My Wheels Whispered Betrayal on the Devil's Gradient
My Wheels Whispered Betrayal on the Devil's Gradient
Rain lashed my face like icy needles as I hunched over the handlebars, each pedal stroke a negotiation with gravity. The road coiled upward into the Pyrenean mist—a serpent made of asphalt and agony. My legs weren't just tired; they felt hollowed out, like birch bark after a storm. I’d ridden this pass before, but today it felt personal. Today, I had a witness: myCols. That unassuming app glowing softly on my handlebar mount wasn’t just tracking altitude. It was archiving my suffering in real-time, turning every whimper of my quads into data points. When I’d first downloaded it, I’d scoffed. "Another fitness tracker?" But this thing didn’t count steps. It measured pride—in percentages and vertical meters stolen from the sky.
When the Mountain Keeps Score
Halfway up, the gradient spiked to 14%. MyCols didn’t just display the number—it *felt* it. The screen pulsed a warning red, mirroring the fire in my calves. I remembered last month’s disaster in the Dolomites, where I’d misjudged a climb and bonked spectacularly. MyCols had analyzed that failure afterward: fueling error at 1,200m elevation. Now, as my vision blurred, its vibration alert nudged me: *Eat now.* I tore open an energy gel with trembling fingers. The app knew my body’s rebellion before I did, its algorithms digesting my past collapses to predict this one. That’s the sorcery—it turns your weaknesses into guardrails.
Summit Ghosts in the CloudNear the top, fog swallowed the world. Only myCols’ elevation counter kept me company: *2,103m... 2,104m...* Then, a chime—a sound I’d programmed to play only when conquering new peaks. It sliced through the wind, crisp as a bell. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone. Onscreen, a digital cairn materialized, etched with my name and today’s date. But beneath it? Ghosts of every climb I’d logged: Mont Ventoux’s brutal moonscape, Stelvio’s 48 switchbacks, even that rainy Tuesday hill-sprint behind my house. My entire mountain legacy, stacked like sedimentary rock. I choked back something raw—not exhaustion, but awe. This wasn’t vanity. It was archaeology of the soul.
Later, drying off in a village café, I scrolled through myCols’ "Ascension Map." The app had stitched my global climbs into a 3D tapestry—a personal Everest woven from a thousand smaller summits. Yet for all its poetry, the tech has teeth. That map uses OpenTopography API data merged with my GPS traces, rendering gradients with terrifying accuracy. Still, I cursed it once. Descending Grossglockner last summer, my phone overheated, and myCols froze mid-climb. For 20 minutes, my suffering went unrecorded—a digital amnesia that felt like blasphemy. I yelled at the mist, furious at losing proof I’d endured it. How dare it erase my pain?
Now, preparing for next week’s Alpe d’Huez attempt, I study myCols’ "Climb Analyzer." It dissects past performances like a coach: *"Avg. power dropped 18% on gradients >10%—train seated climbs."* I resent its cold precision even as I obey. Because when wheels finally kiss a summit, and the app auto-generates that summit selfie with elevation/timestamp overlays? That’s when you realize: mountains don’t remember you. But myCols does. Forever.
Keywords:myCols,news,cycling legacy,elevation tracking,personal endurance
