Etape du Tour Training starts with a kicker - Climbing Tucson's Mount Lemmon

Breaking some ribs in early January meant a lot of time training indoors (falling was a no-no and apparently the basement is the safest place not to fall). That meant my ski racing season was bye-bye, but I finally got cleared to skate ski the first week of February.

Skate skiing last Saturday gave way to a flight to Tucson on Sunday to host our annual client conference. One of our guests, Tom McAleer was up for some riding, so I brought the trusty Ritchey Breakaway (can't say enough about travelling with this bike).

Now there are golfers who carry a top 100 courses list and look to play them all before they kick the bucket. Crazy enough, cyclists also have lists like that. There's a top 50 climbs list that I carry in my briefcase. Only a handful are in the US. One of the top climbs in the world is in Tucson - Mount Lemmon -- and rises from the desert floor to 9100' over 25 miles. There's ski resort at the top (how many places can you golf, ride and ski in the same day?) that's boasting a 60" base right now.

Tom and I met before dawn to make our way to the base. The hotel bell captain was a former mountain bike pro and all smiles as we headed towards the car with road bikes and hopes of getting to the top. "Ice may be the only thing that stops you guys, but you'll have a blast."

Hmmm.

We made it to the base and started climbing -- 6-7% right from the start. Now I haven't ridden outside for almost two months and this was quite a wake up call. Not to mention, I'd forgotten to throw climbing gears on the bike -- this ride was going to go the hard way right from the start.

It was about 40 degrees in the valley when the sun started to rise and we climbed steadily to about 4000' of elevation at milepost 10 (just like Europe, you get the reverse torture of knowing just how far it is to the top). That's when we hit the snow-line.

As the sun had melted the snow a bit the day before, it had drained across the road and frozen into 3 foot wide sheets of black ice. After spinning out once, we learned not to pedal, just build some momentum and let the bike roll as these came up every couple of hundred yards. The climb from there on up was freezing -- in the mid to low twenties -- definitely well below Schlager standards.

This was beautiful though. The views were amazing. Pure alpine environment. It's comparable in scenery to climbing Independence Pass outside of Aspen. Two differences though -- Lemmon gains about 2000' more altitude over the same distance AND they keep the road open in the winter.

We hit 5000' feet at mile 12 and had to get off of the bikes every couple of hundred yards as the ice patches were getting wider. At mile fourteen, the sign was up across the road, "Chains and 4x4 required past this point." Apparently 9" of snow had fallen the night before and apparently our IQ had fallen with it -- neither Tom nor I was going to be the first to volunteer to give up the chase.

We climbed up to 6000' at mile 15 and I looked up the road and saw Tom off his bike, on a ice patch, looking like a deer on a frozen lake (limbs and bike flailing everywhere). I was the first to break down -- "T, if we're killing ourselves going up, it's going to be impossible to stay up going down."

So we turned, but not before taking some pics. Just over 2 hours and 15 miles of climbing.

The descent was murder for the first mile and a half -- three quarters of the time off the bike, grabbing the guard rail so we didn't slip on the ice. Once below 4000', it was a blast.

We left the last 10 miles on the bucket list. Will come back when the temps are above freezing!

What a way to start the 2010 training season though.