[dlbennett]

At times, not on all rides, we find ourselves pushing our bikes up steep hills. Call it hike-a-bike if you prefer. Sometimes the push is short and quick, other times it can be for miles on loose rocky terrain.

Cycling shoes were not made for walking and bikes were not made for pushing.

What was your longest, worst push? Mine was Adams Gulch in Sun Valley. Just kept thinking to myself..I am almost there...almost there.

Like I explain to fellow riders when we are pushing our bikes....it is just good cross training.

Now I know some people walk more than others, I am one of them. Also I suppose some folks think that *someone* can climb any hill..yeah right.

-db- Cheers in the New Years!

 

[lidarman]

...more agony of the push.....

 

[majura]

We were on a night ride training for out annual 24hr (Kooralbyn for you Aussies out there)... So we thought that since it was a training ride, we'd ride the usual loop backwards.

Now while there's no more climbing than descending... the climbing is just harder doing the loop backwards! To add a bit of fun in the mix, it rained the day before (thing wet slippery leaf covered clay trails) and it was humid. No photos were taken- we were too buggered. Lots of "Stuff it, I'm pushing" followed by "ok, lets try pedalling this bit" closely follwed be "Damn it!" as you'd hear your mate unclip or fall sideways in a desperate effort to find traction. hehe, good times though.

Photo below is the trail - but during the day - and it's from a while back.

 

[scrublover]

roughly 850 feet up, in a quarter mile. at least, that was the estimate by topo map.

not the steepest, or the longest push i've done, but the worst combo of the two i can recall. this next shot, the notch just above the end of the handlebar in the air is where i was in the first pic; still have a long way to go.

yep, there are some brutal bits out there.

 

[lidarman]

Gotta steal this one

...From that nasty ride near Grand Junction. A push in bentonite clay.

a pic from BrianC.

 

[Maddog]

I have also suffered through that Adams Gulch push. Brutal! Two more just a little less worse than that; some trail past the north end of Sovereign trail in Moab. I joined a group from Minnesota on the trail and followed them up and up and up and down about 4 steep, long ridges heading northwest which eventually connected to a jeep road back to the highway. I was so tired I didn't even think of going back down the trail; just crawled back to my truck at the south TH. The other was "discovering" the Manzanita trail in our local San Gabriels. The 2nd week I had my first bike, rigid Schwinn High Plains, I thought I'd check out this trail that I saw every time I took my dogs to Big Rock Creek. After riding 1 of the 6 miles to Hwy 2 hiking over rocks and sidestepping a few 50 yd. scree fields, I rode down the FS road on the other side of the canyon cause the trail was way beyond my skills at that point. I kept going because I could hear the motorcycles on Hwy 2 so the end must be close! I love that trail now and have for about 14 yrs!

 

[Guyechka]

Sorry, no pics, just a story

Early last summer I was living in CT. It had been raining for about three weeks straight. I could have gone to the nearby riding spot but wanted to be adventurous. I had been exploring a new area, not really well mapped, and in the five or six times I had been there I had only seen one other rider.

Anyway, at the end of the ride I wanted to try a certain loop that, according to the directions pulled offline, I was supposed to ride clockwise. I still wonder why I didn't follow the directions. What followed was a two mile push through four inches of fresh mud--sometimes downhill, sometimes up, sometimes crossing rivers on slippery, rotting logs, sometimes trying to hop rivers carrying my bike. To top it off, the mosquitos were ravenous, and any spray I had put on beforehand had already worn off. That was my last memory of riding in CT.

 

[Sixty Fiver]

Heh...we were out riding in the valley one day and found ourselves at the base of a wooded hill that had a climbing rope for the hikers to use since it was nearly vertical.

It was really interesting going up this with my bike slung over my shoulder but it in the end it saved us a long ride out.

 

[bigpedaler]

OK, you guys had it worse than me -- my worst push was the last 3 miles to work when the left crank came loose & no 10mm allen. tried the one-legged pedaling thing, got about 200 yards.

