Good Climbing
Good climbing is a big part, if not absolutely key to a successful Lotoja ride/race. Road riding inherently has a lot of suffering and climbing is pretty much............suffering. Along with building overall strength and endurance, you have to develop a serious tolerance of just flat-out hurt. Even the little skinny guys suffer, or so I'm told.
Then there is the physics of the matter. Mass is not your friend when climbing. Sure, it helps on the descent, but it is far from proportional to the losses in the climb. Add to that the drag from being a "wide-body" (anyone with shoulders regardless of mass) and there is even more drag. One year I had a pack of Cat IIIs on my wheel coming off the backside of Strawberry. At something like 45 MPH, they sat in the draft for a few miles without hardly having to pedal - getting a nice recovery after the 22 mile climb. As soon as we hit the first small roller, they dropped me like I was a bus (you're welcome). A simple 10 pounds on a sudden grade of maybe 4% can require a ton of extra effort to stay with the group. You can only do that so many times before you burn-up your glycogen stores and then the race is pretty much a matter of survival. Dropping the weight is important, but you've got to have the experience to make it all work.
There is no substitute for hard climbing and the climbing season has only just begun.
Seriously - Ride Hard!
