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If you’re on the West Coast, by the time you’ve read this entry, Jorge and I will have climbed Montebello Road. I’m doing this to gauge my fitness level before Saturday’s possible ascent up the road for the inaugural Low-Key Hill Climb ride.

My Forte shoes from Performance were a size too big, so I put my cleats on my old Shimano shoes. The Fortes were causing some foot pain last week; I’m hoping I won’t experience any problems tomorrow morning. Montebello is a very unforgiving climb, even with the slight downhill at miles 2-3. I’m not looking forward to it, but at least I’ll have someone to suffer with me!

Update: We’re back from the climb! We got started around 8:00 in the morning. I was freezing with just my short-sleeved jersey and tank top underneath, but I warmed up pretty quickly on the climb. We took it relatively easy — if you could say climbing 1900 feet easy — finishing in about 50:30. That’s 11 minutes slower than my previous fastest time, which says a lot about the 15 pounds spare tire I’m carrying these days! My heart rate was around 170 for most of the climb until the end, when I went over the redline thinking the end was near. Once again, Montebello tricked me with several of its false summits. If I do it on Saturday, I should hope not to be fooled again!

By the way, the old Shimano shoes with the new cleats felt great, so it’s definitely the one-size too big Forte shoes which were causing me problems.