ericlambi wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:
I was thinking the ride to the toll gate in Lake Placid (before you climb Whiteface would be perfect) as it is 8% steady grade no turns for 3 miles so you could pick your turnaround , but that's not NH.
This sounds promising. I've done IMLP and done some training there, but never ridden anything but the course, unfortunately. So there is a 3mi stretch that isn't limited by a gate or certain hours? The biggest problem is I'd like to practice it . . . so either two trips (or one longer trip), or just no practice.
It's straight up to the toll gate from the bottom. The toll gate is 3 miles into the climb and it goes from there 5 more miles to the top of Whiteface. Exact same stats at Alpe d'Huez but only two switchback at the top. If you are Everesting, I'd stay at the lowest possible altitude where you lose zero on the oxygen front so from the base to the tollgate its 5 km at 8% so you're going to gain 400m, so roughly 22 times up and down. No matter how much traffic there is (and I've almost never been on that climb with more than few cars at a time) it won't impede your day. At the very bottom you have a gas station 300m away and there is some vertical to get from gas station to top of climb, but you can park you car beside side of rode at Tollgate, or you can park it at the bottom.
If I were to do Everest challenge, I'd go with this climb. Its a 3 hrs drive from my place in Canada but we're not allowed over the border for now.
I honestly don't think you need to practice at all for Everest in the sense that you just figure out your FTP and get your weight as light as possible. Then get the right gearing for your climb for your % FTP that you can sustain for roughly 2.5x IM duration so I am guessing its gonna be at 60+ percent of FTP (not sure if that is too low or hight, the higher your FTP the higher percent you can use because your duration gets shorter).
Another climb in the LP area is reverse Keene (the descent you do at IMLP), however, there is a section that is pretty shallow so you're wasting energy pushing wind at higher speed. You want a climb where you're not wasting kilojoules on wind resistance going up and on the way down, you want something where all your potential energy gets you down without burning kilojoules in your brake pads. I would think you want to get down as fast as possible while recovering and refueling, and not using up energy and mental capacity on techincal sections.
If I recall if you climb this at ~4W per kilo, you get to the toll gate in 20-23 minutes depending on wind direction. You have maybe 4 minutes to recover and refuel on the descent. I would grad a bottle, every second climb and drink as much of it as I could on the first descent and then drink the rest of the second descent. This would give you 1 bottle per hour (not sure if that is enough for your projected pace).