Looking to keep a log of my fitness / diet so that I can be held accountable for achieving / failing my goals.

Goals

1) Climb a famous mountain stage used in the Tour De France. Alpe d'Huez is the holy grail but the Col du Galibier or Col d'izoard would also be climbs I am interested in. This climb would have to be non stop with no breaks until the summit is reached.

2) Be able to ride for one hour at 30KPH average speed. This needs to be a solo ride where I can not free wheel and I would be looking at seeking a flat course.

3) Short term Goal; Get down to 159lbs in weight by end of September. Current weight is 169lbs.

I will be looking to cycle 3/4 times per week. Now we are approaching winter I will most likely be making the Watt bike my friend. I will supplement this with some weight and core training.

I will update this thread weekly with training sessions, comments on how I have felt along with diet notes. Moreover on the diet I am not looking at being a complete freak with this part of my plan. I just feel I need to cut out the crap I consume. Fizzy drinks / snacks and general over eating.

Any questions / input feel free to comment.

Sounds rad! Good luck. I'll be following your progress.

Cool, what is the training plan?

Thanks Cotton,

Haven't found one yet. Been looking at different aerobic base building plans so will probably choose one of those over the next few days.

Will probably have to consist of using a watt bike due to the winter months looming. Maybe I will purchase a turbo trainer?

I think i just want to find a basic plan that gets me in the saddle then i can look for something more specific come the spring months. Will probably be looking to get out to France in July.

Any suggestions on approaching the aerobic base phase?

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So it has been a while since I have last posted! Due to work commitments and laziness on my end I have not kept this log active.

Recap on the months since creating this thread;

I invested in a Wahoo Kickr Snap smart trainer and signed up to Zwift so that I could grind out the miles during the winter months. I have to say this has already paid for itself! I was religiously on the thing 5 times a week from mid October right the way through to mid March. I then became ill and this knocked me off course. I put a session in today and didn't feel great. Power in the legs will take a while to come back.

Weight / Diet wise I have been doing really well. The weight dropped off over the winter and I hit all my short term goals, I am currently 152lbs which is a nice 17lbs drop from my start weight. At 5"9 that is a considerable drop. This has had a huge impact on my climbing ability already.

I came pretty close to achieving the 30KPH 1 hour average goal. This was my first real world outing of the year and I have to say it was a hard ride but there was still a bit left inside me. The roads were lovely as we are on lockdown so next to no cars on the road. I hit 29.1KPH average for a 1HR 11 ride.

I have now booked the cycling trip in question with a friend. We fly out on 11th September for the weekend and return on the Monday. Flying in to Turin then hiring a car and driving straight to Huez where we have booked an AirBnb. The Tour is actually on whilst we are out there due to being rescheduled because of the virus but they do not hit the Alps until a week after us. We are going to be doing the Alpe D'Huez on the Saturday and if there is enough in the legs on Sunday we will attempt the Col D'izoard

So that leaves me with 18 weeks left to train and I need to make it count. This will still mostly be done on Zwift. Even though we are in Spring soon to be summer I do like putting the effort in on a trainer. I feel that you notice the gains when you go for a spin on the road and you get to experience all that rolling resistance! I plan now to ride 5 / 6 times per week on Zwift and want to start hitting 7 / 8 hours in the saddle a week. I want to up the volume over the coming months as well as the vertical climbing stats. May include a virtual Alpe D'zwift each week. This is relevant because it mimics the profile of Alpe D'huez. Best time up this so far is 1.24.58, would be great to get this below 1.15 before we fly out. I will include a 1/2 week taper before the day itself so that I am not feeling any fatigue came D-Day!

I will try to update this at the end of each month!!

Sweet, looking forward to updates and trip report. I did this ride back in 2016, in Colorado:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/2455323

Took me about 12 hours, lol, but I finished it. Riding some of the mountains you mentioned would be an awesome trip.

That's a long time in the saddle. I hope you had Chamois cream! Nasty 15 mile climb in the middle as well!

I'm hoping I have the legs for the Col D'izoard the following day. I walked up the top half of it for last years tour when they were passing through and it looked like a nice ride. I have just finished reading Peter Cossins Alpe D'Huez book. Pretty interesting read. He suggests riding in and around the Romanche Valley for a more scenic ride which we may give a go on the day we get there for a quick spin and test of equipment.

May round up

I have managed to get a solid 3 weeks under my belt on Zwift now. I feel that I am back on track after being ill and away from the bike. The last week of May I managed just over 9 hours in the saddle.

I also attempted Alpe D'Zwift again and managed to ride it in 1.17.25 which I was over the moon with. I thought if I could get under 1.15 just before we flew out then I would be happy with that but with this recent result I will adjust this goal now. I'm thinking close to the 1.10 mark. I think with the combined fitness gains and additional weight loss this might be a reasonable goal to set. One thing I am concerned about mentally is that I have no access to lengthy sustained climbs where I live in the south east of England. It would be good to test myself in the real world on a 3/4KM 7%ish grade so that I know mentally what to expect. Doing it in your garage is one thing but then tackling it on the day is another!

Weight wise I haven't made any progress. May was a very nice month for us here in the UK and I indulged in a fair few BBQ's at home and was experimenting with cocktails in the garden. Mojito's and Pina Colada's being my poison. Talking of Mojito's Wiggle actually do a Mojito flavoured energy gel which I found very tasty! So I have jumped up to 156lbs. So June's weight goal to keep me in check is 150lbs. I think that is reasonable. 1.5lbs per week. When I go out there I would like to be around 147lbs / 67KG. I stumbled across an interesting power to body mass ratio chart for Alpe D'huez. It shows your predicted finish time dependant on your W/KG for the climb. Averaging 3W/KG for the climb would bag me a time of 1.14 which would be a top end result for me realistically. For those interested chart is below.



So hopefully we can keep this on track. Weight will be the hardest goal this month. I will post my progression at the end of June!

whats your zwift set up? im thinking about getting one, but can't decide how to config it :/

I was looking for a general cycling/zwift thread as I've started down this path myself.

At the end of last year we bought an Elite Direto XR trainer and set it up in the spare room. I've done just over 1000km since then and my FPT (according to zwift) has increased from about 195 to 245. Personally I think Zwift is way out with that last figure, but regardless it's proven worthwhile in the short time we've had it.

I've got no immediate plans to ride up any real mountains but I got up the Alp du Zwift in 1'20m roughly which I was very happy with.

Currently 5'10 and about 95kg. I'd like to drop a few kilos (ideally stay under 90 consistently) in time for the cricket season to start and for some outdoor rides during the summer.

I'm not a Zwift guy. If RustyBrooks is still around, he might have some insight into his setup.