I am almost finishing 18 week base building plan (from FasCat) and looking to tackle long sustained climbs for death ride and/ or Triple bypass 21.
Looking for recommendation on climbing plan. Which one to go?
Or should I do like this
3 or 4 blocks of 3 weeks on, 1 recovery week.
Mon - Rest
Tuesday ride at 90% of FTP (SST) - Progressive from 2 X 25 - build week on week to 1 X 75 in 10 weeks.
Wed : 1:30 to 2 hours at Z2
Thu: Ride at 98 to 105 % of FTP - Progressive from 3 X 10 - build week on week to 1 X 60 in 10 weeks.
Fri - Rest
Sat : Long ride with 90 Mins of Z3 ( TiZ - Tempo)
Sun : Long ride Z2
The distribution is ok. The potential issue I see is that there are ~20 weeks left. Maybe work your program backwards. Allow 8-10 weeks for build and the rest for base…Unless you are trying to peak for an event prior to de TBP. Cheers.
DeathRide is roughly 18 weeks away so big picture it looks like 16 weeks of training and 2 weeks of taper. How much experience riding and training? What is your W/kg? For example at ~3W/kg I did 8 hours climbing on DR. For your 18 week base, how much volume did you end up doing? If you kept with FasCat plans that might look like SS4 (vo2max work) and then Climbing Intervals. With TR use PlanBuilder or do something like SSB2 (because you already have the 18 week base) followed by sustained build. In either case you should be getting more specific to the event so I would start doing longer climbing rides on the weekend if possible.
I am about ~3W/KG. I hope this 18 weeks base plan will push me beyond 3.15
I still have 3 weeks of Fascat remaining and that is mostly VO2 work.
Once I am done with that plan I will have almost 10 + 2 weeks remaining to do something to build.
Yes I was thinking either Sustained Build plan from TR or Fascat climbing plan or my own plan which I wrote above.
I live in flat land so no climbs nearby.
I am not really fast but I have endurance. For what matters I have done rides like 200 miles, 400 miles in one go (Audax) with lot of climbing like 10000 ft. That time I use to live near hills to do all hill work.
I am hoping to complete the ride in 10 to 10:30 hours with almost 2 hours breaks (4 to 5 breaks each 2 hours).
Fulgaz has all those climbs so I am planning to ride those before hand couple times.
I bought a bike in December and completed the DeathRide in July 2016 and my dad passed in March so about 6 months training. Previous experience was 18 months of twice a week spin class (HIIT) and a weekly ride on an old mountain bike.
so on the new route my time was roughly 8.75 hours moving / 10.5 elapsed. Stopped for lunch twice. Had to fix a flat at the bottom of Monitor West. Otherwise I only had short stops to refill water and eat. And I was roughly 3W/kg at the time. Most of my training was on flat rides with a lot of 40 minute sustained efforts near FTP. Mid fifties when I completed the ride.
I’m glad you are planning on that…I have The Rift on my schedule this year (c’mon vaccine shot!), but I live in the Chicago area and it is pancake flat. The first 1/3 of The Rift is all climbing (~75km / 7K feet), so my plan is to start riding the longer climbs in Zwift pretty regularly…it is really my only option to simulate sustained climbing IRL.
I am currently doing SSBHV II right now…but I have been doing longer (virtual) rides on the weekends vs. the structured workouts. I have been doing the BMTR 100 mile rides on Sat (tempo pace) and the 3R Steady State rides on Sunday (Endurance).
Moving forward, I am going to drop the Wednesday workout and substitute a climbing day (did the Alpe this week) and will try to find a hilly ride option for one of the weekend days. Once it gets warm enough for me to get back outside regularly, I’ll revise again depending on the situation…but I’ll keep one long climbing day / week in there no matter what.
Thanks for encouragement.
Looking the elevation sometime I am dilema to do or not but but half the course if also downhill. Going to try 60 min sustained climb efforts for next few weeks. I guess as long as I do not crossover threshold too many times and keep my enthu in check for not going fast, I can manage that in 10 with lot of breaks.
The Rift looks great. Best luck to you too. Yes ADZ is also on my card. Every week at least once with 100% on Core will put me in great place for Monitor. Monitor is long with less climb.
I live at sea level, the elevation was not a problem. For ride simulation I did 5 centuries (Feb, April, 2 in May, June) and the last one two weeks before was 60 miles above 6000 feet and 10,000 feet total climbing. But it was the training rides on the flats - long sustained efforts on the flats, into a headwind, and lower cadence - that really helped build the foundation.
Except for lunch I would keep moving. My moment of truth was stopping at the lunch area the second time, before the rollers to Markleville and the base of the 5th climb. Eating a second lunch and meeting up with a Wed night worlds guy was what I needed to have the confidence of doing that last 2.5 hour climb. That was the only climb with traffic and we had an intense headwind in the canyon from Woodford to Sorensens/Picketts Junction (5.5 miles of the 14.7 mile Carson climb). That first section of the Carson climb also has no shoulder - good times at ~5mph - so be thankful its not on the new route!
I started at 4:40am and the first almost 10 mile descent (Monitor East) down to Highway 395 was truly epic! Great tarmac and averaged over 35mph without pedaling. Sun was up and low on the horizon, it was a little chilly (low 50s) so I spun my legs a few times to keep them warm. Temps for the day ranged from 41 to 93.
Seriously you can do the entire route, stay on your training and you’ll find its more mental than physical.
also my sweet spot heart rate averages something like 148bpm, and threshold efforts something like 156bpm. I only had HR and these were my average HR for the 5 climbs:
139bpm
140bpm
140bpm
136bpm
135bpm
so by HR my climbs were mid zone2 (typically 135-138bpm) and lower tempo (140ish).
My HR does not match up with my power zones. It is mostly 8-10 bits high always. So Z2 in power can cross over to say 5-6 bits in lower Z3 of HR. I think I need lot of Z2 riding based on HR not on power to bridge this gap.
Try Friel HR zones? Those map better for me versus Coggan HR zones. When I first started riding 5 years ago, I quickly figured out that my all-day HR was roughly 135-140bpm and thats how I rode the DeathRide. IMHO you can only determine that by going out and doing long (5-8 hour) rides, preferably in the mountains but you can do that on the flats too. My only other suggestion is to figure out your climbing cadence using FulGaz and if its lower than your normal cadence (due to gearing), then do some training rides at that lower cadence.
Again you got this! You’ve done long rides with similar climbing… Simply go into the event with fitness fully baked a couple weeks ahead (end of June), carb loaded, and a positive mental attitude Climbing up Monitor West with 2000+ like minded folks and then descending Monitor East for an epic ~17 minute freewheeling cruise at dawn should inspire you for the rest of the day!
Here’s the ‘data’ from the 2019 Triple Bypass. We took our time at the rest stops and socializing and then hammered top of vail pass to avon.
I was probably around 3.8 w/kg during this and living at 10K’
No real training. Just a bunch of crit guys doing this for a sponsor requirement/social media push. I actually used it as a training ride for Steamboat Gravel which was two weeks later
- so be thankful its not on the new route!
Climbing up Monitor West with 2000+ like minded folks and then descending Monitor East for an epic ~17 minute freewheeling cruise at dawn 
should inspire you for the rest of the day!