SpokEasy

PAC Tour

\"PACPAC Tour? Pacific-Atlantic Cycling Tour! Unfortunately the web site says \”not secure\”, so I don\’t dare create a link to it.

A PAC tour sounds like fun, but I\’m not sure I\’m ready for the pace of 16-20 mph. I\’m capable of that speed, but not for hours at a time. For me to maintain 20 mph for a full minute is a big deal.

In fact, for me to set my sights on a PAC tour would, at present, be biting off far more than I could chew. In the final month before your PAC tour begins, it says, you should be riding 250-350 miles per week. That\’s up to triple what I\’ve been doing, and more.

It also says you should be able to ride a 200-mile event in under 14 hours. YIKES!! I\’m nowhere near that. Last time I did a 100-miler, my roll time was nearly 8 hours. Total time was probably up to an hour more; and I wasn\’t climbing!

A PAC tour covers about 900 miles per week. There\’s a Ridge of the Rockies Tour which, I suspect, would have me falling out in fifteen minutes or less, thanks to problems with the thin air. I\’d need to train with one of those masks that simulates high-altitude training.

Desert camp would likely have me longing for a super-size Camel-Bak. I\’m not used to aridity. Tuscon is nearly 3000 feet up, so I\’d have altitude problems there, too.

I need to find a more realistic ride to aim for!