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
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Dr C
Thanks,
I was also a 25 y/o Cat II at the time. Now I'm in my 40's, not sure how that'd play out.
@Buck Rogers
I am a university student so anything after mid may is fine for me all the way to september. And if its the same as here, weekdays are a better option to have the least amount of traffic compared to weekends
Nice one, Gianni!
Sometimes I ride with a local former domestic PRO. He's a nice dude & definitely loves to ride his bike. I also feel pretty damn cool chatting with him as we ride. Closest I'll ever be (which is very, very far) from anything PRO on the bike.
@Marko
YouTube is blocked at work (and a nice little email gets sent to my CEO every time I hit this article) so I can't see it. What was the question?
By the way, I did 330km race three years ago - the LOTOJA Classic - with 2938m of climbing with at an average speed of 29kph. I need to find 5 more kph in these legs.
@All @USAiiiii Just wondering how many of you hardmen out have attempted, thought about attempting or know people who have done this little gem....
Looks like a lot of fun I have to say!
@Godsight
I'm thinking the same thing, esp if people are coming into the area for the ride, a weekday would not hurt their schedule and the roads would be better than the weekends for sure.
Definitely starting to feel the ol' "V-tingle" about this one!!!
@Rob
A big ride this early in the year will just get the motivation going early; you'll put down the fork in Feb instead of April, and start swinging the leg over the bike while its still on the trainer instead of when the roads clear out. You'll be fit by June, and destroy your previous personal records by August.
So Ted King is doing some CX racing this year. He was at the Gran Prix of Gloucester and an official asks someone else, who's the poseur in the Liquigas-Cannondale kit? As told here at 12:50 - http://www.behindthebarriers.com/season-2-episode-4
@scaler911 @frank
Not sure I'll be able to swing a trip out east for this ride (though I do have friends just outside of Boston, so it's always possible) but after doing my first century a few weeks ago and flogging myself through the cogal last weekend, I have decided that I am going to try a one-day solo STP run this coming summer as my next personal goal.
I am DETERMINED to not lose fitness this winter like I did last winter, when I took something like two months off from riding, because I was too lazy and undisciplined to ride inside on a regular basis or make more of an effort to ride outside on the weekends, even in shitty weather.
I'm not a big fan of riding at night so I've already started my trainer work, with a bit of structure built in this year. Hopefully with that 2x a week and a ride outside on the weekends, I won't slide backwards too far.
@All @UK Anyone interested in riding with Cavendish take a gander at this
Hi everyone, join me for a 20km #HolidayInncycle in London on Monday 31 October at 8.30am. Register at http://tinyurl.com/3rnjbm6 for more details