Grounded!

On the plane, off the plane, switch gates. Then in the new gate they announce "all you folks going to San Francisco will have to wait, we're sending you plane to Paris instead. "

Packed!

Ben: Ready to go!

NAN: Ben suggested I add my 'goals.' Although I usually have goals (i.e., target achievements)for races, but not for vacations, still it's easy to answer: I want to enjoy my biking vacation in the French countryside and see Lance and the other TdF riders in the flesh. Throw in as much riding as suits my abilities (i.e., enough challenge with as little injury as possible) because I just love to ride, especially with good friends and my husband. Toss in as much wine and good food as I can handle each night wihtout tipping the scale or waking up impaired. And top it off with a fun few days in Paris starting with the Tour finale. My sister Maryann and brother-in-law Wodel who will fly in from Berlin to meet us - an added treat. Climb the Tourmalet? If I do, awesome, somethingI can say I did for years to come. (I'll be the first one to be surprised that I managed it.) If I don't? No problem. I'll still have fun. How can you not? French countryside, Paris, Tour de France, French food and wine, aaaand my bike! What's not to love.

Goals

Ben: Killer asked what my goals were for this little ride. Simple, very simple: Col de Aspin/ Col du Tourmalet combination on 7/19 which is part of Stage 16. I have always wanted to climb the Tourmalet (Ventoux too, but next year). And the Col du Soulor/Col de Aubisque combination on 7/21 also a Tour stage (17).

The Tourmalet day is 3 days into the trip. Jet lag will, hopefully, be behind me and it's early enough that exhaustion shouldn't have set it. The Solour/Aubisque combination follows a relative rest day and is the last big scheduled climb of the trip.

This isn't a race. Just getting to the top and back down with a solid effort equals a successful ride. If the bike is good, if I'm good, if the weather is good then everything else is secondary.

Oh, and as I am regularly reminded by my spouse, taking the time to look around and enjoy the view is good too.

Talk

Ben: Good post ride meeting to go over the route for the trip. The morning's ride had been fast and very humid with a bout of atmospheric theatrics forcing a caffeine stop.

Dry kitchen, fresh fruit, cute if skittish King Charles Cavalier spaniel worked to keep the meeting positive, if boisterous.

Talking through a trip day by day, climb by climb gives concerns a chance to be presented, talked over, hopefully laid to rest. It's the stuff we know we don't know that's scary and the stuff others discount as scary that can be frustrating and maddening. Just go read the posts about climbing.

Negotiation, discussion, consensus, argument make group travel much more fun than solo. Unraveling tension.

2.5 weeks to go. J wants to fit in 2 more 100 mile days and more. Lack of mountains, lack of grades in a land of flat pushes us towards endurance rides as the last effective way to build some strength. Would love to get three back to back days of 80 or more miles each.

One, two more chances to prepare then the real thing is here.

Maybe if we take a dog?

Training, Packing, Training

Ben: Before the packing and during, if you're that kind of person, comes the training. This has been a tough winter and spring for training. The usual - weather, darkness, work; got compounded with some difficult life cycle events.

Balanced, more than balanced, by kids excelling, the love and support and understanding of family, friends, and strangers. Hurt made bearable with long, long rides.

The bizarre thing about training is the more you do the harder it gets. The distance, pace, effort needed to get to the point of improving just moves further out in front of you.

It takes discipline and it really helps to train with folks you cannot bear to disappoint to stay at it. It helps if they like to say "oh let's do that hill one or ten more times" 50 miles into a ride. I am convinced 'self improvement' is a chimera.

So here we are about 3 weeks out. Like N I'm an early packer. Packing pulls the future into the present. "Gee, what jersey to wear for the Tourmalet?" Pick a jersey and you have to climb that mountain. You've seen it in your head.

The bin for "stuff maybe I should take" has been collecting gear for months. The "Road Rash" kit is built. Materials for packing the bikes gathered. I think I know what plan to get for the iPhone. Tickets and a hundred other details attended to.

Fun.

Now it's just finish the training plan, fold the clothes into the suitcase, pack the bike and watch for the thing that's going to blindside us at the last minute and be ready to roll with it.

Time is short!

NAN: Okay, clealry we haven't been updating much, so I'll try to get the ball rolling again. I have one bag on the floor in by bedroom and have started to pack. Crazy, I know, but that is my MO - pack early - packing is my physical connection to dreaming about traveling. (Ok, and I'm a little too organized sometimes.) Already too much to bring. Bike gear and supplies will take up 3/4. How many tubes should we each bring? Uh, how many bottels of Advil? Bandages? Tubes of antibiotic?? Ah, well, the perils of cycling. . . Training largely derailed this spring by numerous family events and most recently the flu. But I am still looking forward to squeezing in some long rides and hopefully some hilly ones before mid-July rolls around.

