The Hill, part I

Horror ... has a face ... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror, and moral terror, are your friends.

The Hill is not my friend.

There's this hill, see ... it's pretty intimidating to neophyte riders like myself. Climbing over 400 feet in just over 1.25 miles, this mother looms over Del Mar like a curse. Oh, sure, she’s a dream to ride down … but when you wake up, it’s back … in the saddle … again. It’s the chair for you, kid!!

Anyway, I just call it The Hill. With capitals. Some day, I’d like to not have to capitalize it and replace the particle “the” with “a.” Until such a time, however, The Hill continues to be the New York Yankees to my Pedro Martinez: Every time I go out there it seems to get harder instead of easier, and just when I think I’m going to have a breakthrough and finally win one, Hideki Matsui blasts one into the left field corner, Manny’s pants fall down as he flails to scoop it up, and Jeter and A-Rod round third to exchange high-fives. The only consolation I can take is that, in my case, there’s no walking involved. I might granny-gear it the whole way, but at least I stay mounted.

The above analogy is made slightly sillier when you consider that I am one of seven people in the nation whose two favorite baseball teams are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, not necessarily always in that order.

Back to The Hill. Today’s climb was no different than any other: Spinnin’ the bejeezus out of the granny gear and inching up the hill at around seven miles an hour. Whooooooooooooo. Putt putt putt putt putt. The nerdy guy on the Vespa scooting up The Hill is pointing and laughing at me. Snails are blowing past me screamin, “Get outta da road ya bum!” Good times.

As Dan, a friend from Back East, might have said, “Friggin’ The Hill!”

Nothing boosts your self image after getting your tukus kicked by The Hill like hitting every red light on the way home after it. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Nevertheless, I finished up and managed to get myself into work.

Friggin’ The Hill.