Writings By Date| Mountain Biking for Wusses on Cotopaxi Mountain | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Our day started with a two-hour drive from Quito to Cotopaxi. The four of us talked, and we learned a number of fascinating things about Jan. Many years ago, he biked all the way from Vancouver to Los Angeles, where he settled down briefly and traded in his bike for a sailboat. He spent several months painting houses to make some money, and put it all into fixing up the boat, which he then sailed down the Pacific Coast all the way to Cabo San Lucas. Later, he spent five years travelling the world — our idea is seeming less and less original all the time — until, while stopping in Ecuador to "refuel", he met the woman who would become his wife. They moved to Europe until they had their first child, at which point they came back to Ecuador, where he's now been with his family for more than 10 years.
It was during that time that he essentially introduced mountain biking to Ecuador, offering excursions of varying lengths, and helping to sponsor races. He capitalized on the idea of downhill-only biking and became an instant success as "The Flying Dutchman", until a lawsuit from KLM Airlines forced him to change his name to "The Biking Dutchman". Today, every guide book we've picked up mentions him by name.
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| Lago Limpiopungo |
We arrived at Cotopaxi National Park, the site of Cotopaxi volcano, Ecuador's second-tallest peak (though we weren't going up nearly that far), at a little after 10am. The truck followed a series of seemingly-random winding dirt tracks, until it settled at the site of a burned-down outpost, around 3850 meters (12600 feet) above sea level. We disembarked into the cold morning and began gearing up with our helmets, elbow pads, knee pads....and sweaters, fleece jackets, gloves, and earmuffs. For the next couple of hours, we rode the bikes around on mostly level ground, pausing every few minutes to suck all the oxygen we could into our pathetic bodies, which was made worse by the fact that none of us could even remotely consider ourselves to be "mountain bikers". I think the last time any of us rode a bike, it had training wheels on it.
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| Erin Taking a Rest |
It was absolutely invigorating to be at such a high altitude. Erin and I didn't get sick, although we were out of breath almost constantly. Dark, heavy clouds obscured the volcano, hiding it from our view for the morning, but the weather was good, except for a little bit of mist here and there that would try valiantly to form into a grown-up cloud, but usually blow away before it could.
We slowly rolled our way along the rock-strewn paths, with Jan pointing us in the right direction, then driving ahead to meet us at the next intersection, where we'd rest for a few minutes, then continue. This went on until we reached "Killer Hill Number 1", the first of three uphill climbs that at sea level, and to even a moderately-experienced biker, would not have been so "killer". Here, however, it was like trying to run underwater. None of us had the strength to conquer even the slightest fraction of this hill — though that's not to say we didn't try. I pushed and pushed, moving forward about six inches with each revolution of my legs, and felt proud, as I thought I was making some progress up this monster. I knew it was time to give up, though, when Erin and Sharon passed me...on foot.