Beautiful Weekend in Chicago for Training

NAN: Just came back from a half marathon race in Chicago with Doug. He finished! Only his second race ever, and he enters a half marathon! I did not (finish). Bad news: IT band injury not healed enough to do a half and after 5-6 miles had to hobble back and search for "ii" (ice & ibuprofin). Good news: Injury does not seem to affect my biking! Totally running related. Yesterday did a series of hill repeats with Ben and Adam. Ben and Julianne are doing hill repeats today. Training is coming along. But I am wondering, how many switchbacks to the top of a mountain? Or (she asks with even more trepidation) what happens when there are no switchbacks and it's a steady climb? Hard to mimic that in the Midwest. We'll just have to wait and see. All I can say is I trust there'll be penty of good wine at the end of each day!

Climbing Psychology

NAN: It's all individual, Ben, and we will never be the same on this. Pace-lining feels very purposeful, fun and driven to me as does solo sprinting; climbing feels a chore, okay, yes, with a reward of surviving at the end should I make it assuming my pounding heartbeat allows me to even enjoy the moment which is rare. Lance or Contador climbing and Cavendish sprinting are all equally motivated and rewarded. (Actually, Lance and Contador can do everything ... a league I'll never know - those who ride fast and climb well!) Take tip #8 below and reverse 'climber' with 'sprinter' with each other. You get my point. Also, you assume that I ever wanted to be a climber. I was happy going for speed. Venues for our non-local trips have both been decided by you, did ya notice?? I never chose climbing, YOU did. Yes, 'fraid so, you're just a climbing bigot. (Julianne not so, she's not as pushy as you. She just happily goes along for the ride with a hint of sheer glee in her eye doubtless fueled by the fact that she will be sitting at the top of each and every hill waiting for our sorry asses to jon her. Well, you'll be with her if you take your 'meds' if ya know what I mean, and I know you do. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) So cut it out. I'll never be you (re climbing) and you'll never be me (re time trialing). Get used to feeling guilty that you forced me into this. (I kind of enjoy that, actually. It'll be the only way I can inflict pain back at you as you tell me how great that last climb in the Pyrenees felt with rabid glee in your eyes. I will doubtless put the glare of guilt on you at that point as only oxygen-starved eyes can do.)


Having established the groundwork - that it's not a matter of me 'seeing the light' (read YOUR light) but rather of me coping with it, tips 9 and 10 will be taken to heart. I would not mind at all becoming a better climber and a stronger cyclist, although there are days I look at this and think I am a little crazy, days when I feel every inch of 57. Luckily they are balanced by days when I feel, insanely, of course, that I can just eat up the world happily and go for a second round. (I suspect you each know both of these feelings.)


#9 - Relax:

Always working on that and will try to be more conscious of it in the climbing context. Agreed, easy to start relaxed, harder to maintain.

#10 - Suck-it-Up (paraphrased):

I race, been there, know that normal pain is transient. Only dread injury pain a little since it disables you. Will try to convert better to the new brand of leg/lung pain on hills, nay, mountains! (okay, I'm breathing hard thinking about this - back to #9 ....)

bonus pts:

#11 - Don't Look Up:

Best advice yet - after Berkshires I never want to try to assess the lenghth of a hill again, nor do I need to. It's a given: it'll hurt, it'll always look endless, you will always be left saying, "what the f---?!?" if you look up before you reach the top. (The eyes, or mountain demons, play tricks on us, or perhaps it's just optical illusions of theoxygen-starved brain...). I will never look up again. And if you should catch me doing so, I give you permission to take a 2x4 -- or the nearest bike pump -- and crack me on the helmet.

#12 - Smile:

F----off.

Okay, let me elaborate. As Jon Stewart (Daily Show) would unabashedly say to mentally limited bigots who trash him (rightly so, I might add, I mean Jon Stewart, not the bigots) with full robed choir in the background: "Go F--- Yourself!" Did he get this from the ear-phoned kid in "About a Boy"? Image keeps coming to kind... (You obviously have not been getting your Daily dose if you don't get this, but surely you get my drift either way.)

Smile?!? Really, he asks too much. Besides, I always hated people telling me to smile. Smiles come naturally when they come. Doesn't mean you're miserable just because you don't have a gaping grin all day. Well, hmmm, except maybe when climbing a mountains on a bike....

