Vermont is spelled with a capital “V”, surely no coincidence. With the loads of mountains and climbs available, it had to start with a “V”. I mean, if it was mountainous enough to draw a runaway “loose” nun who left the church for a sailor, it must be good, right? (Great nordic skiing there””Trapp Family Lodge, if you are there in the winter months as well).
Anyways, being a seventh generation “V”ermonter myself, who was raised on a family farm on Rogers’ Hill in West Newbury, VT (which was hand cleared and settled in 1763 by my G-G-G-G-G-Grandfather and still owned by my father) I have a deep love and feel for VT, liberal politics notwithstanding. So when I heard about the 200 on 100 “Dumptruck of Awesome” that was available, I just knew that I had to do it. And not only that, I knew that I had to share this beautiful “Ode to the V in Vermont” with all of my best cyber-cycling-soul mates. Okay, soul mates might be going a bit far there, but you get my meaning.
So, enough with the intro.
Break out the rollers, get on the trainers, find your winter gear; lay off the seconds, nurse that one glass of booze, hold the toasting to one drink, dodge Cupid’s chocolates and shoot the Easter Bunny because training for this bastard started yesterday and you’ll be paying for it on the 28th of June, 2012 in spades!
See you in the pre-dawn hours on the Canadian border with our eyes firmly fixed on the prize of the Massachusetts border. Let’s drive this dump truck like Mel Gibson leaving the compound in a post-apocalyptic world, baby!
Route and location details on the Cogal Event Page.
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@Buck Rogers
South Carolina has some hills and major climbs. George Hincapie lives in Greenville, SC most likely to be near Ceasar's Head and Brevard, NC.
@versio
Ceasar's head is in SC??? I always thought that it would be in Rome. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
@Buck Rogers
There's an annual ride (straight climb) there also. Hincapie never misses it.
Inspite of a stubborn cold ,I was eager to ride the new bike with the new zipp 303s Sunday with a goal of 10 hrs. In the saddle. At 8hrs. I had a dried apricot throat, no comfortable adjustment on the seat, and a nagging pulled muscle on the outside of the knee. Maybe only 600 meters vertical . Sobering. Now it's the day after, not sore but oh so tired and very cautious about the knee. So although multiplying the vertical multifold and adding another 100 km Im trying to remain positive and focused. This is going to be one hell of a day!
@Tim
8 hours in the saddle..awesome! (What's that in metric?) Just finished a century+ (about 120 mi/190 km) yesterday - definitely need more saddle time before 2much.
Happy training, all.
@cal
200 km
@Tim
My ass still really hurts. It needs to MTFU!
@Tim
I'm thinking your over training and need rest... I am a big fan of going hard for shorter stretches and then really taking the time off to fully recover before going back to going hard longer than last time. It seems you have done a lot in the last few weeks so chill and then one more big push 3 weeks before and taper off to be well rested on the day?
It seems that 200 to 250k is going to be the reasonable part of the day but after that things like saddle comfort/seat height, stem length, etc. will rear their incremental niggley heads and muscles will start screaming for relief just when we get to the longer grades and are running out of food, light and jokes... Can't wait!
35 days to go, 15 left to build base/distance so nows the time to pile it on but not get run down.
@Tim
Yea, I was thinking that it's too bad with all these Dr's on the ride there isn't one proctologist so that we could have road side triage for this issue on the ride...
@Rob
I decided early on in my career that no one could ever pay me enough to work in men's asses. Those proto doc's definitely earn their pay!