Tierra Bella Century?

[snapdragen]

Now I'm really jealous. Mel used to be a bike potato like me. Now she's all ALC'd up and spinning up hills.

[melissam]

Now I'm really jealous. Mel used to be a bike potato like me. Now she's all ALC'd up and spinning up hills.

Snap, if anything, it should give you hope. I mean, if I can do it, anyone can do it!

[Bike Goddess]

Melissm-

A couple of guys from our club went down to Morgan Hill and rode with some other folks on the newer version of the Tierra Bella. They say that there are some pretty stiff (18%) climbs out in the Henry Coe State Park area. Not terribly long, but still enough to give you a good work out. These guys aren't slackers- they are some of the best climbers in our group. I trust what they say is pretty darn accurate.

Just thought I'd warn you.

[melissam]

Melissm-

A couple of guys from our club went down to Morgan Hill and rode with some other folks on the newer version of the Tierra Bella. They say that there are some pretty stiff (18%) climbs out in the Henry Coe State Park area. Not terribly long, but still enough to give you a good work out. These guys aren't slackers- they are some of the best climbers in our group. I trust what they say is pretty darn accurate.

Just thought I'd warn you.

BG,

Thanks for the warning; as they say, forewarned is forearmed.

Gawd, 18% grades?! Enough to give me a good workout?! I'll say! Those are the kinds of grades that cause my heart rate to skyrocket and my stomach ... um ... to empty itself of its contents.

My-o-my-o-my-o-my-o-my, what have I gotten myself into?

Oh well, as MP says, it'll be fun. Uh huh.

-- Melissa

PS I do know that no one's holding a gun to my head and making me do this. I can either:
A. Bail on the ride entirely
B. Pick a shorter route
C. Walk up the 18% grades (the AIDS/Lifecycle folks call this "crosstraining")

[slinkedog]

Hey melissa... I think those 18% are for the hilly 100 mile route, not sure which one you signed up for!!

[melissam]

Hey Slinke -- haven't seen you posting on here in a coon's age!

I had my eye on the double metric. The "easier" option was going to be the century. But, um, I may end up doing the metric century. I guess it all depends on how I'm feeling in a couple of weekends.

I'm training for the AIDS/Lifecycle ride in June, so I've been trying to teach my body how to ride longer distances day after day. I know there's hills on the Ride, but I don't think there's anything with an 18% grade. We did Quadbuster a few weekends ago, and it certainly wasn't 18%.

So, I guess now I need to figure out which Tierra Bella route would best serve my training needs.

-- Melissa

[Bike Goddess]

As an ALC alumni I can tell you that there aren't a lot of "tough" hills. What you need is time in the saddle and back to back rides. What was tough for me (and I had 3000 miles on my pretraining rides before the ALC) was the back to back days. No rest days and even the shorter day turned out to be a hilly one.

Keep up your training and you will do fine!