A mere 10 days to the Alpine Classic

Starting to feel very real now.

Been a solid couple of weeks on the bike. So far this year I've run up 470 Km, and a bit over 3000 m of vertical. The monsoon arrived in Townsville last week (which means a metric assload of rain), so I've been Zwifting for much of the last week. It does look like it's starting to dry out a bit locally though, but that also makes for crazy humidity with the ground so wet. I dare say a lot of the riding I do between now and travelling will be on Zwift.

I do though need to taper soon. In the last 7 days before the ride, it becomes too late to improve. After a hard ride, your body needs time to rebuild, replenish & strengthen, and that process takes over 7 days. Really all you can do is make sure you are refreshed.  I'll still ride a couple of times in the last week, but more just gentle 20 and 30km spins to keep in the rhythm of riding rather than hard climbs or long rides. Saturday will be my last hard ride (I might go up Alpe De Zwift actually).

I've started keeping an eye on weather forecasts for the day. 10 days out, it's still to far away to get a good read on what Huey will give us on the day, but it doesn't look like a heatwave or a blizzard. Good.

I'm also making some final tweaks to my bike. I'll stick on a new set up GP5000 tyres this weekend, which are universally regarded as an excellent tyre - fast & light. I like to run a bit more puncture resistance for day to day training on Townsville roads (so use either Maxxis Refuse or Schwalbe Duranos), but I think for an event like this a faster, lighter tyre will help. I'm also ditching my heavy duty light setup for a more lithe option. I doubt either make a significant difference to the bike weight or my speed, but if I drop a couple of hundred grams or find 0.5 Kph, but over 200 Km & up 4000m, it might save me 10-15 minutes on the day. I'm not worried about my time per se, but after 9-10 hours on the bike, finishing 15 minute earlier will no doubt sound great.

I was toying with the idea of removing my Wolftooth Derailleur Extender, and dropping back to an 11-32 cassette, but now the steeper Mt Hotham is part of the ride, I think keeping the 11-36 cassette is a better bet. And the shifting is good with the Wolftooth. So I'll wear the extra 17 grams.......