Training ?

I've been asked to do a cycle for charity. The bike ride is 120 miles on a
very hilly course and I've got less than 2 weeks to train for it.
My exercise background is that I run 30 miles a week, on most weeks. Some
weeks I might skip a run and do a bike ride. That ride would normally be 25
miles.
Today I went out on the bike and did 40 miles on a hilly course. I felt OK
except for the worst hills, but I wouldn't fancy doing the distance twice
more today.
What kind of training schedule should I be looking at over the time I have
left. I don't want to overtrain and be drained on the day but I do want to
perform to my best.

Also, can anyone recommend a better setup, the one that is on my bike seems
designed for going downhill on straight roads, at least that's what it felt
like today :). The current cassette has 15-20 teeth, 6 speed. On the front
are 42 & 52 tooth chainrings.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Ian

Yikes, two weeks is not much time to go from zero to 120 *hilly* miles.
As has been posted, a more "hill friendly" cassette would be
better...something along the lines of a 12-25 in the rear, and perhaps
if it can be done switch from the 42 to a 39 up front. Probably not
practical at this point, so the other best advice would be to take the
ride itself very, very slow.

Good luck.

Mike C

Iano wrote:
> I've been asked to do a cycle for charity. The bike ride is 120 miles on a
> very hilly course and I've got less than 2 weeks to train for it.
> My exercise background is that I run 30 miles a week, on most weeks. Some
> weeks I might skip a run and do a bike ride. That ride would normally be 25
> miles.
> Today I went out on the bike and did 40 miles on a hilly course. I felt OK
> except for the worst hills, but I wouldn't fancy doing the distance twice
> more today.
> What kind of training schedule should I be looking at over the time I have
> left. I don't want to overtrain and be drained on the day but I do want to
> perform to my best.
>
> Also, can anyone recommend a better setup, the one that is on my bike seems
> designed for going downhill on straight roads, at least that's what it felt
> like today :). The current cassette has 15-20 teeth, 6 speed. On the front
> are 42 & 52 tooth chainrings.
>
> Any advice would be appreciated.
>
> Ian

If you have a heart rate monitor and are used to your training zones
for running then suggest you use that to make sure you take it easy,
both on your long training rides and the day. Also, stay in as easy a
gear as you can and keep the legs turning quickly. Going in a hard
gear and bashing away will wear you out a lot quicker. Trust me,
however easy it feels at first you are going to hurt by 120 miles!

More general tips - you are going to burn a lot of calories
(4000-5000+?) and do a lot of sweating so you will need to drink a lot
of fluid and replace as many of those calories as you can on the go -
don't know what support is available on the ride but if it's hot you
may need to drink >1 litre of fluid every hour. Have a big
carbohydrate meal the night before as well - lots of pasta or
something.

Thanks for the advice guys.
I got a new chainring which has made all the difference on the climbs.
Since my original post I've clocked over 200 miles so I'm actually feeling
quietly confident. The only worry is that longest ride to date is still only
70 miles, 50 miles short of target ! Less than a week to go and I'm looking
forward to it.

Ian