The website for that ride is a hoot:
The annual ride that everyone wishes would just go away. You know the ride. You know the reward...a Pabst. Get on it! Meet at the parking lot on Stratford by the MoPac pedestrian bridge. (*******/1rWWcgG) We roll at 7 a.m. for 110 miles or so through the steepest hills in Austin, with undulating hills adjoining them. More at www.dashugel.com

I'm halfway interested in maybe trying the 65 mile route. I've never ridden in that area. I'm not sure I'd be up 110+ miles in November but 65 sounds like a do-able challenge.

These are not Normal Hills. Many of these hills have sections with 15%+ grades. I don't know if there's anything like that in Dallas but I would definitely recommend trying one or two of these before signing up for 10 of them!

(as in, there are multiple hills on this route that currently I can not get up without stopping part way or walking part way)

I could never get up Spicewood Springs rd.

I assume you mean this?

https://www.strava.com/segments/1521931

Never been up it myself

love the name

Everesting seems like a goddam miserable way to spend a day. Pretty amazing accomplishment though!

Yeah, that's it.

Ah, I see. That puts a new perspective on it. Yeah, there is nothing like that around here. I knew Austin was hilly. I didn't know they were so steep. I've never been west of Austin much, just south. In a car.

I skipped my regular saturday morning ride this morning because rain was expected (although, it did not rain)

About 10 miles into the ride, one of the riders got hit by a car. I don't know how bad it is or even really what happened.

I really need to find a good secular expression that represents the phrase "there but for the grace of god...:

Tour das Hugel is in 1 month, I'm completely unprepared, I'm probably going to have to just do 1/2 of it.

I did do one nice hilly ride last week, I rode from my house out to west austin, where all the nasty climbs are. I finally made it up the lime creek climb in one go - it was mostly a matter of keeping the power under 400 watts so I didn't burn out before I got to the top.

A mile or so after the top is a gas station and I stopped to eat something there. I ran into a local racer who I am vaguely acquainted with. We chatted a bit, he invited me to go do that section again. I declined, although I did get some more good ones in before heading home.

This weekend I'm going to try to do the same route with another 15% climb thrown in.

Good luck, It will be interesting to see how you do. I'd like to give one or two of those hills a try but we don't have anything like that around here.

Surprised to find this on 2+2, just started TCC myself.

Quick question... if he's recommending 90 min EM with 3x10 SS or something, is the RBI at EM or an easy pedal? Just ordered Friel's Training with Power, any other books/sites you'd recommend?

I'm a mountain biker myself, but just set up my CX bike on the turbo trainer with Zwift for the winter. Feel like I'm way off my peak from February or so, missed a few months of the summer with an ankle injury and got lazy with lift accessed downhill. Might try my first real group road ride in a few weeks when I head south.

GL with the Tour.

I haven't done TCC for a few years, but my impression was that when you do intervals, you recover between them at a very low intensity, and all other parts of the ride except the intervals are at EM pace.

Man I can not stand the trainer, although Zwift helps. A kickr or something like it might help too (expensive though)

I am not in shape for the full tour. I did about 1/4 of it last week during the work day and it destroyed me. I had to get off the bike and lay down for a minute at the top of the last climb. It was hotter than normal, so that didn't help but my heart was beating out of my chest, I just couldn't stand it.

i am not 100% sure either (did a TCC training block 2 years ago), but i did easy pedal intensity between SS or OU "intervals"; at least IIRC (and looked at a few sessions; seems my memory is correct).
couldn't find a definite answer in the book in 2 minutes, so can't help you that much

https://www.amazon.com/Training-Raci.../dp/1934030554 is afaik considered the gold standard (if you have a power meter)

Didn't realize Austin had such serious hills. All the road rides around here involve the highway/distracted tourist drivers, but hoping to find some fun stuff in Phoenix/San Diego in a few weeks.

Thanks, that's helpful. I reduced my FTP by 10% before I started knowing I'm well off peak form and felt I wasn't recovering between SS intervals on the first workout (at EM), but haven't had trouble on the past few. I'm guessing that could change with OU/SEPI/etc.

Almost bought that book, but saw some people recommending Friel's first as it's apparently a bit more basic.

You need a smart trainer (and a good fan) to make Zwift bearable, but I've been really happy with the Tacx Vortex Smart ($323 from bike-discount now). Few friends bought the same after trying mine and they haven't had any issues either. I'd be riding outside if possible, but at least Zwift makes the structured workouts easy to program/follow and it's relatively entertaining.

Hah, you must be the guy from BC who followed me on Strava today. I was wondering what that was about. No friends in common, etc.

We have a 2+2 group if you're interested
https://www.strava.com/clubs/twoplustwo

The TCC training plan on Training Peaks has this for a steady state power interval:
"Step 3 (Active): Reps Planned: 1 , Duration Planned: 2 min , Cadence Planned: 100 - 120 rpm , HR Zone Planned: Zone 5C: Anaerobic Capacity (185 - 191 bpm) , Power Zone Planned: Power Intervals (206 - 510 W) , RPE Planned: 10
Step 4 (Rest): Reps Planned: 1 , Duration Planned: 3 min , HR Zone Planned: Zone 1: Recovery (115 - 143 bpm) , Power Zone Planned: Recovery Miles (61 - 102 W) , RPE Planned: 5"

So the recovery is pretty low intensity, as Rusty said.

Yep, that's me... just joined the 2+2 group, thanks.

Looks like you guys are right. The workouts seem pretty easy at this point even keeping the RBI's at EM, but I'll stick with the plan and assume they ramp up in the coming weeks. I feel like I'm getting some fitness back already (and keep double checking my calibration to make sure) plus my heart rate seems to be lower and recovering faster.

Got the Friel power meter book yesterday and read the first 1/4 or so and it seems extremely basic so far. Will probably pick up Hunter's book as suggested.

https://www.strava.com/activities/773466198

Today was Tour das Hugel. Despite wanting to punk out I got up at 5:30am and went down there to do it. I stuck to my plan which was to do the first loop (40 miles) and about 30 miles of the 2nd loop (the whole 2nd loop is 70 miles). So I ended up with about 69 miles, 6500 feet of climbing.

By taking the shorter route I saved myself about 40 miles and 4000 feet of climbing - some very tough climbs in there too.

I only had to get off and walk one hill, the infamous Smoky Valley which is very ****ing steep. Even walking up it was very difficult, and I actually paced one guy who was riding.

Overall I managed to keep the pace reasonable low and I kept well hydrated and fed. I guess it went OK. I am going to try to get in more hills this year (usually I do approximately none...) and see if I can do the whole thing next year.

A *ton* of people showed up but a lot of them just did the first loop.

This is smoky valley. It hits about 25% grade near the top, where I had to get off
https://www.strava.com/activities/77...ts/18924163067

I was at my max HR, standing, and barely moving forward. I should probably have tried to zig zag from side to side like some folks were doing.

Nice ride.
I need to keep this in mind and maybe give this part of the ride a go next year.

I felt pretty good after the first loop but the very first hard climb is probably in the top 3 worst climbs on the whole thing. I saw several people walking it. And the descent is kind of scary too.

(Actually descending some of these is a whole other story... winding descents with poor visibility and unknown road surface. But I am a cautious descender)

What was the smallest gear you had available? 34/28?