Slowcolnago's latest weigh-in: 162 lb, down from a hefty post Christmas 171. Anything in the 150's will be fine, and apparently, attainable. Sounds like Sud is doing Yeoman's work mapping out the Bari area routes. He's pegging some serious km, too. Thank God I'll have someone to push me up that 9th col.

My new weight training programme is great. I think it will really help my climbing endurance. I've been trying to think about how to describe it in an e-mail, without any success. But, I will try anyway later this week.

The ride with Beetle on Saturday was great. It felt good to put some de(s)cent speed on after those escarpment climbs last weekend. Here's a funny one: I took my back wheel in to the "curator" of High Park Cycle. I call him that because his store specializes in obsolete componentry. It's a Meca for somewone trying to upgrade an older bike. Anyway, I asked him to rebuild the wheel as the non-drive side spokes were very loose. He looked at it and asked me if I'd been doing hard climbs. When I told him that a friend and I had climbed the escarpment around rattlesnake 5 times he walked away muttering in his Slovenian accent "once is too much times". He's a funny old curmudgeon, used to race against Scats.

Slowcolnago out.

Cool gear calculator.
m

Hi guys, I have been working for you....
I hate riding out of Bari so on Saturday I piled my gear into the car and set to chart some new rides. I stopped in a small village on a hill called Quasano. It took me a while but i found a good route. I think you will be pleased.

Bear in mind that there are no real maps in Italy. You can choose from the grossly inaccurate touring club maps, or the WW2 charts that are the closest they have to topogrphic maps: too out of date and too small an area to be useful for cyclists. Gap toothed old men with thee wheeled Piaggio searching for something along the roads were my best source of information. So I just rode, chasing down the most promising climbs out of town.

I logged 62k of rolling hills, most of it without seeing a car.

m

My weight is pegged at 82kilos (180lbs). Can't seem to do anything about it. My wife says I should cut out the beer and wine or eat less. There must be an easier way... liposuction, hypnotism or shock therapy. 15 years ago i was 70k. I rode longer distances but I had much skinnier legs. I will be happy with a target weight of 75 (as long as you dont take away my beer).

Yesterday the temperature dropped from 22° to 4, and to show you my solidarity I set out to do my lunch time time trial in the rain, and sleet. But the clouds parted and it was a gorgeous sunny day. Sorry. Avg. 29.5. Today we measured our route with GPS:

   15km circuit (Yesterday i rode at an)
    Overall climbing: 180m
    Max grade 14% (calculated over 100m. In the other direction there is a wall that is 16%, but if you calcuate it over 50m I am sure that it is more like 18+).

Sud

Hmmm, looks like I beat Beets to the Blog. So, I have to cover the details of this past weekend. He can do the embellishing/exagerating bit.

We rode both Saturday and Sunday, conditions were a bit disappointing on both days, and our ride lengths were adversely affected.

Saturday: Beets' turn to come into Toronto. We planned to ride a mid-distance mid-pace trip on the bike paths, maybe 60 to 70 km. But, it was grey, damp and cool, + 3 C, so we decided to do hill repeats to stay warm. As I bogged earlier, there are several short and sweet climbs along the path, mostly 50 or 55 m vertical, and 300 to 700 m long, plus my favourite on the way home, the Bayview extension, 100 m vert. over 1.5 km. Basically they all range from 4.5% to just over 10%, and are quite short. We did eleven of them, probably while Sud was mopping up his Foi Gras and Sauterne. It started pissing rain on about the 7th climb, which was actually fortunate as it washed all the wet snow off the hill, which had fallen over night. It made the descents very slow, and so we only averaged 20 kph for 35 km. Still, not bad with all the climbing.

Sunday: My turn to go out to Beets' end of the lake. The plan called for hill repeats on the escarpment. Sud and Slocolnago's old stomping (and I mean stomping, as in pedaling squares) ground. It looked good to start, sunny and clear. But it never got over - 3 C, and the wind howled out of the North West, Sud will remember that that means it was a head wind for all the climbs. It blew steady 45 kph, with gusts from 60 to 70 kph, per the news channels. 3rd gear on the flats upwind at 15 kph, 16th gear downwind at 42 kph. Except we didn't do any flats, we climbed, climbed and climbed some more. Five times up the escarpment: Rattlesnake, Steeles, Bell School Line (twice), 14th Side Road. With the head wind it was all I could do to keep 36/24 ticking over. My front wheel was lifting off as I had to sit right back to keep the rear wheel from slipping. It was just too windy and cool. We only did 32 km, and we were absolutely knackered. It was actually a bit discouraging as we only climbed about 375 meters, mostly at 10 or 11% (Rattlesnake is 13%). let's hope it gets easier in the warmer weather. I did not have another 3000 m of climbing left in me.

