First Official Training Day

The first official training day for riders took place on Sunday (same day as Liege-Bastogne- Liege, a coincidence apparently) and not arranged to rub in how difficult this is…. G says.

There was much anticipation on the WhatsApp group amongst riders although NO HUMOUR, definitely no humour. DB (who plans all the rides and is support boss) tried his uber motivational – ‘lets scare the living daylights out of them that will motivate the idle beggars to train’ technique and In that helpful spirit he posted this informative graphic and the threat that if you didn’t expire from over exertion then high altitude edema was probably going to get you anyway 🙄 :-

I of course trained hard, a late breakfast, a nice glass of Gavi with lunch and some rather decent Amarone with the rugby on the TV. I did sign up for an ‘all in support and rider training day’ in August despite the hardship of a threatened ‘Premier Inn’ (whatever that is) and the new experience of a shared room (not with the wife but with some hairy cyclist…. or worse DAJ who is also support crew, well part time).

Speaking of hairy riders the topic of ‘to shave or not to shave’ hasn’t come up yet, assuming the female riders have this under control it’s only an issue for the MAMILS. Apparently according to the book my brother lent me to look like a pro legs must be shaved, arms are a bit extreme and shaving your bits is a NO, to be frank if people can tell you are unshaven below when you are on the bike there are more important issues than aerodynamics and as we’ve already had a brush with the American Police (well G has 🤣) we can do without any more attention. To be honest looking at some of the riders (no names no pack drill G) lack of hair is very unlikely to make an appreciable difference to the effort required to make progress…. don’t shoot the messenger 😁.