Dan Casey

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Take two huge climbs and lots of little ones. Add 400-odd cyclists, pastoral roads, 10,000 vertical feet of gain, kinked calves, cramping quads, heaving stomachs and put it all together Sunday, May 28, 2006 – the day before Memorial Day.

It must be Mountains of Misery time.

It’s not for nothing that the New River Valley Bicycle Club’s Mountains of Misery Century, a.k.a. MOM, has become the biggest, baddest, hardest and best-known century ride in the Mid-Atlantic states.

I’ve never ridden the MOM, but I’ve separately climbed its two most cussed-at climbs, John’s Creek Mountain and the leg up Salt Pond Mountain to Mountain Lake. Both of them are utter ball busters. The latter 4-miler, with a grade that approaches 12 percent, is so wicked that only a cycling sadist would map a 100-mile ride that ends with it. And only a masochist would ride it.

This year, I took my camera and stationed myself along that evil ascent near the end. My mission: to capture the pain and dread in the grimaces of struggling riders with barely a mile to go.

Without further ado, I present the Mugs of Misery 2006. Enjoy!