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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@Buck Rogers
I dunno. I've really been trying to behave myself. On a group ride today, I even had a guy remind me that my bike actually had an inner ring.
Hmm. Seems I got logged out. That happens a fair bit, but it's never relegated me back to Level IV before. Not to worry, it's the virtual version of hill repeats.
We have already thrown down the gauntlet and plan on "one-upping" the famous 200 on 100 trio with our 202 on 101 here in Southern California. We're using it as a fundraiser for our non-profit organization. 202 on 101
@hawkesworthm
Good on ya. February in California, what could go wrong? Maybe SoCal is safe from the rain the ToC used to get every February.
@Marko
You are correct sir. Going anaerobic on a long-ass ride will come back and haunt you later on. Tempo, tempo, tempo.
@Buck Rogers
I'm getting a trainer for sure now. I have to convince my ass to sit on a bike for 200 miles, and my legs to go around in circle more than I usually spend sitting at work...
@Buck Rogers
I'm not sure if we have to cross the border for the thing to be official, But I kind of want to see the look on customs when we roll up on bikes. I'm afraid not everyone that may want to ride would have a passport, which may make things difficult. The map my ride trip i made started right at the border.
@King Clydesdale
uLaval
And what about doing the same as the pro did, start right at the border so americans dont have to cross it and me, well i already need my passport if i want to come so no big deal.
@Godsight
I'm for this idea, personally. Really do not want my passport in my jersey pocket for 12+ hours!
@King Clydesdale
I've got a KK Pro, which, for a trainer, I love. I have literally over 300 hours on it in the last two years (10 months in Iraq with no outside riding added up fast) and I killed a Cycleops Fluid Trainer before that with over 200 hours (all the fluid drained out of it). Trainers make you tough! (although I'd ride outside any day over the trainer, but with five kids and a full time job, not to mention three deployments, not always possible).
@King Clydesdale
@Buck Rogers
If you have to make a choice, I say go rollers over a trainer (a proper bike ergo is even better).
If you haven't used them before, rollers will make you a better bike handler (and therefore faster) and you can use your gears for varying resistance. Whilst you can't replicate really hard hill-type gearing like on a trainer, I reckon you will use rollers a lot more as they are far more fun to use (and much nicer to your bike). I have no problems hurting myself on rollers - and that's not even counting falling off!
The thinner the roller diameter, the harder the roller.
Get Kreitlers - the only choice. And theyre from the States too!