Preparation and Training: Can two old timers do those passes in under a year? - Grampies on the Go Summer 2011 - CycleBlaze

March 9, 2011

Preparation and Training: Can two old timers do those passes in under a year?

We returned from the Rockies on July 22 and went for a short local bike ride on the 24th. The next day both Steve and I came down with 'flu'? and coughed and felt miserable for several months while our plans to begin training for a long summer ride got placed aside. We did, however, do a lot of planning, gear researching and had great fun buying (and returning) various items. When training recommenced gently in late September we found ourselves sidetracked by still feeling below par, visits from various children and the advent of an unusually (for the west coast) cold and snowy winter.

Still, we began to head out on 30k jaunts with partial loads. We headed south of our place, to Mill Bay, and north to Duncan.

Our next step is to both increase the loads to near full, the distances to 50k and 100k, and to include the one major hill in our area - the Malahat Drive (You can see the Malahat on the map just above. We know we are not really ready for these escalations, but we also know our actual departure is coming up. We need to be able to average 85k per day to reach Montreal before September, so we need to get on with harder training!

The view from our training road in Mill Bay, BC.
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Unusual traffic. The ferry must have just unloaded.
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A horse watering trough along our route. Our present steeds are not interested!
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Not a BoB bag, but a sack of no name kitty litter. At 18 kg it is a relatively light training load. Readers who are not from Canada may find the bilingual kitty litter labelling interesting.
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