Jeebus. Man hauls 1000-pound sled behind bicycle while training for the '04 Olympics.

[Fausto]

And I thought I was all hardcore for riding in sub-zero weather this morning. :Q

He's doing it for a couple of reasons. One, he's training for the 2004 Olympics via a bizarre and Voodoo-esque training program designed to build strength, and two, he's raising money for hunger organizations along the way. David explained that a few years ago he was a successful engineer when he hurt his back. To build strength upon recovery, he rode his bike from Newport Beach, CA to Key West, Florida pulling a small Burley trailer full of supplies in his wake. The whole time, however, (here comes the quote I love) he says he was thinking, "Man, I need to do this with more weight." When he got back, he had some buddies help him build a bigger trailer, and set about to pulling all 1000-lbs of it across 49 of these United States.

It's a crazy program consisting of six days of training per week; two cycles of a three-day routine run back to back (on Sunday he goes to whatever church is close by, "Anything to do with Jesus; Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist?all except the Mormons."). His "power day" consists of a 10 mile warm up on the road bike (which he transports on top of the trailer) followed by a 50K time-trial-like hammer of a road ride, and then five hours of towing the cart down the road with a cadence of about 90RPM (he uses a 20 tooth chainring with a 32-tooth cog, 34-teeth in the mountains). His "easy day" is a 2-hour road ride followed by 4 hours of pulling the cart at 105 RPM's, and his "cardio day" is 100 miles on the road and 7-hours on the cart, where he tries to keep a cadence of 110.

 

[trek]

It could make interesting descents down the mountains! :Q

 

[RagingBITCH]

Yea, Olympic athletes have some insane training habits. Kurt Angle of WWE fame - when he was training for the 96, he frequently had a 200lb man on his back doing sprints up and down 45 degree hills for an hour on a daily basis. Brock Lesnar runs with a 150lb log on his shoulder for 3-5 miles daily.

 

[Anubis]

wow thats hard core

 

[Nitemare]

Yet Lance will still kick his @ss

 

[PricklyPete]

I wish I had that kind of determination when training...good god! No wonder I'm not an olympic athlete...oh yeah...and then there is that talent thing.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Nitemare
Yet Lance will still kick his @ss

Pretty much. What this guy is doing is impressive (and cool since he's got a lot of charity stuff going on) but no way in hell will he even qualify for the '04 games. Lugging that trailer around will certainly make him strong, but it's not going to make him fast. This is why you'll see guys doing motorpacing when peaking for an event like a big time trial; you have to train fast to be fast.

Cycling at the highest level is a very specific thing. For instance; I was on a training ride with a guy named Paul Swift once. He is a bad, bad man on the velodrome, but got dropped like a brick on the first big climb we hit. That's just the way it works.