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Last significant ride I did was the Central Coast Double, fixed gear, on May 8. For various reasons, primarily family time, I all but quit riding since then. I have commuted to work, 26 miles round trip, once per week, and then extended last Monday's morning commute by adding 20 miles, for a daily grand total of 45 miles. That's it. Zero weekend rides. So, that's about 150 miles total in 7 weeks. This spring, that was one *day* of training on weekends.
Well, I had signed up and paid for the Climb to Kaiser months ago, and decided "what the heck, I'll give it a shot." C2K is 155 miles, with 13,500' of climbing, some long 18% grades, and essentially goes from 200' elevation to 9,200' and back. So, I built up a 1985 steel Bianchi with a Campy Record triple and 11-29 gears (10 speed) in back, downtube friction shifters, and all the celeste I could muster up. So, while packs of riders were passing me on every climb, at least I got a lot of nice comments about the bike.
Crusing out of town at 22 mph in pacelines was no problem, but I sooned learned, when the pavement turned up 14%, that going 2 months with little to no training really does have an effect on you, especially when you gain weight at the same time. I figure that you can ride with little training or being over weight, but not both. Should have been a clue that there would be a problem when I was picking out a jersey to wear the night before, and everything that used to be loose was too tight.
Anyway, made it up to the Shaver Lake rest stop at 5,500' elevation, about 50 miles into the ride, and turned back. Legs were shot. Felt like I as continually bonking, but energy consumption was not the issue. Lots of fun coming back down, though, as I had not ridden a "coasting" bike down the mountains in a long time. Finished 100 miles and about 7,000' climbing in about 6 1/2 hours. Getting out of shape sucks.
Well, I had signed up and paid for the Climb to Kaiser months ago, and decided "what the heck, I'll give it a shot." C2K is 155 miles, with 13,500' of climbing, some long 18% grades, and essentially goes from 200' elevation to 9,200' and back. So, I built up a 1985 steel Bianchi with a Campy Record triple and 11-29 gears (10 speed) in back, downtube friction shifters, and all the celeste I could muster up. So, while packs of riders were passing me on every climb, at least I got a lot of nice comments about the bike.
Crusing out of town at 22 mph in pacelines was no problem, but I sooned learned, when the pavement turned up 14%, that going 2 months with little to no training really does have an effect on you, especially when you gain weight at the same time. I figure that you can ride with little training or being over weight, but not both. Should have been a clue that there would be a problem when I was picking out a jersey to wear the night before, and everything that used to be loose was too tight.
Anyway, made it up to the Shaver Lake rest stop at 5,500' elevation, about 50 miles into the ride, and turned back. Legs were shot. Felt like I as continually bonking, but energy consumption was not the issue. Lots of fun coming back down, though, as I had not ridden a "coasting" bike down the mountains in a long time. Finished 100 miles and about 7,000' climbing in about 6 1/2 hours. Getting out of shape sucks.
