Am I ready ?

Evo at altitude !  Jersey zipped up for the photographers.

I've been training for the second non-annual-nor-consecutive Volcanoes trip.  More than a dozen occasionally brown clad riders will ride from Crystal mountain to Mt. Hood, then back to Randle, Washington climbing every volcano (hence the name) in between.  Five days of riding, four nights of sleep, seven hundred kilometers of distance, ten thousand meters of climbing.

The training has been of the same flavor as my France preparation.  We meet on Saturday mornings and ride up Squak, Cougar, Sake Pass, actually anything that goes up.  The training was such that the Ronde wasn't out of line.

An amazing set of circumstances has allowed me to pile on the kilometers over the last six weeks. Over the last ten days I have ridden up Hurricane Ridge, then up Mt Rainier to Sunrise and today I finished up a trip in the Methow Valley with with Hottie by doing a climb up Washington Pass.  Just like last week, I was a lot faster than I expected.

Hottie was there shooting the action (or killing time) as I made my way up the thousand meter climb.

In almost no time I was heating up and the jersey was open !

The best way to prepare to ride up big mountains is to ride up big mountains.

There wasn't a lot of traffic and the sun was out.  I'd call it perfect !

Almost there !!

I preparation for the trip I was buying something the other day. The salesperson asked what I was planning. When I explained the trip she asked, "are you ready for that?"  I smiled and replied that I was.   That was a fun thing to be able to say..