TransRockies.com

[pgjohnson]

I am looking to participate in the next year or two but I am not sure what to expect at all in terms of terrain. I live in Calgary. Can any other fellow Calgarians that have done the transrockies before post a trail or series of trails near Calgary that would give me an idea of the kind of terrain and technical skills needed to cover an average day in the transrockies?



Cheers,

Paul

[Darth Vader]

How fit do you need to be to do this I ride about 3 hours a week on week ends .bit tubby and the wrong side of 40. strangly no breathing problem

any ideas on training regimen ?

[danzaff]

darth vader,



I'm not sure what to expect either, I signed up for 2008. I'm a bit older than you are and dropping my chubbyness quickly. I hope you signed up too, because I'm sure with you there I won't be last -)))))))) seriously now, with 3 hour rides on the weekends, I don't think you stand a snowball chance in hell.

[Darth Vader]

Hi thanks

was just looking to complete it

I obviously realised that I would need to put a bit more training in ( Alot in fact ) but just wondered how much Myy intention was to do as much as I can ,but would that be enough

cheers

maybe see you there

[danzaff]

darth vader,



My partner and I have the same goal, just to finish every stage gracefully and able to trink a couple of beers and not being carted off to the emergency room for infusions. having that that, here's what I have been doing for the last 2 month. every day at least one hour of easy distance rides on my mtb bike ( I don't own a road bike) keeping my cadence at 10-110 and my heartrate at 85% of my lactate threshold. On the weekends I try to do longer rides the longest ride so far was 4:50. without changing my diet (still trink lots of wine and beer) I was able to shed about 15lbs (6.5kg) I guess. more importantly, I shrunk my girth by 4" (10cm) . hopefully come august I will have dropped another 15lbs and 4" inches more of my waste. in the last 4 days I rode roughly 120miles ( 200km) and climbed 12500' or 3750m. when the days finally get longer, I will attempt longer rides with slighty more climbing.

[WildCard]

Well my 2 cents... I rode for 2 of the 7 days in 2007 and I trained about 6 hours a week riding 3-5 days a week from january on and it was tough... Biggest challenge is finding a compatible partner.



It's 90 percent a mind game... You need each other to keep going. If this part fails you will fail.



I plan on riding most of 2008 in a few single and multi-day events with a partner and then going at the TR in 2009... With double and more focused training (together).



Biggest thing I can stress is to get out there with your partner. Some people have pulled it off never riding with their partner, but I do not believe that's the norm... I rode 3-4 times with my partner between January and August and we were not even close to being in sync... Still friends but did not finish ))

[Hootess]

We did TR07 - we completed days 1, 2 and 7, and got as far as we could the other days.



This time last year I was riding pretty much every day - weekdays before and after work doing an ever extending route (if there were days when I couldn't ride through business trips where I couldn't take my bike I would go for a run, or go to the gym), then weekends riding for at least 5 hours one day, and 3-5 hours the other day. As the spring approached, this ramped up more, and we had a week away training in the Pyrenees to get used to altitude. My team mate and I were fairly evenly matched until then, unfortunately he had a fall and hurt his wrist quite badly. The wrist mended, but by then my fitness was better than my team mate's. Day 3 he suffered bad dehydration, and as a result had to go on a drip. We had to take it easy day 4, and just tried to do our best after that.



You and your partner need to get as many hours in the saddle as possible, and get used to each other. You have to be there for each other during the race. All kinds of things happen to different teams.



Training for the TR took over my life last year - thankfully my teammate was my husband, and so we did actually enjoy spending all that time together. Currently, we're enjoying being able to do all those things we put on hold last year to do the TR.



As WIldcard says, it is also a mind game - if you are both determined to succeed, and have enough fitness to ride for 6-10 hours a day, then you can make it.

[GS]

Darth,

Like you, I've passed 40 a while ago. I'm a weekend warrior at best and signed up for the 07 TR with the same reservations you seem to be experiencing. I trolled this forum regularly hoping to find some assurance that I'd survive the week. Here's some feedback that would have been helpful to me about a year ago:



- I have a full-time job, 2 young kids, etc. and have limited time for training. I tried to get a couple of rides in after work each week, and one was invariably followed by some wings and beer with my riding buddies. If I couldn't hit the trails, I'd hit the trainer now and then after the kids went to bed. I'd try to do a longer ride or race each weekend of up to 4 hours. I did an 8hr solo and a 24 hour tag-team leading up, and a few shorter races for fun. I would occasionally ride into to work (about 40 k each way). I'd say I averaged about 8 hrs a week on the bike or trainer and at most did maybe 12, if I did an extra long weekend ride.

- I live in the east, we have no mountains. i rode up and down the biggest hills I could find but I wouldn't say I did a huge amount of climbing training.

- My partner and I finished in the top half of the 80+ category. There were some tough days, but I never felt as though I wouldn't be able to finish. I'd never done anything like this before so I think I actually took it easier than I needed to the first part of the week. As a result though, I felt pretty good at the end. I don't know it you could call it comfortable, but I felt I was adequately prepared.

- Doing the 8 hour solo races or rides were important just to figure out what works best for food and drink. I think as long as you don't bonk you can slug through just about anything.

- A friend of mine who also raced last year had some health issues about a month prior to the race and was unable to train much leading up. He did fine.

- The long climbs took a bit of getting used to. There's usually 2 good climbs (over an hour) each stage. You learn that if you just find your own pace and keep moving forward that you will reach the top OK.



So here's my advice: Train as much as you can, but don't worry about it too much. If you can, do a couple of 6+ hour back to back rides on weekend. If you can do this without too much problem, you'll be fine. Make sure you figure out what kind of food and drink you can stomach during longer rides, this is key. Take care of your bike, we had no mechanicals and this was a huge bonus, go tubeless if you haven't already. It is as much a mental exercise as a physical one, so the key is to just find a steady pace that you can maintain and you'll make it.



My only disclaimer is that we lucked out with near perfect weather last year. If the weather is worse, I'm sure it all gets more challenging.

It's good to be a bit worried as it motivates you to get out on the bike when you may not really feel like it. If I made it though, it's not out of the reach of most people.



Good luck, use the force.