Peak performance
Chris Macdougall successfully conquers ride into Eastern Alps
“Just keep going, just keep going, you’ll get there… ,” Chris Macdougall kept telling himself.
He didn’t quite cycle to the top of the world, but there were moments during his ride into the Eastern Alps of northern Italy when it felt like it.
“I found the last five or 10 kilometres, it was almost an emotional thing.
It’s kind of funny how your mind started, I guess, playing tricks on you,” the Truro resident said, a few days after returning from his most recent cycling adventure.
“It was interesting, that’s for sure.”
Macdougall and 17 other cyclists participated in the cancerfighting fundraiser Give to Live Big Ride 2018. The venture saw them ride almost 700 kms over seven days from Germany up into the Alps.
“Oh, it was spectacular, I think is the word I’ve been using. It was fantastic. Everything about it was great,” he said.
The absolute highlight was actually making it to top of the Stelvio Pass, Macdougall said.
Located in northern Italy, the Stelvio Pass has an elevation of 2,757 metres (9,045 ft.), making it the highest paved pass in the Eastern Alps and the second high- est paved pass in the Alps overall.
Macdougall has biked through the Rocky Mountains three times, including a trip across Canada from Vancouver to St. John’s, N.L., in 2016. But even for a seasoned cyclist like him, taking on the Alps was a daunting prospect.
“It was intimidating leading up to it because you look at the elevations and so on and it’s uphill for 25 kilometres. And not just uphill, but steep hills for 25 kilometres.”
The road leading to the pass has 48 numbered switchback turns.
But cycling under a blazing sun, MacDougall said that day’s climb began to take its toll shortly after the ride began, and before he even reached the first switchback.
“I was just dragging my butt a bit. But I decided to go on,” he said. “The first six or seven kilometres it was over 30 degrees and there was no shelter, the sun was beating on us. But then we got into the trees and it was quite a bit cooler so it was better and I just plugged away.”
Looking up as he slowly proceeded, “… you could see sort of where the road went but you couldn’t see any type of distance.”
By the time Macdougall got to switchback 22, he had his first real view of the remaining climb.
“It opened up and you are sort of above the tree line and you
could see the top of the hill and you could see what was ahead. So that was a little bit of ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I can do that,’” he chuckled.
He persevered, however, and at age 63, became the oldest member of the group to make it to the top of the Stelvio Pass. Five members of their group, including the eldest rider, who is 73, opted not to cycle to the top.
Macdougall has never run a marathon or participated in a triathlon. But he expects the exhilaration he felt upon reaching the top of the pass would be similar to meeting such challenges.
“I sort of compared the emotional part to something like that. You see people at the finish line and they are just so relieved,” he said.
“So I was pretty happy with myself. There was no doubt that that was the highlight because I wasn’t sure I could do it.”
And looking down from his bird’s-eye view, despite the rain and snow they encountered at the top, Macdougall said, it was certainly a sight to behold.
“The scenery was absolutely spectacular. And we had a really good group of people; I enjoyed it all.”