Tucson Training Camp: Mount Lemmon

On the second full day of the training camp we decided to ride up Mount Lemmon, part of the Santa Catalina Mountain Range. Before we headed out, our "leader" Ryan explained that it would be a very steady climb with a pretty reasonable grade. We should expect a pretty consistent 8-9% grade for about 25 miles and that we'd end up climbing about 6800 ft.

The peak of Mt. Lemmon as viewed from Mt. Kimball

My thoughts at the time: "Well, that'll be a good, challenging and steady climb but at least it's not too high... we should be fine in terms of altitude."

We drove out to the base of the mountain in the Catalina Foothills around 1pm and got our bikes all prepped in the parking lot of a strip mall. Given the grade, we expected the ride to take about 3.5 hours and figured that 4 bottles of fluids should be enough to keep us going.

The first few miles out to the base of the mountain were a slight incline but nothing tough. Then, as we reached the beginning of the climb and I looked up, I realized that it was going to be a long day. Three hours of steady climbing with no free-wheeling was.... well, a long climb.


The climb consisted of a single long winding road that carried us through a valley and up along the mountain to the peak. Our group of four broke up pretty quickly because we all wanted to hold tight to our own power zones. Having ridden somewhat hard the day before and wanting to save the legs for the next two rides, I locked myself in at about 230W (80% of threshold) and just started pedaling away.

At the base of the climb, it was about 80F and at only 10mph I was pouring sweat pretty quickly. As I worked my way through the early miles, I saw between 30 and 40 cyclists descending the climb and gauged them at about 40mph... Grinding away at the climb, it was a little disheartening to know that they had already been to the top and were done with their days.

As I hit the 4000ft elevation marker about 25 minutes into the ride, I got confused. How had I already climbed 4000 of the 6800ft in only half-an-hour. And that's when I realized two things:
1) I had been incredibly stupid and we had actually started the climb at 2300ft, not sea-level (obvious....)
2) The climb would take us north of 8500ft and that meant that altitude was going to be an issue.

For the next hour or so, I just chipped away at the climb, passing a few riders along the way. As I hit interesting vistas, I took a few quick shots on the iPhone. The neat thing was to feel the temperature gradually drop as you climbed and the dusty terrain turn somewhat lush.

Around 6000ft, I caught up with a guy who lived up in Washington State and was on a training trip of his own. We held together for the rest of the climb and he told me about a number of the other great rides he had done in the area.

As we passed through 6700ft, we started seeing a number of fairly large snowbanks. And then, at 7000ft, the altitude finally hit me. I had expected the effect of altitude on my power output to be a steady drain, but it was really quite dramatic. I went from holding a steady 220W to about 185W in only the course of about 20 minutes. My VI stayed pretty steady around 1.01, but I just couldn't get anymore power out of my legs. My vision started to narrow just a bit. It was hard to describe except to say that I just felt weak. My legs weren't screaming, I just couldn't get any power out of them.

Power early into the climb.

Power near the peak. Notice that it's steady but much lower.

The road kept on winding but around 7900ft it seemed like we had approached the summit. We took a final turn and there we were at 8300ft! Fantastic. I pulled over to take a quick leak and then started pedaling again along a now level road. Unfortunately, this level road quickly turned into a fast 400ft descent. The problem was, we were still pedaling out along the road and I knew that we had to get back up to around 8500ft, so every foot we gave up, we'd have to climb again...

After the descent, we climbed some more..... And then we entered into Summer Haven. The ski resort was another few hundred feet up, but I was satisfied turning around at this point.

Me, at the peak. Notice the snow in the background...

The whole climb had taken about 3 hours... My buddies were a few minutes ahead of me and as I turned around to start the descent I saw them whipping past. Wiped from the ride and low on fluids, I decided to keep it safe and not attack the curves aggressively. As you can see from this vista picture at 7000ft, it's windy and it's steep.

Words that describe the descent: fast, curved, cold! (Covered in sweat from the climb and with the peak in the high 40s, I was shivering for the first 2000ft of the return trip.)

I hit the bottom about 40 minutes later (the longest continuous descent I've ever done in my life) and cruised back to the car. I was pretty beat and low on calories and food so I jumped in the car, kicked back a huge recovery drink and nodded off.

Definitely my toughest climb to date but an absolutely awesome ride. Challenging, steady and great views. If you're interested, here's someone else's video of various parts of the climb and descent.