BEN: The on going discussion we've been sharing on the our different approaches to climbing have engendered a little (just a little) reflection on thinking about climbing. It just feels so much more purposeful and rewarding than pacelining. How it will feel when the climb is more than 600 ft remains to be seen. I'm going to have to use the techniques below on headwinds.

Enjoy.

Toolbox: Climbing Skills 2
Monday, August 13, 2007 10:51:43 PM PT

by Josh Horowitz

As we've seen in France during July, time trials and the climbing are the two primary triggers for stage racing success, with Contador signaling the return of explosive climbers to the top steps of the podium. Last month we discussed the first series of training and technical tips on climbing, and today we focus on the mental strategies to “elevate” your cycling…

Unlike other aspects of cycling, climbing success is considered by most to be almost 100% dependant on fitness and natural ability. After teaching a race clinic a few weeks ago it occurred to me that there is actually much more to it. Over the years, I’ve picked up numerous tricks and techniques that have allowed me to occasionally put one over on a stronger competitor. At the grass roots level, it is possible to just out ride your opponents, but as you get into the higher categories and the gap in ability narrows, strategy becomes increasingly important.

In the first article, we focus on the first 7 tips under Training and Technique. We will spend the second article on the Psychology of climbing and also on some bonus tips. If you find one or two that help you out then my job is done!

Mental: Tips 8-10
8. I am a Strong Climber and I Love to Climb!
I couldn’t write an article on climbing without mentioning the mental aspect. For most riders, the climb is won or lost the moment the looming incline comes into view. I cringe when I hear riders declare “I’m not a climber” or even “I’m a sprinter.” Unless you are a world class or professional cyclist, there is just no reason to limit yourself with statements such as these. The rider who thinks to himself that s/he is not a climber will never be a great climber no matter how hard they train. Mentally, they defeat themselves before they even reach the base. These negative self believes are powerful and deeply ingrained into the subconscious, but they can be overcome.

Next time you have one of these thoughts, write it down and then write down a positive thought that directly counteracts the negative one. For instance if you find yourself thinking “I hate to climb and I’m terrible at it,” you may want to write, “I am a strong climber and I love to climb!” Notice that the statement is 100% positive. Using the word love in your statement has also been proven to improve the power of your mantra. Find 20 minutes on each ride to repeat this statement or affirmation to yourself. Say it out loud and with conviction. Think of the brain as having a type of muscle memory that can be re-shaped with training and repetition. If you do this consistently, you will be amazed at the results.

9. Relax
Negative thinking can cause a physical reaction. Riders who get nervous whenever the road ascends tend to tense up. They waste energy by clenching their shoulders and their arms. They lose their breathing rhythm and some (as ridiculous as this might sound) actually unconsciously hold their breath. Another result of this physical tension is a breakdown in efficiency. Their otherwise smooth pedal stroke becomes choppy and broken. As a result of all this, their heart rate rises much faster than a rider with a similar power to weight ratio and they end up going off the back.

Try these two tricks. At night, when you are relaxed and lying in bed, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Imagine yourself on a challenging climb. Visualize yourself feeling relaxed and pedaling smoothly. Conjure up emotions and feelings you’ve had while doing something cycling related where your confidence soars, such as riding in a pace line or sprinting, and translate that into this climbing scenario. See yourself spinning effortlessly and summiting in record time with very little difficulty. Do this every night before you fall asleep. Make your visualization as realistic as possible incorporating sights, sounds, smells and sensations. If possible, imagine a particular climb that you want to conquer. You punish yourself on the bike week after week. Why not add a few minutes of training each day which won’t even require you to break a sweat?

10. Take the Pain
This may seem obvious, but be ready to suffer. I don’t mean normal suffering - I mean be prepared to push yourself past the point of pain. Often an entire ride or race comes down to one moment on the slopes. How you respond at that moment will define you as a rider. Depending on the situation, don’t worry about conserving energy and DON’T look at your power meter or heart rate monitor. The heart rate and power you put out in a competitive situation will be much higher than what you can handle in training. In many situations, if you ease off on the climb, your day is over anyway so what are you saving it for? If you are suffering, chances are so is everyone else. Holding on for that additional 10 seconds could be the difference between heart break and a personal best. Then if you do get dropped at least you’ll know you gave it your all.


Bonus Tips
I went back and forth about this, but I decided to toss in some climbing secrets that I’ve picked up over the years. Use these when you need that extra half a watt to make it over with the group and for heavens sake, don’t tell anyone about them!

11. Don’t Look Up
When you look up to see the top, you get a distorted perspective of the steepness of the climb. Instead, distort your view in the opposite direction. Look straight down at the pavement in front of you. From this angle, it will appear to your brain that you are riding on a flat road and riding on a flat road isn’t so bad is it?

