L'Alpe, Le Col—And A Secret

Today is Bastille Day.

So, why have I posted a photo of a tide rolling in?

No, I am not making a hackneyed metaphor for the mobs that stormed the prison that became a symbol of monarchial tyranny and class stratification.  Nor am I making an equally tired cliche about the cycles of history.

I took that photo on Bastille Day, almost.  Actually, it's from a couple of days after, just ahead of a Tour de France stage--in the French Alps.

That scene is of something to which I've alluded in other posts.  I took the photo as I pedaled above clouds. To this day, I can't say whether I felt more elation over rising above the clouds or reaching the top of the mountain, which I did a bit later.

Now I am going to reveal one of my dim, dark secrets:

Yes, that's what I looked like on 17 July 2001, a bit more than a year before I started my gender affirmation process. (I am squinting because, at high altitudes, the sun is more intense.) Not only was my world different; so was the world.  For one thing, I asked some random stranger to take that photo:  In the days before i-phones, it was more difficult to take "selfies" without special equipment.  Also, 2001 was the last year of the franc and lira:  On my next trip to France, three years later,  I'd be paying in euros.  And less than two months after I rode to the top of l'Alpe d'Huez, ahead of the Tour peloton, the terrible events of 11 September would change so much else.

A couple of days after that climb, I would ascend to another iconic Tour climb:  the col du Galibier.  I described that climb, and how it--or, more precisely, descending from it and crossing the valley--led me to, among other things, becoming the midlife cyclist who authors this blog. (See this and this.)

So, on this Bastille Day--as the Tour de France climbs and descends through its second day in the Alps--I am writing in part to celebrate the country which I feel almost as much kinship as my own and ascending some of its most difficult climbs.  But I now realize that I am paying homage to the person--known as Nicholas, Nick or Nicky-- who brought me to the part of the journey I've recounted in this blog.  I hope I am honoring him in the way he deserves.

Oh, and today is the anniversary of the day I gave up his name and assumed mine, two years after I ascended those mountains.  I remember feeling, on that day--Bastille Day--that I felt more free, that I had climbed another mountain.

Whether they finish first, last or somewhere in between, the riders in today's Tour stage will always have that.  Just ask Phillipa York, nee Robert Millar.

Note:  I apologize for the poor quality of the images.  I'm still learning how to use my iPhone to take pictures of old pictures!

  

Agonizingly Rewarding

I've cycled in the Green Mountains, Adirondacks, Catskills, Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Alpes Maritimes and the Alps of France, Italy and Switzerland.  I've also done some challenging climbs in places like the Greek island of Milos, where the road up the mountain, I think, was first built long, long before I was born and simply paved over.  

I don't know whether that climb was tough (but rewarding) because of the less-advanced state of engineering at the time it was first carved out, the hot weather or my age.  But it felt nearly as arduous, at times, as one stretch of the Col de Portillon, on the Spanish border.  I climbed it--and was both terrified and exhilarated by the views from the guardrail-less virages--on a bike loaded with full panniers.  I don't know whether that stretch--about a kilometer of a 10 kilometer climb --was steeper than the most vertical stretches of the Alpe d'Huez or Col d'Agnel (a.k.a. Colle d'Agnello: It's on the Italian-French border) but I remember a group of people applauding me when I made it to the top. 

Well, there is one climb that claims to put those, and all others, to shame.  Every year, the Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb takes cyclists to the top of the highest peak in the Northeastern United States. The route can lay claim to one of the world's steepest climbs:  The average grade is 12 percent; extended sections rise at 18 percent and for one part near the end, cyclists have to pump their way up a 22 percent climb.  

When bumper stickers proclaim, "This car climbed Mount Washington," you know it has to be quite ride for cyclists. (The road is closed to auto traffic on the day of the ride.)  What makes the ascent all the more laborious is the weather, some of the most severe and changeable in the world. For years, the race was held in September, but cold, wind, rain and snow caused organizers to move it to August--where there is still a chance of starting off in typically summer-like conditions but pedaling through cold, wind and freezing rain before reaching the top.

At the start of the 2017 ride. Photo by Joe Viger

Mark Greenleaf would know.  He plans to participate for the 35th time when this year's edition is held on 20 August.  

In 1983, he was living in Providence, Rhode Island when, one day, he grabbed the mail before going out to dinner with friends.  Among that day's delivery was a copy of Bicycling! magazine, in which he noticed an article about the ride.  "After a couple of beers, we dared each other to do it," he said of his friends at that fateful dinner.  The following year, he did it for the first time.

After each climb--which he completed--he always felt it was "agonizingly rewarding."  I could say the same for the climbs I've made.