Tour Preparation

Now that the big day is soon approaching, I thought I'd give a brief look into my preparation I took to get ready for this tour.

I'm a relatively new cycler.  I started road cycling in May of 2022, when I started riding with my local group here in town called GEARS.  I purchased my first used road bike, a Specialized Roubaix from my friend Karen and the rest is history.  I was hooked and began riding on a regular basis.  GEARS is a super supportive group of riders and they have really made a difference in my motivation to get out and ride on a regular basis, good weather and bad weather. 

One evening, GEARS offered a presentation from another member, by the name of Cindy, who had gone on a tour to Patagonia with TDA Global Cycling.  I went to Cindy's presentation and was inspired by her and transfixed by the idea of going on one of these long adventure tours.  Cindy has been on several tours with this same company and had great experiences with them so I decided to check out their website.

They offer all kinds of amazing tours.  In 2023, I signed up to go on a tour to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam (The Golden Buddha Ride). After months of agonizing about this tour I decided it was going to be too much for me and I canceled out of the tour.  At the time, I felt like I did not have enough riding experience to feel comfortable taking on such a big ride like this.

Over time as my interest in cycling grew, I was riding 4-6 days a week.  I wanted to increase my riding ability and signed up for a 4 month online cycling class that went from April to July of 2024. Three key things I got from this class, 1) fueling while riding 2) recovery time 3) riding cadence.  I discovered I had been way under fueling my rides, I had been overriding/overtraining and not giving myself enough recovery time and my cadence was too low.  Changes were made with this new information and it's still a work in progress.

I had not lost my desire to go on a big adventure and kept looking at the TDA website and their upcoming tours. India is a place I have wanted to go for a long time.  They offer their India tour every other year, and 2025 was the next offering for this tour. In June of 2024, I made my deposit and signed up for the tour

I'm committed now so I better get serious about getting ready.  Starting in June, I began working with a personal trainer two days a week. This would give me 8 months of focused effort toward my tour.

I created a schedule for my training. Riding Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, weight training on Tuesday and Thursday.  That gave me two days a week off from training.  I eventually added in Tai Chi twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday,  Another thing I realized is it's good to have some cross training.  Cycling does not build strength, weight training is a crucial part to building endurance.  It's good to mix it up.

I'm definitely not the fastest rider, you generally see me riding at the back of the pack, however I feel like endurance is the key for me. On this trip, we'll be riding an average of 60 miles a day, some days more, some days less.  There will be more days of consecutive climbing and higher elevation climbs than I have ever done.  My speed may be slow, however for me, endurance is the key, getting to the end of the ride everyday, at the pace that works best for me.

A few days ago, I loaded my bike with all the gear and water bottles I'll be using on my trip.  Luckily I am not bike packing. This is a supported ride and we stay in hotels each night.  I only need to carry my water and clothing, fuel, etc for daily riding.  With all my gear for daily rides I think my bike is about 35 lbs.  Not too bad really.

Here's a photo of me with my "loaded" bike and my friend Brian who is going on a bike packing trip to the Baja Divide soon.  A few more days left of riding here in the foggy, cold weather, and then it's time to pack up the bike and get ready to fly to India.