Uktimate UK Sportive? Gran Fondo Cymru 2006

[huw williams]

Alan - Good to see you've entered. Bala is a tourist haven so B&Bs are plentifull but book early.

Simon - I'm considering the Maritima but it's a week after The Dragon and the travel might be prohibitive, but we're covering it in CW and will have someone there. Let me know if your definitely doing it and you can contribute to the feature if you fancy it.

Ciao

H

[Graham O]

Did the reliability trial at the weekend and has some fun. This was only 55 miles though. I am now a sh*t scared about riding 120 miles over really big hills.

Started to plan out my riding last night. I will be doing most of the reliability rides, and will start to ride to the starts. This should take me up to approx 90 miles at end of Feb.

Himts and tips on pereparation would good. At present thinking of building up rides from 90 miles to 125 miles and starting to incorporate lots of big hills. Also want to practice climbing nasty hills when I am knackered.

Does anyone have any specific advice

Ta

Graham.

[huw williams]

Yes

Dont ride up hard hills when you're knackered!!! Common mistake.
You're only training yourself to ride hills slowly - save all your hard training efforts such as hills and sprints for sessions when you're reasonably fresh. That way you'll increase your climbing ability and be less tired when you get to the later hills on a long ride.

Also, don't train relentlessly on big hilly routes for the same reason. You'll constantly be tired and again training yourself to ride slowly. If hills are a weakness in your riding, better to integrate a dedicated hill sessison (or even two) into your usual weekly routine, where you practice getting stronger and faster on hills specifically.

And don't try doing a 120 mile ride every week or you'll be dead before you get to the sportives. If you're worried about making the distance try and do a 100mile+ ride once a month during Feb, March and April. The rest of the time limit yourself to rides of no more than 70% that distance and focus on getting stronger during those rides, that way you'll be more comfortable on the day.

The problem with the Gran Fondo Cymru is it's in the first month of the sportive season so you won't have weeks of warm weather riding to prepare. You're going to have to train predominantly in Feb, March and April when the weather is bad. So providing you've got enough base miles in you (which you will have if you stick to your reliabilty rides), concentrate on some 'quality' sessions rather than the quantity of knocking out 100+mile rides in cold weather just for the sake of it.

Hope this helps Graham.

H

[Graham O]

Thanks Huw,

Thats useful....Now I've just got to do it.

[sylv]

Do you/ could you ride to work? Even if it's only 20 miles a day it helps a great deal to build fitness.

[Graham O]

I rode to work througout November anbd December last year, and this really helped. Found that I got a lot fitter, but tended to be knackered most of the time. Its 13 miles each way.

My current plan is to get out twice during the week, 1-2 hours (i.e. 20 - 30 miles or so). One of these will be some hills around biggin hill or as nights get lighter, further toward westerham. I will also plan to get out Saturday and Sunday mornings. Prefer to do the longer rides on a sunday though as dong a long ride on the saturday takes the zip out of my legs.

It would be good to meet up with others to do the midweek stuff if anyone else is up for it.