Training with the Pros, it sounds like fun but it can’t be. Pros are genetic freaks; they put more kilometers on their bikes than any of us civilians do on our cars each year, they ride around whole countries at an average speed greater than 40km/hour and they can dish out such Rule V style day-after-day-after-day. We all dream about it but we don’t have it.
In an earlier life I came close to landing my dream job in Monaco with the IAEA. Serious people counseled me not to take the job, they said it was a bad career move. How could I explain to them I didn’t give a shiet if it was a bad career move, the chance to live, and more importantly to be a cyclist near San Remo and La Madone was all I cared about? Yet I knew if I even saw Tom Boonen or one of the many Aussies who call Monaco their home out on a training ride, I would only be seeing their lycra-clad asses disappearing up the road. Could I at least catch up to Stuart O’Grady to chat him up for a minute before my inability to talk and breathe would force me to lie and say I was turning right HERE? Maybe I could drink beers with the Aussies, I could keep that professional pace, actually no, I would get dropped there too.
Oh that job fell through and my dreams of commuting into work on Merlin on the Cote d’Azure disappeared like those watery mirages on a hot highway, but I digress. I have some good and funny direct video evidence why training with the Pros would be a cruel lesson in our mortal failings. One such Pro is Ted King, an American racer living the dream; he is based in Lucca, riding for Liquigas, riding in support of Ivan Basso and Peter Sagan. He is tough, he has finished every Giro d’Italia he has started. He broke his collarbone this summer racing in Philadelphia when his front wheel dropped into an inexcusably lame drain grate (thank you very much, oh third-world infrastructure that defines the USA).
To bring his training back up to speed he did the 200 on 100 with fellow Pro Tim Johnson and amateur racer Ryan Kelly. The 200 on 100 means 200 miles on Route 100, riding North to South from the top to the bottom of the state of Vermont, the Green Mountain State. Unless you are Marcus, 333 km seems like an impossibly long ride to do at once, I would be in broom wagon long before the end of such madness.
And by madness I refer to the 338 km at 34.1 km/hr average speed with 3,197 meters of climbing thrown in for good measure.
Video credit to Chandler Delinks
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And do we try to get the same average speed as the pro ? cause 45kph on the flats with some decent rider in a single file surely can be done.
@frank
Liege or 200(333) on 100 should take care of that. I'd need a bidon of pot-belge, one of Faboo's old cycling socks soaked in ether and some cat adrenal extract to even start either of those rides.
@Godsight
How flat do you think Vermont is?
@King Clydesdale
Throw in a little New England chipseal for good measure...
Late to this awesome post and I haven't had time to watch the vid but I am in! June will be early for me because late winter postprandial eating habits are still being dealt with and my climbing weight is still a month from ideal... So if August works that would be my vote.
If not, hey, I will use it as training and thank Merckx for the kick in the pants. June may be better because it will be light until well past 9 pm so that would mean aprox. 15 hours of daylight - time enough to finish with an early start!
@Gianni
Fuckin awesome article and video. Disclaimer: I'm not trying to come off 'rad' here. One of the best rides I ever did, was the Bridge of the Gods loop, twice, in one day. For those not familiar, it's 134K per lap, with 1250+M of elevation gain. I finished the two laps in 10hrs. I was raising money for a friend with cancer and got people to pay me by the mile for how far they thought I could ride in 10hrs.
Point being, give me some notice, and I'd be down with a long fucker like that. Sounds fun!
The BOG loop: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/7091916
@Gianni
That fast for that long, and after awhile you start to see Elvis (that happened to me during STP in one day, at about mile (sorry) 170.
Sadly, Mr. Kelly's best work, his race report from the Tour of HIlltowns from a couple years back, was lost to a server issue. Perhaps one of the best things I've read on the Internet. Or at least that's how I remember it.
I just think its bad ass that the one guy did it on a Cyclecross bike. thats nuts.
That's absolutely fantastic. Poor, poor dude...Inhuman!
I did a 175k ride a month or so back at similar (read slower) pace and was a weeping, floppy legged schoolgirl at the end.
Did manage half a night out on the beers and a kebab afterwards though...