Really?

Well I went for my hill ride today, I hesitate to say mountain, I never can differentiate between the foothills and the mountains.  The longest climb today is really the one out of Folsom , but it isn't too steep.  The nasty climb is on Prospector's Road out of Coloma, it is up to 13 percent grade, it is only a little over 2 miles, but it is really hard for a fat guy like me, gravity is not kind.  Here is a shot from my ride map that I made showing the Coloma climb:

Like I said, for the gravity challenged this hurts, 1,198 feet!

Before I got to this climb I did take some pictures which are just beautiful, I used my new Blackberry 9650 that I got from work.

View along Deer Valley Road 

Thompson Hill Road South of Lotus, California

Another along Thompson Hill

Well during the climb of Marshall Grade on Prospector's Road I managed to think that I had another gear lower and tried to shift, this sent the chain into never, never land between the spokes that the back of the cassette, which managed to take me from 7 miles per hour to zero and I fell over without being able to clip out.  Of course this was on the side where I baled earlier this week.  When I crashed on Tuesday it didn't bleed too bad, but when you crash on the same spot again, it really bleeds!  I didn't take pictures of that, I was too bummed to bother.

It appears that my fitness is much better, I didn't really get winded the whole ride, it was hard and there were some areas where I really was going as hard as I could, but I recovered quickly.  My problem, at least in my opinion, is that I just don't have the muscle strength to push hard enough to go quickly.  I was passed on Prospector's Road by three other cyclists, and they were all able to spin right along, where I was in my lowest gear and was just grinding along.  The two issues I have are my core strength isn't up to snuff and I am just too fat, the extra 50 pounds is just too much for me to carry.  Hopefully I will be able to drop some more weight, but I just haven't been able to.  I keep a food journal and generally overestimate the number of calories I take in and underestimate those I burn during my workouts, but no luck.  Well I will keep trying and get a stability ball to start doing some workout with my core.