Over the past year, I had enjoyed biking for routine trips locally and to commute occasionally. In looking back, I had covered nearly 30 trips of 10 miles or more. Several of these had elevation gain of about 1000+ feet. Wow! I would have not imagined this 3-4 years back. A friend of mine suggested me to prepare for a long distance ride from Seattle to Portland (205 mile long journey). During the preparation I went on a long ride of 115 miles from Redmond to Bellingham.
Now I have a friend suggesting me to try the Ride The Hurricane which promises to be interesting and challenging. The ride is at least a 12 miles one way climbing about 4000 feet to reach the mile high Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center. With the motor vehicles blocked out for 5 hours, it promises to be a great climb (a steady climb, mind you). The climb will tax the muscles and training skills for the flat land fast riders. My recent experience with the hills ought to help me. The Red-Bell ride from 2016 was a challenging one as well including the climb up the Chuckanut Drive near Bellingham. Certainly not the same scale as the mile high climb atop Hurricane Ridge in Olympics. Nevertheless the question is: why not try it?
So what does it take to try it out?
- Lots of preparation of course
- Lots of preparation on the hill climbs
- Lots of preparation on steady climb with non stop grade of 5-8% (that is 1 in 20 to 1 in 13 slope)
- Lots of preparation on steady climb to reach the heights of up to a mile. Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center is at 5200′ altitude
My goal for the ride is to complete the ride and less about the performance time. Based on my rides, I know that I can climb up 250′ of elevation over a mile in 15 minutes. Assuming that I can keep that pace it means I can climb 4000′ elevation in 4 hours over 16 miles. That is closer to the 12-mile Hurricane Ridge climb. Adding a 25% extra time, that means in 5 hours I hope to climb up the Hurricane Ridge.
Between now and the time for the Hurricane Ride (Aug 5th) there are 10 weeks. Below is a proposed plan for 10-week preparation.
The approach is to slowly increase the elevation gain during the rides. The preparation calls for a about 4 rides a week of varying distance and elevation gain. Naturally the training time goes up with each week. I am here estimating that it will take about 6 hours for the final week of performance. I am optimistic that it will take shorter than the planned for time.
Now let the training begin.
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