On Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 11:49:51 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at 3:10:28 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at 7:11:18 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > On Monday, April 18, 2022 at 1:49:57 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > > On Monday, April 18, 2022 at 1:31:42 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, April 18, 2022 at 10:10:37 AM UTC-7, Roger Merriman wrote:
> > > > > > Tom Kunich <cycl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > On Monday, April 18, 2022 at 7:38:34 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > > > > >> It appears that all of my training for a 2,000 ft of climbing metric
> > > > > > >> will be my flat 25 mile course rides. It should be interesting to see
> > > > > > >> how this turns out. The ride is Saturday and there is rain predicted
> > > > > > >> Tuesday, Thursday and into Friday. The rain probably won't go as far
> > > > > > >> south as the location of the Century but we have now gotten enough rain
> > > > > > >> that the plant growth on the sides of the road pushes you out into the
> > > > > > >> middle of your lane so it is difficult for traffic to pass. Part of the
> > > > > > >> century is on fairly heavily used roads.
> > > > > > > Since this is only 2,000 feet total climbing and the grades are mild I
> > > > > > > consider this a pretty much flat ride from memory. What I most remember
> > > > > > > about it is the initial 25 miles of flat roads before any climbing at all
> > > > > > > and then the long gradual descent after the several mile gradual ascent.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > If that’s 2000ft over 100 miles it’s quite a flat route, just back from a
> > > > > > London Cobbles ride, 1000ft over 60miles. Probably only that much due to
> > > > > > Wimbledon/Richmond park. Plus the tunnel under the thames…
> > > > > Well that 2,000 feet of climbing are actually over less than 5 miles. Then there is a long slow descent with frantic corner marshals thinking you're going to fast approaching a turn at 20-25 mph and flagging like hell. All of the hills are in about 20 miles and has the last 10 miles usually with a strong tailwind though with the weather pattern lately it is just as likely to be a headwind.
> > > > I did a little over 25 miles so that now I have over 1,200 miles for the year and I expect that with the three rest stops on the metric that I won't have any problems as long as I'm not being pushed by the people that I'm riding with. I don't expect that though since the cop tells me that he has hurt his back and will only be half way through his physical therapy and his wife hurt her ankle not to long ago and hasn't recovered yet.
> > > >
> > > > Today's ride had the damn wind in my face the entire way what with the front rolling in. The northwesterly went to southwesterly and then to southeasterly. Every time I turned the flags would be in my face. Not a real strong wind but enough.
> > > I had set my saddle to 31.5 on the C50 like the Trek Alpha, which gave me a lot of leg extension but made me feel faster. But I found myself coasting a lot more than normal. I also got sore leg muscles that bothered me most of the night. I set it back down to 30.5 and it felt a bit slower and my leg extension felt too short. But what was happening was that I had a lot more power and wasn't coasting except where you naturally would - over rough roads and cracks in the pavement etc. I had almost a full mph higher average despite the wind being against me all day. I will lift it up another quarter of a inch today which should give me pretty close to perfect position. I suppose that I could go down to my local high end bike shop and get a fitting but in my experience that has to be slowly modified to your personal body peculiarities anyway. Presently the reach is correct so all I have to get down is the saddle height.
> > I see I got the measurements incorrect. It was set to 31.5 but was dropped to 31 so that the total change in height was about a cm. I did increase it a quarter of an inch which should be about correct. though hitting the exact proper saddle height is always a problem since reach and seat tube angle is always different from one manufacturer to another.
> My usual training for a century was to do several non-stop centuries. What this did was leave me in a condition in which I didn't need to stop at any rest stops and I would arrive back at the start before most people. While my rolling speed was not particularly high, my total time was shorter than the others who would sit in rest stops sometimes for over and hour and then take off fast. Early in these rides I would be passed by groups going much faster than I was going but at the end of the ride these same groups would be trickling in, in dribs and drabs, dragging ass and then telling everyone how high their road speeds were.

Due to rain and heavy wind my total training for the metric was only about 150 miles. Do not try this yourself. Anyone that believes that this was an easy climbing metric is simply stupid. I rode with a friend and his wife and they invited another friend and his wife. She could easily been a top rated women's pro. She shows up for the ride knowing that she would be riding with us, riding a Schwinn Madison track bike set up as a single speed. Things turned out as I expected - she disappeared up the road. Her husband as always tried to keep up with her and my friend and his wife tried to keep up with them. On the early stages of the ride it was flat and on lousy back roads that I would normally ride on the Mission San Juan Batista. That is a flat to ride and a climbing back ride. A metric both ways. Going through a town I hit three red lights that they squeezed through a yellow light. I wasn't going to run a red light because there was quite a bit of cross traffic and a cop at one. So they got quite a bit ahead. I was looking far out into the distance to see where they were and missed turn arrows on the ground and ended up riding a mile up a hill past a county park and what turned out to be a dead end. Turning around and retracing my steps I saw a couple of bikes turn on a flat road. I followed them and my friend was waiting for me about two miles up the road since earlier we had discovered by seat pack had fallen open and I had lost the tire levers so I had no way of changing a tube if I got a flat. I wasn't worried since I had new Michelin Pro4's on the bike but he was. As we approached the second rest stop, our companions were already coming out so we turned with them and continued the ride. Then the road turned up. I made the mistake of trying to keep up with my friend (who is 10 years younger than me but had no more training this year than I have) On what turned out to be a 12% climb. 7.6 mph. I should have dropped down immediately into low gear and made that at my normal 4 mph. Finally I had to stop and allow my heart rate to come down to normal. Then I couldn't clip in on a grade that steep and a road that narrow so I had to walk up the hill most of the way to find a flat enough spot that I could clip in. So of course I hit another 12% section and now I was too tired to ride up it and had to walk again. My friend has a custom made steel Tommasini where he flew to Italy and had him and his wife custom fitted. He also found 10 speed Centaur levers that would shift triples for both. He thinks that he has a lower gear than I do but in fact his triple is almost the same ratio. So what he achieved on that initial climb was to exhaust himself. But being 10 years younger he recovers faster.

I was really dragging by the next rest stop and we made the mistake of staying in there too long. My friend now had that 1000 yard stare of complete exhaustion though his wife wasn't much troubled. She is a little younger than he is and it makes a remarkable difference in this sort of ride. Out of the rest stop I didn't get a chance to warm up again before we hit two more 12% sections and I was walking again. I haven't walked up a climb in the 10 years since I recovered from my concussion so this was pretty traumatic. Finally we descended back into the valley and the road back to the starting line had several rises in it, for the 4 miles remaining but I managed not to have any problem except having to stare at the front wheel.

Finally got back, put the bike away into my car and searched out the feed and got my T-shirt which oddly is made out of some artificial fabric but is actually much warmer than a cotton T-shirt.

With the exhaustion on the drive home I had to be extremely careful I didn't fall asleep at the wheel in heavy traffic. When I got onto 880 which goes up the east side of the bay, the driving was nearly stop and go the entire way.

The messing about with saddle height paid off since I got no saddle sores and despite the leg exhaustion, this morning I will be able to go out for a short recovery ride.

So, about doing a metric without training up to it - DON'T. But it doesn't take a lot of training. Before i always road a couple of metrics or nearly so, before the organized century and hadn't a bot of trouble. Since I turned 75 I noticed a sharp drop in power which has only increased each year. But this can be offset somewhat by proper training.