park’s 20 mile loop road is one of the world’s best bicycle roads with breathtaking vistas and scary stretches of steep, twisty hills. There are rare moments approaching 40mph where white knuckle plunges feel like 100.

Any irregularity in road surface becomes an instant issue. With skinny tires pumped to 125psi there’s no reason for a super attentive rider to fall, but there is also no margin for error. The rider gains a new appreciation for even the minimal safety one’s helmet provides.

Other than the tilt of the terrain, MDI riding is similar to the Seacoast. There are miles of rural back roads used almost exclusively by Mainers who don’t drive fast and give riders a wide berth. Most roads also loop and interconnect making it hard to get seriously lost on this island.

Also like ours, the rural roads are unmarked at forks that often do not appear on commonly available maps. I was marginally familiar with these roads. It this had just been a day trip, I might have jumped right on my bike. But ten days of riding demanded specific knowledge, so I first drove the back roads by car to identify the right turns and check over the terrain. After driving 25 miles I designed a two-hour "signature ride" on quiet roads. This was my standard short tour on days not dominated by hardcore cycling.

The old Yankees in Maine didn’t build an inch more road than necessary and it didn’t take long to discover that any paved road is a loop that eventually comes back to the same place. So as Yogi Berra says, always take the side road. The only seriously wrong turns on Mount Desert Island led to Route 3; that’s the highway that leads into Bar Harbor.

Route 3 is one of the world’s worst bicycle roads. The four lanes carry a rushing stream of traffic that travels above the speed limit. Even worse, the last five miles into Bar Harbor feel as narrow as any country two-lane and with no shoulders. This super scary road is lousy with broken tarmac and incessant traffic. Never again.

In unknown territory ignorance easily passes for bliss, and it is hard to resist riding the most direct route when you are not exactly sure of another way. When planning, avoiding fast moving traffic takes precedence over everything.

Hills are the answer for those who seek maximum exercise. The guys I rode with at Mount Desert are better riders and much better climbers. Staying with them on level terrain was demanding for a senior citizen, but not killer hard. Once the road goes up, and then up some more, they were gone. It is all about setting a smooth tempo in a gear ratio that is low enough to be comfortable, but with a forward speed that is in rhythm with the speed your legs turn. Spinning wildly and going nowhere means the gear is too low and grinding out every pedal revolution means the opposite. The goal is to crest the climb looking like a bike rider ready for more.

Drafting is the magic. It was understood that my friends would wait for me at the top, and they politely insisted that each wait was short. Then I was off and in a downhill charge in their draft, flying over hill and dale until the next long climb where they pushed ahead. They waited at the top. I arrived, and we were off again. Call it the "no torture" way for anyone to get better. Find stronger friends and try it sometime.

Cadillac Mountain at 3.1 miles is by far MDI’s longest climb. It is the same 5-6% rise as most of the island climbs. That’s not gut busting as much as it is a constant challenge to turn the pedals smoothly. My effort was 26 minutes of hard, but not unpleasant, work. My friends did it in less than 20 minutes.

Nestled in the final 34-mile time trial In the recent Tour de France there was a 3-mile uphill climb with exactly the same profile as Cadillac. By comparison, Lance Armstrong did that section in under 9 minutes averaging something over 20 mph. Wow!

Without the bike I’d never have discovered Town Hill, a Bar Harbor village that was the gateway to my signature ride. It is home to a general store, a fancy restaurant, an antique shop, and Atlantic Micro Brewery that was hosting its 8^th annual garlic festival.

The barbecue was amazing, the beer ditto and the country/blues/swing band better than both of them put together. The only downside was the odor of garlic seeping through the pores of the many garlic addicts in attendance. Here I discovered that belt sander racing is alive and well. Men will race anything. The belt sanders, some off the shelf, some souped up, tore town a raceway made from two 100 foot wooden chutes. Those that made it down the entire track, extension cords flailing, crashed into a wooden barrier.

There must be a final metaphor here about racing belt sanders downhill, but I can’t think of one. For me, it was just one more thrill I owe to recreational cycling among the hills of Maine.

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Copyright © 2005 by David Balkin. All rights reserved.