Alto de Lettras. 80 kilometres straight up, no descent breaks, over 4,000 metres at the top. Anthony rode it on a bad ankle, with a heavy handlebar bag, and paid for it at the 60k mark where the gradient bites and the altitude starts doing things to your head.
Key Takeaways
The climb is divided by towns at 20k, 40k, 60k and 80k. Anthony sat around 300 watts for the first three to three and a half hours riding with two companions, both around 60 kilos to his 82-83. That worked fine until 2,500 metres altitude, where the oxygen deprivation started stacking on top of underfuelling and a two-kilo overloaded bike. The 60k mark, what the locals call the Gates of Hell, is where the gradient hits 8-10% consistent pitches. Four hours in, cramp signals firing in the calves and quads, altitude chewing at your brain, that is when the ride gets decided.
What Anthony describes isn't a suffering contest. It's five and a half hours of not doing anything stupid. Not going too hard early, not blowing up at the steep section, not panicking when your hands stop feeling like your own at 3,500 metres and your brain goes soft. He rode the back 40k solo and describes it as a headspace he doesn't get anywhere else, thoughts drifting between the poverty on the roadside and the pain in his legs and family stuff that doesn't surface on a one-hour spin at home. The lesson from this one isn't a training protocol. It's that some climbs just demand you show up with more respect than you'd give a training ride.
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