In article <[email hidden]>,
Peb0 said:
My other reason for wanting a trainer is that I live in the Canadian praries. I can imagine
that 2 hours on a trainer can not be more monotonous than a 2 hour ride down dusty mile roads.
Oh yes it can! At least for me. It depends on the person really. When I have to to a trainer "ride"
I put videos on the TV (motorcycle trials, Tour de France, etc) and I can't stand more than an hour
even then.
Rollers are difficult to ride. You'll need road tires. You can't stand up on a trainer, too much
stress on the frame. If you can stand up on rollers you're a god. You'll sweat all over your bike.
Sweat is bad for bike parts. Put a towel over the headset.
Quoted message said:If I want to ride trails, it's a
minimum half hour drive one way
Suck. I empathize, the closest legal trailhead is about that much of a drive for me.
Quoted message said:, so that means that approximately 1.5 hours are wasted packing up and driving, when sometimes, all
I want to do is spin and keep my cardio in shape. Having a full-time job, wife, kids and other
commitments means that by the time I get home from work and have supper, it's pretty difficult to
squeeze 4 hours out of the evening just for riding (don't get me wrong, I've done it, but it burns
up those valuable brownie points like crazy).
Try to get your riding done in the morning.
Also, make your wife understand that riding is important to you. It'll be tough to train enough if
you're getting hassled every time you want to ride. You'll have to offer to do something in return,
like watch the kids when she's doing her hobby.
You may just have to learn to sleep less.
Quoted message said:It would be ideal to simply hop out to the garage and spin for a couple of hours each day during
the week and on weekends actually hit some trails.
If that's what it takes, you'll do it.
Quoted message said:I suspect the race will take me approx. 6 hours. Last year the winning time was just under 4
hours. (It was accidentally extended to just over 130km when the lead quad took a wrong turn
and added 10+km to the race.) My riding buddy did it in just over 6 hours and I have never
ridden 120km in 1 day in my life 🙂 If I expect to show any competitevness against my riding
partner, I need to ride without him sometimes. 🙂
As it warms up, start doing longer and longer rides. You need to build up to the 6 hours.
Before the event, eat a lot of carbs. Do not experiment with wierd food the night before. Like say a
"mexican pizza" with extra jalapenos. (I ate one the night before the Markleeville Death Ride last
year. Fortunately I have an iron stomach when it comes to spicy food, but it could have easily
turned out badly and ruined 8 months of training).
The depletion phase of carb loading is bunk, don't bother.
On the event itself, eat solid food and drink a sports drink that you have used before. If it's hot,
you should phase out the sports drink after 4 hours or so and go to water. Otherwise you will bloat
up like the Hindenburg.
"Long Distance Cycling" by Fred Matheny and someone else who's name I can't remember (but could well
be Ed Burke) is one of the better books on training and riding long events.
Also, make a training plan that gets you used to the time and distance. Traditional wisdom is that
you don't want to increase training time more than 10% a week. Even that's a lot, four consecutive
weeks where you add 10% and you'll need a rest. I like to put in one easy week per month, to use
when I'm feeling tired or I'm busy doing something else.
Don't get too slavish about sticking to your plan. You'll have bad days when you're supposed to do a
long hard ride, weeks when it's raining and you don't want to ride, and distractions from work and
family. If there are other shorter events you can do in the months leading up to the big one, that
will both help your training and let you know how you're doing. (and hopefully be fun as well)
Good luck!
Eric
