I’m on SRAM AXS with a 36 on the back, bliss!!
1 Like
Join a club, preferably one that does long Sunday club rides (as opposed to one that does mostly fast chaingangs). Go out with them every week, not only once a month. You’ll get a good feel for how fit you are for those long rides, and what you need to work on. It’s likely some of them have done the events you’re targetting before and can give you direct experience.
I’d not just follow a TR plan with the odd long ride, you need to build up much longer endurance and learn how to pace yourself etc. I also find that it is difficult to climb well without doing it regularly - that is probably more of a problem at a lower W/kg ratio, where you need to develop skills at very slow riding.
1 Like
Your W/KG is an absolutely fine, assuming it’s one you can hold for at least 40 mins or so. Most of Fred Whitton climbs are no more than 10 mins at most on the steep sections at your W/KG. It’s 180km, so I’d work on your endurance if you haven’t done any long rides. I’d just enter when the ballot opens for next year, and meanwhile put the work in on longer endurance and short and sharp. Get out in the Chilterns assuming you’re St Albans, plenty of chevron climbs to go at there.
1 Like
I think there’s loads of sense and good info in here, as someone who is often of not too dissimilar weight and wattage I do think on top of the added volume and standard training that later in the prep lots of steep hill repeats could be your friend. In my experience i’d say anything over 12% at a ‘normal’ cadence and 34x34 gearing starts to be above FTP just to keep moving sensibly really, the 20% grades are just really evil anaerobic beasts where your HR maxes out.
The hill climbs suck, but once you get your breath back you kinda wanna go again! The forced VO2-style efforts and being on a hill with no way out except up seems to help me. Definitely feels different to a more controlled interval home on the turbo!
West of you there are definitely some places you could practice a few reps
1 Like
To be honest probably as many as you have the time and money to do.
I used to aim for about one a month, but that was more because a travel and money thing rather than fatigue and recovery.
I suggest getting plenty of endurance rides in when the weather improves and in the mean time improve you fitness with some good solid indoor training, TR is great for that.
Maybe look at doing a few of the easier sportives this summer, joining a club an getting on some group rides is also a good idea to practise riding in groups (in real life no Zwift lol.)
You seem to be interested in the same kind of UK epic events I enjoyed.
A solid 9 - 12 months and I see no reason you couldn’t follow something similar to my 2018 season, I’ll post a screenshot just as an idea, I was 46 at the time but could do the same now in my 50s.
Note: I didn’t do anything in 2017 except the Birmingham Velo (I included it in the screen shot,) so didn’t go into 2018 with massive fitness from 2017. I did use TR heavily Jan-Mar 2018 to get ready for the Cheshire Cat and for mid week training.
The red icons were Sportive or Events, non-red any rides over 130km.
1 Like
Thanks GoLong - good tip about the Chilterns - I’ve now spotted that my local club organises the Chiltern 100 Sportive in May.
1 Like
Thanks SgtPilko - great advice. Looks like there are some decent climbs in the Chilterns… 
1 Like
Thanks for posting that screenshot Btb - that’s an impressive haul…! Really helpful to see your schedule.
A couple of follow up questions if that’s ok:
- you mentioned that you used TR heavily Jan-Mar 2018 - do you remember roughly how many hours a week you were doing?
- which was your toughest (or favourite) event? I’m guessing toughest was either FW or Dragon Devil route?
Cheers
Looking at my calendar I did a lot more than I remember. They can be done on a lot less IMO, especially if not totally hammering them and enjoying them, but anyway…
I actually started Oct/Nov 2017 with a FTP of 250 and during that time ramped up to 9 - 10 hrs.
Jan-Feb was an average of above 11 hours per week, I would do long outside rides if the weather was okay.
March I did three weeks 13 hrs per week into the Cheshire Cat.
Note: I used TR all year during the week and sometimes at the weekend.
The week after the Cheshire Cat I only did 1hr30 and then started to build to FW and the Dragon, on the way was the New Forest Sportive which I used as a training event, I remember finishing that really strong and my threshold had moved from 250w in Nov '17 to 270w Apr '18
By the Dragon I was around 280w.
I was really apprehensive about the Fred Whitton; it scared me a bit (that is what keep me training.) I was lucky the weather for both FW and Dragon that year was amazing (except the first hour of the Dragon.)
The whole weekend of the FW was my favourite but as for the actual events, I couldn’t split them really, they were both well beyond anything else I have ever done, maybe the Fred just edges it. The experience of the Poznan, Poland a year later, comes next closest.
Even though the Sportive aren’t races, I treated them like races. If I did a similar schedule now, I would do it on less training, and just ride them at a solid tempo, not breakneck speed.
Both the Fred and Dragon are must do events in the UK imo.
I never did ‘The Struggle’, maybe one day.
Put down the Fred Whitton, step away slowly… 
I would pick some local sportives that sound like fun, see if anyone in your area or at your local club is doing some and join them.
I’m all for ambitious long term goals, and I’m not saying forget them, but they shouldn’t be at forefront of your mind when you’re starting out as you need to know whether you even enjoy it before signing up for a whole load of certain suffering.
As for the opening question, I don’t think there is a limit to the number of sportives you could do this year, but you’ll get faster if you train properly most of the year and have a few events to look forward to rather than go hard every week/month.
Nothing like a big event to train for, it’s so much more motivating than to just train. Last year I set my goal to do the marmotte (177km 5000m climbing, almost 40% more climbing than FW when I never even had cycled in the mountains before and never even cycled that distance on the flats even)
Recovery time after a large event it really depends on how you pace yourself on the event. There’s a huge difference in fatigue levels at the end of longer rides based on how much you push yourself.
1 Like
I dunno, I think it’ll be possible, I’m guessing they haven’t registered this year, so you’ll be looking at 2026 anyways. It’s tough but a range of abilities can do it. They might not set the course record but should easily get round with a solid training plan.