Tour de France

I meant to do this for the Giro but never got around to it so I will do it for the Tour and Vuelta. What is that? Make a fearless prediction about who will win. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, we are now a week into the Tour and have had a time trial and a few climbs so the field has been sorted about a bit already but I would have made this pick at the beginning of the Tour. My pick is Cadel Evans. I know, it is the safe pick but he can time trial, can hang in there in the mountains and there is no one like Alberto Contador who can climb and time trial in the field this year. It isn't going to be Valverde (he proved that in the first time trial). It won't be Sastre. Kirchen is interesting and I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the mix, same goes for Vande Velde. Menchov could be an interesting pick but I don't think he can hang with Evans in the final time trial. For my money it is Evans.

Climbing!!!

So, the training has gone to another level. Coach Mark started me climbing this week. How is this possible in Illinois? Well, he is lending me his Compu-trainer, which allows me to hook up my bike to it, plug in a wattage number and grind it out (I will post pictures of my set up later, too lazy to take a picture of it right now). This is about as close as you can get to climbing without actually climbing. Riding inside sucks about as bad as anything but seeing that my biggest "climb" in Illinois is about a 10th of a mile I don't have many other choices. There are three climbs in the LOTOJA, the first is 20 miles (that is 200 times longer than my big IL climb!). Have a gander at the profile map for the LOTOJA!

You don't see profiles like that in Illinois!

So far so good on the training front, the climbing kicks my butt but it builds character... and also some scary looking legs (I mean, I have muscles popping out of my calves and thighs that I didn't even know existed!). I am hoping that the miles I have under my belt, my "climbing" on the Compu-trainer and a week in Utah before the race (to do some climbing and get used to the altitude) will be enough to get me through the race.

In the last month I have done 2 century rides. The first one was at a slower pace (18-20 mph) and was very easy for me. I felt like I could have gone another 50 miles. The second one was much faster (significant portions of the ride at 23-25 mph) with fewer stops and longer (110 miles). I could feel it a bit at the end of that ride but still had some left in the tank. Both rides built my confidence in my ability to be successful in the LOTOJA. I have about a month and a half to add to my base and get the climbing part nailed down and I should be in really good shape.