training in herts/bucks for ventoux

speshsteve

Just confirmed the family holiday with some family friends and realised its only 40 or so miles south of the ventoux!!

So as you can imagine I'll be disappearing a couple of mornings early to go and climb it

Just so I can make decent effort, anyone have some good routes maybe chilterns way to ensure I get as many hills in as possible? I kind of know the chilterns but usually get a bit lost so if anyone has a decent circuit they could post up, would be very grateful

Heres to next summer

Steve

Bronzie

Variations on a theme based on the Chiltern Hundred Sportif routes will contain plenty of climbing metres
http://www.chiltern-hundred.org.uk/inde ... &Itemid=61

Anonymous

If you can't get to long hills, spending time going hard non stop for a long time (say 1hr, then recover, then another hour), even on the flat, will help. That's how GTTS2 did a lot of his training for t'mountains IIRC.

singlespeedexplosif

what NapD said. you don't need hills to train to ride hills.

jaffasnap

Go and ride with this lot

http://www.amershamrcc.co.uk/

The Sunday elite ride will usually take you up and down climbs in the Chilterns all morning long, they start and finish in Great Missenden

bobtbuilder

NapoleonD wrote:

If you can't get to long hills, spending time going hard non stop for a long time (say 1hr, then recover, then another hour), even on the flat, will help. That's how GTTS2 did a lot of his training for t'mountains IIRC.

+ lots.

You can train for the mountains even if it's pan flat where you are. It's all about riding near your threshold for 1-2 hours.

phreak

bobtbuilder wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

If you can't get to long hills, spending time going hard non stop for a long time (say 1hr, then recover, then another hour), even on the flat, will help. That's how GTTS2 did a lot of his training for t'mountains IIRC.

+ lots.

You can train for the mountains even if it's pan flat where you are. It's all about riding near your threshold for 1-2 hours.

One thing I will add is that the climbing position seems to use slightly different muscles to when you ride on the flat, so if I'm doing turbo work I tend to do it all with the front wheel raised 4 inches or so to use hamstrings and bum muscles as well.

speshsteve

Thanks guys, the link to amersham with the route library is just what I was after.

Thanks again

Steve

twotyred

Believe me there's nothing in the Chilterns that is anything like Ventoux. You have to get used to 1.5-2 hrs (probably 2 hrs unless you're a cycling god) continuous climbing of 8-10% gradient at near your threshold with no respite. The hills in Britain are too short and the hard ones are generally too short and too steep.

To simulate grinding up Ventoux, as a previous poster suggested, get your bike on a turbo, put a couple of bricks under the front wheel and start doing threshold intervals in a gear hard enough to get your cadence down to about 70-80 rpm. Oh and don't use a fan because it will be hot and stifling if you're doing it in summer.