This Saturday, we plan to do a longer ride, hopefully at something quicker than the 18 kph we averaged on the escarpement.

Slowcolnago

Ok thanks for the tip. I guess i will have to fork out the cash and buy me an MTB. No food for the kids this month. I can see that you guys are taking this thing seriously with you 4 hour MTB rides and gregs 700m verticals. But if you do the big three in one day you will be my hero and nothing should surprise you here until we do Campo Imperatore or Blockhaus (Greg, you didnt tell him about Blockhaus did you...). Btw, do either of you guys use a heart monitor? I find it great help in training, it stops me from getting lazy.
m

Oh yeah Beets, Rattlesnake, i think I remember a gentle slope by that name (tell me that you are going to climb Bell school line as well and I will get a warm fuzzy feeling).
m

Glad to hear that you guys are starting to get your asses in gear. To give you a chance to catch up I have been tooling around Berlin for two days. Beer, Auslesse and brratwurst a go-go. I love that town. I will send or post some images. I was there last in Nov.'89 when the wall was coming down. Its so different now.

I am riding 15k at lunch and hoping to do a longer ride Saturday. I have an appointment to do the route with a GPS to calculate the grades. The weather is hovering around 12°. I can take that. My friends are telling me to get a mountain bike to increase the intensity of our short rides. Beets, do you buy that?

Regarding diet here is a link about bike nutrition. Cut back too much on the wine or you might be king of the mountains but the "domestique" of the trattoria.
Ciao.
Sud

A short break in our otherwise crappy weather this Saturday. It was right around 0 C, and sunny all day. I got out on the road bike for the first time since January 17 !! I only did 35 km as I had very little time available. But, I tried to use the time wisely and did some hill repeats. There are a handfull of short and sweet hills that go up out of the Don Valley path system. Most are about 70 m vertical, with gradients ranging from 5 to 14 %. I measured them with a friends GPS. I did eleven climbs on four seperate hills for a total of about 700 m vertical. 35 km ridden in total, at 20 kph average. Not a horrible speed considering the 11 climbs, 3 of them at 14%. Grey sky, light snow and minus 3 today, yuck. I have asked the fitness specialist at my club to give me a cycling specific weight training programme. He said he would have it ready today. I'll share it with either of you if you are interested, and once I have done it once or twice.

Slowcolnago

74km on Saturday. It was sunny 10° with a brisk wind off the Med. I did a long climb without knocking myself out, some rolling hills then 25k at a good clip along the coast. We can do that ride when you come over. Average speed was 27.
sud

The Diablo cycling club has a good regime for training to do a double century. They are referring to miles, but I think it works if you read it as kilometers. We have 10 weeks. I think the key factor is working up to 150km (with hills) a couple weeks before the event.
I don't expect to be able to do more than 20k on weekdays, with a long ride on saturday and perhaps a long run on Sunday. I think it should be enough.
Sud

6° today, but with violent winds. I did 15k at lunch and was blown all over the place.
It's a good work out though.
sud

The weather is looking up here. It's been over 5 C, and the snow has been
disappearing rapidly. It's supposed to drop back down to just below zero,
o I'll be on the indoor trainer for a while yet. I did an hour last
night at 110 cadence, it felt great. Then I went to Leafs game and drank four
pints. It's that last bit that I have to work harder on.

Comfy shoes are key. I have new Shimanos with carbon soles. I was
getting numb feet but an endurance cyclist that I met in Banff (he won the 1200 km
Banff to Alaska race) told me to wear them very loose, only tightening
them for serious climbs. It made a huge difference, but they do of course have
to fit in the first place.

Slowcolnago

45k on Saturday in howling winds, and for the last 20, cold rain. Two 300m climbs.
20k today at lunch, 3° and drizzle.
Sud