Trenching came to my attention just last Wednesday. Most cycling enthusiasts have heard of Everesting by now, I suppose. Now, along comes its inverse: Trenching! Both of them strike me as a Mont Blanc kind of thing: Because It\’s There!

The term \”trenching\” is, at least in this case, quite the paradox. It wasn\’t a downhill-all-the-way thing. On the contrary, it involved some brutal climbing. I\’m glad that, at least, it wasn\’t like the trench shown at left.

The rider\’s gearing makes my road bike\’s drivetrain look hard, indeed. He used a 32 chain ring; my road bike\’s crankset is a 50/34 (keep in mind that, for chain rings, smaller is easier). And an 11/42 cassette? Mine is a 12/30 (on the cassette, bigger is easier).

Of course it helped that this man is a professional cross-country racer. No doubt he\’s in much better shape than most of us recreational riders. I\’d better not dream of trying to duplicate his feat!

Some who take up Everesting and Trenching do so in order to raise funds for a worthy cause. Others enjoy doing it as competition. So-and-so \”climbed\” Mount Everest in X amount of time; can I do it in X-1 amount of time?

It that\’s your thing, that\’s great. But I don\’t seem to have much in the way of the competitive spirit in me. I don\’t care whether or not I can do any one ride faster than so-and-so. For me, trying to outdo everyone else takes a lot of the pleasure out of cycling.

So far, anyway. Who knows? Maybe one of these days something will kick in, and I\’ll try my first bicycle race. Before that, though, I need to learn how to \”read\”!