Pre 6-Gaps Thoughts

I think a pretty cool t-shirt design would be to pluralize "Gap" and put a silhouette of mountains within the red circle. Then on the back, list in order each of the gaps with profile, length, and avg. gradient. At the very bottom, draw a line as if adding each of the Gaps, and sum total the length and feet climbed. Just a thought.


I fully intend to "Mind the Gaps" tomorrow. The length and difficulty of this ride garner my utmost respect. At the moment, I'm stuck in that mental purgatory where I'm asking myself, Self, "Are you fit enough for this endeavor?" and "Have you done too much?" I'm hoping that the 2500+ miles and 240K of climbing I've done thus far will suffice. I definitely feel stronger than last year but I'm just hoping I'm fresh for this beast. After a hard 80 with 9K of climbing last Saturday, Tuesday night Amstel Gold (which I podiumed by the way), and a moderate ride on Wednesday, I was pretty fatigued yesterday. Thankfully, I was able to get a solid 9 hours of sleep. Hopefully, I can duplicate that feat tonight in the posh Red Roof Inn in Killington.

You see, that's what absolutely boggles my mind about the Pros, especially Grand Tour riders. Recovery. It's not so much the speeds (25+mph for 160 miles the other day in the Giro) which are amazing in themselves, but the fact that they get up and do it again day after day after day after day after day. I know, "That's why they're Pros" is what you're thinking. But, just for their bodies to be able to handle such loads in an event like a Grand Tour, their off season training must consist of 30+ hours a week of riding. I could see cycling becoming very unfun with that amount of riding. Thankfully, I'm not a Pro. It does however, make you feel like an amoeba on the evolutionary scale of cycling. Any domestique riding on a Pro Tour team in a Grand Tour could come over and smash 99% of the Cat 1s that ride for U.S. continental teams. And to think you have guys yelling at each other in Cat 4 races- all over potentially ruining someone's chances for the big win. Maybe my buddy's right. Perhaps they should only close roads down for Pro races.