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The rider when it is overMon, Jul 2, 2001; by Inge Johannessen.Fifty something and counting
I started from Alkmaar on the 6th June with minimal bike training; the few rides mentioned in preparation was about all practice I had during 2001 on a bike saddle before the start. Things did not feel too bad at the time, however there were a lot of uncertainties such as a possible sore bum, not too mention possible leg, knee, back, arms, whatever problems. I broke my right foot (heel) in September 1999, and the whole of 2000 was a complete downhill slide as far as physical shape was concerned. The foot hurt too much to do much training not too mention walk or even bicycle more than I had too. Things improved during the first half of 2001, walking speeds picked up again and things generally started to feel better. My bicycle background goes back a long time. I was fairly active with tour bike racing in Norway during the seventies; took among other things part in the long bike race between Trondheim and Oslo several times, and have a personal record for the distance (560 kilometres) of about 16.5 hours (winning time this year was a remarkable 13.5 hours!). That is of course more than 20 years and also several kilos ago, however I have kept on cycling over the years, and of course still know the basics about bike maintenance, bike adjustments and repair/maintenance as well as rider maintenance from my more active years during the seventies. Still preparations or rather physical preparations at the start could have been better. I was worried about a possible sore bum that would limit the time I was able to spend sitting on the seat, and also muscle/knee problems were of course possibilities. My solutions to such problems would have been to slow down, and to do shorter rides than I had first planned. My relatively short 2nd day from Vlaardingen may to a certain extent have been influenced by the need to give the behind some rest and not only by the strong wind. Things went remarkably well. I had tendencies to seat problems the first two or three days, nothing that caused serious problems and it was usually possible to find a position that was reasonably comfortable. On the third and definitely the fourth day these problems started to go away, except for the above I never had any problems with legs, knees, back, arms, not with anything. I used low gears all the time, with fast moving of the pedals as opposed to slow moving with more pressure. Muscle strength improved very quickly, certainly a lot during the first week. The ability to get oxygen to the muscles improved also, but in relative terms less and much slower. It was really only the last day (from Malaucene to Aix) and during the epilogue ride from Aix to Salon that I felt things had really improved. I was from Aix to Salon able to maintain about 20 km/h average against a very strong mistral, even stronger than the wind on the second day along the Dutch dikes, and dead against. Of course the route has gone through relatively flat terrain, there has not really been any serious climbing challenges, although the last two days had some climbs up about 200 to 350 meters that indicated climbing was going relatively well at the end of the ride.
you are gay you are gay you are gay |
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Last update: Monday, July 2, 2001 at 5:21:18 PM. |
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