Some of you may recognize this very famous George Orwell quote from Animal Farm. Some of you may not. That’s OK. I use it today because it seems that having four legs would have been good as I climbed Camilien-Houde a total of four times. Or would I have actually tired more quickly, presumably using more energy powering twice as many pistons? Who knows. I don’t have four legs.

I was in a school production of Animal Farm back in the early ’80s. I think we played three of four nights in a row after weeks and weeks of rehearsals. I got my part bang on. Wasn’t overly complicated given that I was Clover, a carthorse, and one so dumb that I was not a speaking role. Still, I had four legs once.

Elevation is starting to resemble a pair of old fashioned hair clippers.

I settled into a fairly good rhythm on the five climbs. The first is the 5 km climb from the base at Atwater all the way up to the summit of Mount Royal. After that, it’s a blindingly fast 1.8 km descent, followed by a painfully hard 1.8 km climb back to the summit. And repeat. I did not beat my time of last week, my fastest ascent of the day being some 4 seconds off that pace. Yeah that’s right. I climbed in 5:50, with my season’s best coming in at 5:46. Close but no cigar, although I am surprised I was even that close as I frankly was not feeling in record beating form. The following three climbs were about 30 seconds slower. I was happy to simply grind away and get some climbing miles into my legs. I would have gone beyond four climbs, in fact, had the time not been zipping by so fast.

What? Climb it again?

As I have mentioned before, I will continue to get more climbing in over the balance of the summer and into fall. At the moment I am trying to get at least one climbing ride in per week. That should get me properly warmed up for the winter riding season in the Alps, courtesy of the Elite training system. Ventoux should be a piece of cake this year.