The Hail Mary Shift

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• @bigricco71

  Great article! As a not so built for the hills cyclist I often encounter this... I call it the Martha Reeves moment "Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide". Time to engage Rule number five!!!

  I like that one. I've never been that fond of Too Fat to Climb.  I know I'm fat, but do I really have to use the word?

• Brilliant @Gianni.  Your first paragraph sums up my attempts at climbing almost perfectly.  I'll never forget my first mountain trip a few years ago when I realised I was talking out loud to myself on the Tourmalet and was saying "why did I bring this whole cassette, I've only used three gears all morning."

  @ Teocalli "He hung in with the other two of us until with a final grunt he simply keeled over sideways and lay panting in the road still clipped in and still holding the handlebars."  Just fantastic. I'd pay money to see that.

• @Mike Stead (@tweetymike)

  ...unless you're using doubletap. In which case that Hail Mary shift just became a curse equal to that of any Greek n'e'er-do-well. You are now doomed to hold that paddle inwards, for even the slightest release of pressure will see you dropping into second.
  And everyone will know what you did.

  And herein lies the beauty of the design of the Double-Tap. When you go to make that Hail Mary shift...the system recognizes your need to review Rule 5 and drops you down a gear so you can stand up out of the saddle and dish out some V to your riding companions! :-)

• @Teocalli

  @the Engine

  You may only climb off your steed through lack of suitable ratios when a) your back wheel loses traction on the wet pave and you fall under the race commissar's car or b) when your freehub explodes and brings your wedding tackle forcefully in to contact with the top tube.

  It is possible to avoid b) by riding a fixie and if your guns are that mighty then you should as the wait for the broom wagon is cold and embarrassing

  Is it permissible to climb off? If you can climb off there is still some energy left or should it be that you have to do what a buddy of mine did a few years back on a longish, steepish climb (the ish being there is always a longer and steeper one out there somewhere). He hung in with the other two of us until with a final grunt he simply keeled over sideways and lay panting in the road still clipped in and still holding the handlebars.

  Happened to me once on a quick transition from downhill to up.  Realized too late I was still in 10th gear and fell sideways in slo-mo.  My buddy did not wait and I could hear him laughing as he went on up the hill.

• @Chris

   

  @Teocalli

  @the Engine

  You may only climb off your steed through lack of suitable ratios when a) your back wheel loses traction on the wet pave and you fall under the race commissar's car or b) when your freehub explodes and brings your wedding tackle forcefully in to contact with the top tube.

  It is possible to avoid b) by riding a fixie and if your guns are that mighty then you should as the wait for the broom wagon is cold and embarrassing

  Is it permissible to climb off? If you can climb off there is still some energy left or should it be that you have to do what a buddy of mine did a few years back on a longish, steepish climb (the ish being there is always a longer and steeper one out there somewhere). He hung in with the other two of us until with a final grunt he simply keeled over sideways and lay panting in the road still clipped in and still holding the handlebars.

  Surely it's a bit like the saying that if you have to step down from your boat into your life raft it's too early to be abandoning ship.

  Obviously, if you are going to go down with your bike you should ensure that your body that breaks the fall thus ensuring that the bike remains undamaged and can be passed on to a more deserving rider.

  I'm still getting to know roads in my new environs and lamenting that I haven't found any hills nearby. Until last Sunday. I found Great Hill Rd. And it was great in a V sort of way. Climbing off would have meant stopping, which would have meant restarting. Too steep to start and clip in, so that would have meant heading down and turning back up. So it was shut up legs, lungs, arms, head, and Rule V it up the hill. I'd hate to think someone else deserves my bike more than me. Great Hill Rd, I'll be back!

   

• @andrew

  @Teocalli

  Is it permissible to climb off? If you can climb off there is still some energy left or should it be that you have to do what a buddy of mine did a few years back on a longish, steepish climb (the ish being there is always a longer and steeper one out there somewhere). He hung in with the other two of us until with a final grunt he simply keeled over sideways and lay panting in the road still clipped in and still holding the handlebars.

  I love this. One thing, though: did you stop there or just go on and wait for him at the top?

  We were all good buddies, so of course we laughed ourselves silly, carried on up the climb and were still laughing when he finally joined us at the top.  He did not walk though.

  @chris he did and does care for his bikes so he would have sacrificed body to save the bike and yes you only step into a liferaft when you have to step up from the top of the mast as he boat goes down.

• @Steve-o

  @Chris

  @Teocalli

  @the Engine

  You may only climb off your steed through lack of suitable ratios when a) your back wheel loses traction on the wet pave and you fall under the race commissar's car or b) when your freehub explodes and brings your wedding tackle forcefully in to contact with the top tube.

  It is possible to avoid b) by riding a fixie and if your guns are that mighty then you should as the wait for the broom wagon is cold and embarrassing

  Is it permissible to climb off? If you can climb off there is still some energy left or should it be that you have to do what a buddy of mine did a few years back on a longish, steepish climb (the ish being there is always a longer and steeper one out there somewhere). He hung in with the other two of us until with a final grunt he simply keeled over sideways and lay panting in the road still clipped in and still holding the handlebars.

  Surely it's a bit like the saying that if you have to step down from your boat into your life raft it's too early to be abandoning ship.

  Obviously, if you are going to go down with your bike you should ensure that your body that breaks the fall thus ensuring that the bike remains undamaged and can be passed on to a more deserving rider.

  I'm still getting to know roads in my new environs and lamenting that I haven't found any hills nearby. Until last Sunday. I found Great Hill Rd. And it was great in a V sort of way. Climbing off would have meant stopping, which would have meant restarting. Too steep to start and clip in, so that would have meant heading down and turning back up. So it was shut up legs, lungs, arms, head, and Rule V it up the hill. I'd hate to think someone else deserves my bike more than me. Great Hill Rd, I'll be back!

  Only time I ever got my picture in a magazine was falling to the side of the road after stalling completely on Hardknott - the gradient touches 35% here and there - it's ludicrously steep.

  I confess that one might be able to freewheel back to the bottom and try again until a) you have a cardiac arrest b) it gets boring.

  If your freewheel explodes you are exempt from censure because a) the bike's unrideable and b) there's no way you strip down your freehub to inspect it for metal fatigue before every ride so its not reasonably preventable and its not going to be a spare you carry in your pocket along with your multitool to strip down and replace.

• Gianni - you shift with your middle finger? Is that a big F-you to the inner ring?

• @the Engine And carrying a spare freewheel doesn't make an EPMS ok!

• @the Engine

  You may only climb off your steed through lack of suitable ratios when a) your back wheel loses traction on the wet pave and you fall under the race commissar's car or b) when your freehub explodes and brings your wedding tackle forcefully in to contact with the top tube.

  It is possible to avoid b) by riding a fixie and if your guns are that mighty then you should as the wait for the broom wagon is cold and embarrassing

  Yes, this should be a Rule but maybe it's so self-evident it is unnecessary. And chances are, as someone already mentioned, if it is so steep you can't ride then you certainly can't walk in cycling shoes. That would be bad.