 

[dlbennett]

A Bonked Push

I have bonked twice on rides before. The push, even on flat ground, when bonked out is always brutal! It's amazing how bonking can totally destroy one's riding ability. During my last bonk I could only ride downhill but when I hit the flats I would pedal till I almost would fall over again began the push again. This paticular day it was fairly nice in the morning around 40 degrees, during the bonk it had dropped to 32 and was snowing. I was walking so slow that snow was collecting on my handlebar.

db

 

[steiny]

How about 2-3 hours of pushing? We tried to avoid riding through the TRNP (no biking allowed - this was many years ago) on the northern end of the Maah Daah Hey trail by going around the park perimeter. It's only about a mile on the map to follow the perimeter and hook back up onto the trail. Let me lend everyone 3 invaluable words of wisdom - don't try it. A 3-4 hour ride turned into a 7-8 hour death march/survival ride in 105 deg F temps with zero wind or shade. :eekster:

1) Carrying up one of at least 4 major buttes. Sometimes it got so steep, you had to carry the bike with one hand while holding onto the hillside with the other so you didn't fall backwards down the butte.
2) "I think if we just go over that next butte ahead of us, we should see the trail". I remember hearing that at least 3 times.
3) And we pushed and carried down the buttes too. Sometimes you used the bike in front of you to keep from sliding down the hill.

 

[Nat]

Last summer we rode from Mt. Bachelor to Sisters, about 40 miles. In the middle of the route is a 7 mile stretch of deep, loose, sandy ascent. It was like pushing the bike on an uphill beach for about 5 miles.

Here's the original write-up. I don't know who the heck the old guy is with the Titus. For some reason the actual pics got replaced with that guy. WTF?

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=221879
.

 

[ziegi]

Blister inducing !

Last summer whilst i was looking for off the beaten track singletrack routes here in Austria i wondered about getting to the top of a particular mountain without using cablecar or fireroad. A mistake for sure ! I pushed my 34lb bike up 1500m of ascent over 4 hours. Sheer Hell :cryin: and the blisters on my heels were torture.

Why did i continue ? Simple, because the route as a down looked so fantastic i just had to get to the top. I made it up, and the last kilometre or so was even rideable, but the ride back down, whoo hoo !!

Outcome, different ascent next time out and what a ride !

ziegi :yesnod:

 

[4212darren]

Some wisdom I gained last Summer when I was volunteering at the Trans Rockies was to alternate heel up, heel down, when hiking so as to torture different ligaments and muscles.

 

[anthonys]

...From that nasty ride near Grand Junction. A push in bentonite clay.

a pic from BrianC.

Gah!

https://www.anthonysloan.com/fruitadeathmarch.html

et ales:

 

[IAmCosmo]

My worst "push" had nothing to do with the steepness. It had everything to do with me thinking my chain, which I had already repaired three times, would be fine for just one more ride. And, as Murphy's Law teaches us, mechanical failures happen at the worst time. We did an out and back ride that was about 20 miles long. We stopped at the turn around point to take a break. As soon as I got back on to start pedaling back, SNAP. I had a chain tool, but the chain was broken beyond repair. I tried the old "make a single speed" trick, but I couldn't find a gear ratio that would work so the chain would actually stay on. So I had to walk back 10 miles of fire road and single track.

I carry and extra chain and chain tool on all rides now...

 

[Monte]

What was your longest, worst push?

There have been shorter pushes that were worse than this, but it's probably the longest. South Chilcotins in BC, pushed from the valley floor that runs across the picture from left to right. Of course, it's downhill all the way back down.

Monte

 

[Sixty Fiver]

Cosmo...I don;t think you need tocarry an entire chain but having a decent length of spare chain can mean the difference between walking and riding out.

I just built a new cross bike that I don't expect to be pushing up too many hills and when I installed the chain I saved the extra six or so inches and threw it in the toolkit with the chain tool and quicklinks.

 

[edemtbs]

These pushes weren't long, horrible or bonk-induced, they were just necessary.

I have no pics of the Fruita bentonite clay hike I had to do once but Anthony and Lidarman captured the essence of that nightmare.

And my worst push ever had to be at end of KTR last year on the climb out of Salt Creek on Troy Built. No pics of that nightmare.

Ed E

 

[Eric Hoefer]

its about a 50/50 bike/push ratio slightly more pushing if its wet to the top of the hill on the right behind the trees, not as major as some of the others but its fun.

some doubletrack at the top:

The views/scenery are worth it though

It makes for a fun ride down too.