16 April 2008

The big dude always plays the tuba. It's a rule.

A piece on climbing..

Some excerpts..

"Hills are death for fat guys or big riders."
"You just can't get up even a slight incline without working much harder than a little guy"
"How you climb as a big guy has to be totally different, get over the idea that you will just grab a wheel, hang on, and spin up a hill. That won't work for you Charlie, because you aren't built to spin up hills. You need to whip out your Testosterone Bucket, take a drink, and really believe"
"I'll never be good at steep, long climbs - power to weight is a tyrant. But shorter, shallower hills - the sheer power of a big guy, fat and strong or just big and strong, can be a tyrant to a small rider."
"It’s hard to accept that you can actually do well on hills when your mental picture of a “hill” is a painful place where you get dropped by little tiny bastards, the Secret Elephant Graveyard where your races and group rides go to die. You start thinking of yourself as unable to climb."

We don't have 'rolling' terrain here.. its flat or straight up.. "Tom-Land" :)

As we approach the Fuji Hill climb again this year (June1) and I stare at the scale which will not budge below 185lbs, I wonder if I'll ever get up the bugger in under 90 mins..

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