12. Smile
Often I catch myself making an exaggerated pain face as if to express my suffering to the world. Instead, try a smile. The brain associates a smile with pleasure and happiness. Smiling while you are climbing can trick your brain into thinking that you are not in as much pain as you think you are.

Never read anything at Midnight

On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:56 PM, Nan wrote:

Just read your great summary - only now I'm really going to vomit. This is insane, beyond me.


You read this at Midnight? Darn I was hoping you'd be asleep. Really you should read it in the daylight, with a second large glass of wine to hand and Bekka rolling around at your feet. Stuff read at Midnight always seems so distressing and depressing.

I have a long (of course) argument all laid out on training and prep and your technique for coping, but I need to be at work in a few hours.

You have made a great suggestion though. Maybe all of us should exert ourselves until we vomit (I'm eating breakfast so that sentence is distressing) and just get over the fear of finding that intimidating boundary.

Yes this is a little insane, but look at the four of us, we're not really the safe and steady path types, we're not the "I'm not looking up at that mountain to so I don't see what I'm missing", types are we Miss," I'm doing a Triathlon the week we go to France"?

Base jumping may not be our thing, nor is sitting around doing the same thing over and over when we have the option to explore.

This may be my last, best chance to explore a place I've never been (not just geographically). I know what I want to do and I know I may not be able to do it cleanly, but hey the bike washes off easily.

Ben

Nan: Ben and Julianne, my faithful friends, stuck by me after my foolish bike fall. (Here patiently standing in the emergency room). Now, to be a cyclist and to give up a ride on a sunny spring morning to hang out in a hospital just to see a friend through the ordeal, now that's sacrifice. Couldn’t want two better friends for the ride through the Pyrenees. Hopefully no more triage there! Thanks to you both.

So where are we going

Maps are without a doubt the coolest invention. A map can be read right to left top to bottom or upside down and make equal sense in any direction. Their story is both fiction and nonfiction.

Pyrénées
The snippet at left spans the the most famous of Pyrenian climbs from just east of the Col du Tourmalet down the pass to Luz-Saint-Sauveur (where we will spend 5 days) then down the Gorge de Luz to the turnoff (west) to climb the Col du Soulor and Col d' Ausbisque. At the north edge is Hautacam. Another famous and apparently god awful climb not on our itinerary, but maybe...Hautacam, like Luz Ardiden a dead end climb to a ski resort, has been a TdF stage finish 4 times - 1994, 1998, 2000, 2008. Armstrong gained a 4 minute lead on Urlich here in 2000. Securing his victory that year.

Armstrong crashed with Iban Mayo, then recovered and won the stage on Luz-Ardiden in 2003. A stage finish 7 times - 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 194, 2001, 2003. Besides Armstrong this climb has been won by the famous -Miguel Indurain (1990) and infamous -Richard Virenque (1994). Ardiden is not on the list either, but it's so close.

But I am getting ahead of the story.

The group ride kicks off from Toulouse, main city of the Midi-Pyrénées region. and heads to Quillan for the first night. Easy, flat. We'll get to shake off the jet lag and sort out the other riders on this tour.

From Quillan it gets more interesting. The first real climbs start on day 2 with three route options. All end on the Plateau de Bonascre.

Options, options

1. Drive to the town of Ax-les-Thermes and ride the final climb to Plateau de Bonascre - 7.8km averaging 8.6% (11.9% max)

2. Get on the bike at Quillan and ride 53km to its base going over Col de Chioula (1431m), then up the 7.8km to PdB. Quillan is at 291m, Plateau de Bonascre is at 1378m. Just 61 km of up-down-up.

3. The 3rd option is over Port de Pailhères, the race route, at 2001m just 114m lower than Col du Tourmalet, 67km to the base of Plateau de Bonascre, then the 7.8km to the finish. Porte de Pailheres is said to be a slow easy climb from Quillan for the first 32km, then a tough 11km at 7, 8 & 9%.
After all this riding it's into the van for transit to Luz St. Sauveur. Should be interesting, 16 very tired, and likely sweaty riders in one vehicle, just before dinner. At least our first view of the Tourmalet is not on the bike.

Morning of day 3 we're up in Luz St Sauveur. Up is figurative as Luz St Sauveur is the bottom of the bag. Surrounded by the most storied climbs in the Pyrenees - Tourmalet and Col d'Aspin east and up, Luz-Ardiden to the immediate west and up, Hautacam south and a little down then way up. It's south and west to the double up of Col du Soulor and Col d'Ausbisque.

4 days, 6 Cols, 4 are doubled up. Kind of a two for one heart attack Col combination plate.

