Could it be?

I knew it was somewhere and then, while cleaning out some old files, I found it;  a folded piece of yellow, lined paper with hand written, faded blue ink on it.

26 min. 40 sec.

From S/S to S/S

Ridge Rte

This simple message is haunting me.  Taunting me.  Smackin' me down.  That note records a time trial result I used to do on a local road.  It is a pretty constant 8 mile climb and in earlier times I ran it with a heart rate monitor and a cycling computer to train with...measure myself against.

I long since stopped using a heart rate monitor and I have no use for a cycling computer, so I kinda lost track of any measured times.  But I still ride this, especially on the singlespeed, and I have a pretty good idea how long it takes me.  Let's say 50 minutes, a bit less on the road bike.  50 minutes.  Fifty.  Five...Oh.  Not 26 minutes and 40 seconds.  Not even close.  How can that even be?

Well, the other day I did that ride again and kept the pace up as fast as I could manage on the SS.  Yep...50 minutes.  So how is it possible that I used to be...what?...twice as fast?  No way.  I would need a scooter or something.  So I am left with the only real possibility...I wrote it down wrong.  I remember it being 46 minutes 40 secs. 

Now I know that I am not the rider I used to be, but I don't think I am that much slower.  The other day I rode up The Beast, another local hill climb, dirt this time, that is a 3-ish mile butt kicker of a climb.  I did that in 40 minutes.  That is as fast as I ever have done this climb, at least as I can remember.  A local fast guy I know who used to be a top ranked Expert/decent Pro racer said he did that in 30 minutes.  Wow.  Well, if that number on that yellow note is right, and I used to be that much faster, then in ages past I should have been able to do The Beast in half the time it took me the other day.  Never happened.

So I really want to think that I wrote that note wrong.  Otherwise I used to be really fast and I sure don't remember it that way.