- If you are planning on finishing the triple, you really must get up to 100-150 miles/week.
If you can hack Ward, Super Jamestown and then Ward again, on the same day, you'll live.
- really, do what they say, don't change equipment that last month. My new cranks are 2.5mm longer than what I had been riding. I had never done a serious hill climb with them, and I suspect the lack of exercise on those played a part.
- if you are getting passed a lot on Ward, you will get passed on the triple. There are a lot of very fit riders out there and this ride is for them. Going from lard-ass office worker to triple conqueror takes flawless, dedicated training. The problem isn't just riding that much, it's organizing your life so that you can ride that much.
- started training in January weighing about 183 lbs. I weigh that much now. It's not that I haven't lost fat, I just haven't lost more than I put on.
- you don't need 4 water bottles. The support is good. Take two.
- the leg coverings, raincoat and long-fingered gloves were worth it. I though I missed my tights, but the leg coverings, insulated, were nice to have.
- Gu chews seemed to work well, though I have wicked gas now.'
- The new bike's geometry is nice. The longer cranks seems to be nice, but without a lot of training on them, they may have contributed to premature pain and quitting.
- The 34x32 gearing on my SRAM Apex was awesome. A lot of riders passing me were on the same cadence, but only had the 34x28 available from an Ultegra compact double crank. They rode faster. Lucky for them, they had the muscle (and youth) to support it.
- I was amazed that my el cheapo tires, the ones that came with the bike, survived as well as they did. I considered another set of Gatorskins, but didn't make time.
- be careful when listening to someone who found it an easy challenge and offers confidence in the face of weekly climbs to Ward. The numbers tell part of the story: you should be able to complete three climbs to Ward in one day. The part they don't tell is the mileage in between the climbs, and the altitude. It's not about attitude, it's about riding , plain and simple, lots of hard riding.
- I died on the climb out of Dillon: This is where I died. I was on pace to do this in 3.5 or 4 hours. I started the climb at 10:00 at about 9100 feet near the dam when I stopped to take my leg warmers off. I stopped again to switch gloves, and again to peel my shirt and grease-up. The under shirt was comfortable, but the stops add up. I might get some sleeves next time. There's another stop on the Vail Pass climb there where I put my leg warmers on that could have been avoided by starting that way. I stopped below the A-Basin base around 10,500. 1500 feet should have taken an hour when climbing near Boulder from 7000 to 8500.
So, thus ends six months of training. Muscle gain but no weight loss. Stay tuned as I try to tackle that goal now, without the fear of losing muscle crucial to climbing those passes.
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