Did I mention the Tour de France passes through town twice? And of course to get more than a fleeting look we too will have to climb up and over a Col to watch them come up the other side. 4 days, 5708 meters of possible up.

Then a change. After 6 days in the hills it is flatlander time outside of Bordeaux at Pauillac. The 51km Time Trial course is open to cyclist.

Then recover and next day watch the time trial on the next to last day of the 2010 TdF.

Then disassemble the bikes, box them up and get up early next morning and hop the TGV to Paris to watch the final laps on Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

Then we relax.

Safety in numbers

BEN: Had a good ride yesterday -first outside- until Nancy crashed out right in front of me. No blood, no compound fractures, then she started to complain about head pain in an area covered by her helmet. That and growing facial scrape and bruise tipped the assessment in favor of calling the EMTs.

Post ER, no serious problems, just big bumps and some RR.

Lesson-If you crash, crash with friends with working cell phones. Oh and don’t put yourself in the middle of even a slowish group the first couple of rides of the season.

Something to think about before we start descending those 1000 meter cols surrounded by cyclists we don't know and whose languages we do not speak.

Climbing, climbing

BEN: I like to climb. Not that I am any good at it (read: I am dead slow, I use a triple, I go right to the 30x29).

On the flats riding is a near endless grind punctuated by conversation, anerobic moments and turns pulling into the wind. (Let's not get on to the topic of inattentive road users today.)

But there is a finite challenge to going up hill. There is a top, there is an end, there is, usually, a very exciting reward just past the crest. I like going downhill even more.

The left side of this blog has this photo:

Luz Ardiden climb. Photo by Tim Kops 7/14/2003

Just across the narrow valley from Luz St Sauveur is the road up to the ski resort on Luz Ardiden. This climb has been a Tour finish 7 times since 1983. The last time, in 2003, Lance Armstrong won the stage after crashing when a spectator's musette bag caught the handle bar.

A 1010 meter climb over 14.7 kilometers Average grade 6.9%. Max grade just over 10%. An 'HC' climb.

Luz Ardiden is the kind of place hard to accept as a flatlander. All those switch backs. No level ground, hell no ground that's not man-made you can stand on and not fall over.

And when we've gotten to the top we get to go right back down.

Julianne and her Bianchi, Nan and her Trek, the Berkshires

Julianne will be riding her Bianchi - she will be the one leaving me in the dust - a natural born climber! I will smile in awe . . . as I push my bike up the mountain behind her. Now as to Ben, who will doubtless be doing laps around me. we'll have to have him drug tested . . . And Doug? Remains to be seen . . . untested but you never know.

So how high is 2115 meters anyway?

BEN: Well it's as high at the Col du Tourmalet. Which we will climb at least once and possibly twice. (That's 6,938.9764 ft, but we start at 710 meters so it's not that
bad a climb.)

This photo is of the long hill on the Great River Ride in the Berkshires. Its about 8% and 1/2 to 3/4 of mile straight up - meaning no switchbacks. You climb and climb and the end never looks to get any closer for a long while. This shot is from half way up and from my adopted flatlander perspective it seemed formidable. Yet, it's only 800ft above sea level.

That is the biggest problem we have to deal with - our flatlander perspective. The rest is training.

Nan's bike

NAN: The bike I will cart to France and ride - 2008 Trek Madone 5.1 WSD with Ultegra components, Compact crank, and am putting on an Ultegra 6700 10-speed 11-28 cassette before we leave.

and so it starts . . .

NAN: What started out as a dreamy proposal to bike around Provence with my biking pals and our spouses, and then join up with the Tour de France to watch the famous (and infamous) TdF cyclists ride by in the Pyrenees mountains, has turned out to be a trip with us biking through the Pyrenees ourselves! While I am full of trepidation at the prospect of climbing mountains, since my bike legs were only recently formed on the Midwestern flats, I am more full of sheer excitement at the prospect of this trip. Biking in France and seeing the Tour de France with my husband, Doug Hasegawa, and two of my closest friends, Julianne Meurice and Ben Schapiro?!? Doesn't get better - unless my kids could come, too. The four of us have our work cut out for us - developing climbing legs will be no small chore. But it will keep us in shape, always a good thing after 50. Meanwhile, have to get the cowbell out of cobwebs. And who knows, maybe we’ll have to find at least one devil-and-pitchfork costume to wear along the race route! Lance, here we come. And now (and this is for my kids – they’ll understand) I can personally yell at those nuts along the sidelines of the race who run in front of the cyclists risking crashes! More as this trip develops . . .

Our Correspondents

Ben's bike

Going up?