The Endless Ascent: Confessions of a Hill Climber

I was born at about sea level, and after 29 years I am still there, just several feet above the big blue—but that’s the great illusion of my life. For on a bicycle I have courted, coveted and triumphed over countless ups and downs—hills, that is—and like many cyclists I am living proof that what goes up must come back down.

Hill-climbing is a way of life for me, and an easy one to follow in San Francisco, where I log between three and four vertical miles of climbing each week without going more than three miles from my front door. I’ve found and devoured most of the steepest and longest slopes in the city a thousand times, but it’s never enough, and each morning I clip eagerly into my pedals and go tackle a few of my favorite slopes and sometimes scout new regions in search of bigger beasts. My quest for hills never ends.

To accurately measure and gauge my hill-climbing accomplishments, I mounted a large protractor onto the frame of my Surly Crosscheck several months ago. To the midpoint of this instrument I fixed a dangling plum bob, and with this simple contraption I have taken precise gradient measurements of the slopes beneath my wheels, furnishing my logbook with rather useless and self-indulgent data.

But gloating over percentage figures sometimes loses its zeal, and some days a man just wants to kick ass. A recurring fantasy of mine is that of encountering an arrogant urban hipster on Market Street. Perhaps he would say, “Hey yuppie! Cute helmet!” or something similarly unwarranted, at which point I would challenge the one-speeder to a race up the great 17th Street, looming straight ahead. I would demolish him, and I envision him catching fire in my wake and vanishing in a thrilling explosion as crowds of admirers watch. Unfortunately, hipsters avoid hills and in San Francisco, I ride alone.

When my craving for destruction grows too strong to ignore, I ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. Here, other hill-climbers clog the highways, and on blue-skied weekends thousands of cyclists huff and puff their way up the hills of the region, through redwoods and oaks and chaparral, and this is the country where I stalk my prey. The greatest source of excitement for me on these expeditions is when I spot a pack of teamsters up ahead, wearing brilliant spandex, goggles and logos from the software companies that employ them while sucking on those awful packs of packaged goop which they toss to the roadside when they’ve finished. Heaven hath no pleasure like whipping past such a cluster of clowns, especially on a 25lb. Surly bearing fenders, a travel rack, a U-lock and a wicker basket up front, in which I may carry picnic wine or just a good book. 

Last year around the time when the Tour of California came though the Bay Area, spandex and brilliant space-age hues became especially abundant on the roads of Marin County, and all of a sudden everyone thought they were Lance Armstrong. They shaved their putty-like legs, roof-racked their bikes across the bridge, and took to the roads in colored goggles and sporty jerseys—and I feasted. My most triumphant accomplishment in that two-week span was on the road to Mount Tamalpais when I overtook a trio of French professional cyclists on a training ride. We chatted briefly.

“Zat is cool to ride so fast whiss a basket on your bike!” one said with spirited friendliness.

His companion was not so happy to see me. “What do you have in zere, your picnic?” he spat.

“Just Bordeaux and bricks,” I joked before flooring it ahead, and of them I saw no more. I would hang that moment of glory on my wall if I could.   

I don’t take measurements of popular highway grades, for these routes never exceed 10 or 12 percent. In the lonely streets of San Francisco, though, there dwell true monsters. Surprisingly perhaps, even 17th Street, which not a hipster in history has managed, tilts to only 17 percent, though it does have an unrelenting attitude about it. Hills of 20 percent are a dime a dozen, and blocks that hit 25 percent are not hard to come by. Climbing out of Noe Valley are several brutes of 28 and 29 percent. Near the illustrious Coit Tower are some streets that hit 30 and 31 percent, and Filbert Street in North Beach, which for one mighty block hits 31.5 percent, is often credited as king.

But the books are wrong. I took a reading of 33 percent on Stanyan Street’s southern end. For months, I touted it as the record breaker and I indulged in climbing the hill on at least a weekly basis. Then, my world nearly crumbled when I was told of Pittsburgh’s infamous Stanton Avenue, which goes up at 37 percent. I couldn’t sleep for many nights. I tossed, turned, and sweated. I was haunted by the knowledge that other cyclists were presently achieving greater conquests than my own. I couldn’t stand it, but I took control of myself and committed myself to finding a slantier slope. There had to be one—God help me if there wasn’t—and this fall I found it: Broderick Street.

As it ascends from the Marina District, this unpretending avenue reaches a marvelous grade. I remember the day that I first met this prince of all slopes. I had passed it before but never quite noticed it for the reason that the pavement ends for this one terrible block and is replaced by a very furtive sidewalk that leads up through a tunnel of trees. This particular afternoon, though, I glanced up the darkened way. Lord, how my neck craned to see the light at the end, and like Ahab with the whale in his sights, I shook with excitement. I turned in a few tight circles through the quiet intersection, building my adrenaline and praying that I could make it—and hoping my chain wouldn’t snap. My bike has only two gears up front, but the rear cassette is a 9-speed that goes as low as gears go.

No one was there to watch, sadly, but I went for it. Geared down to the max, my bike reared back as the front wheel hit the base of the grade. I immediately left the saddle and pumped as fast and furiously as I could. My bike fell under great strain from pulling up on the handlebars and from the force I exerted on the chain. To my brilliant excitement, I rode more than halfway up within 30 seconds. Then, my legs and lungs began to burn, but I knew I had the juice in me to go the last yards. Sixty painful seconds after beginning I crested to the top, panting like a hill has never made me pant before. After a breather, I walked the bike back down several feet to take a reading. My plumb bob hit 38 percent.

I have returned several times to reassert my mastery over Broderick Street, and I’ve not yet failed. Meanwhile, my desire to demolish other riders has subsided some; I no longer crave to humiliate, and the knowledge that I am king of the hills has eased me of late with a transcendent calm.

But on the darkest midnights, demons still torment me. They flaunt cruel images of a 40-percent grade, with terrified hipsters clinging to the slope by their painted fingernails and teamsters zigzagging pathetically upward. Yet I know that, even should I find such a massive slant, and though I might beat the grade and destroy all others in my dust, I will never truly reach the top.
I am haunted by hills.

[Ed. note: This article, which originally appeared in Bicycle Times Issue #2,  was writtern by Alastair Bland, with illustrations by Shawn Granton. Click here to subscribe to Bicycle Times and here to purchase Issue #2 as a single copy.]