The only thing that I worry about is a rock hit on the down tube or bottom of the frame. CF supports compression really well, but not lateral hits. They are light and comfortable though. You want scared, trying bombing the back side of Hogpen on your steel frame and find that the vintage forks are so soft that it feels like you are riding an MTB. Nahhh, that’s just fork flex 
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In all of my riding my gravel bike…I’ll bet I’ve spent 99.9% of my time on the upper brake hoods or on the inside of those when I need to mix it up a bit for hand fatigue. I could probably saw off the drops and never miss them.
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What about when Mrs BeachAV8R takes off and you have to sprint like Cipollini to catch her?
I’ll just hit my Spartacus Electric Motor…
If Lance freaks out so hard about the super-tuck I can only imagine how he feels about the Superman…LOL…
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Penultimate stage of the Virtual TdF attacks Mont Ventoux Saturday 0900 EDT/1300 GMT. Not a substitute, but surprisingly entertaining, IMO.
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Well done Keets! Nice power average, probably 50 more than I could average for 2 hrs atm. Still getting my legs back. I’ve only done it IRL once, in 2002. Don’t remember the time, but do remember the heat and lack of switchbacks making it, as you said, a relentless grind. We did it on a TdF stage day and the Gendarme had begun shutting down the road on the way back down to Bedoin. We alternately were on and off our bikes for about 10k. I was completely out of water and didn’t see any of the caravan motorbikes handing out bottles during the descent. Finally made it to the village, and stopped in the first bistro on the right, getting a cheeseburger and mas beer, and amazingly scoring a table next to the road with a couple of friends. There we sat and drank beer for the next 2 hours waiting for le Tour to arrive. Actually, I remember we were there until just before dark, then finding our bus who had followed the tour to Bedoin. 5 or 6 of our group had missed the bus, for we discovered in Europe, the drivers take the schedule very seriously and would not wait for stragglers. When we arrived at the hotel, 70 km away, the party continued in the restaurant. Those left in Bedoin finally arrived about midnight with a tale of riding the crowded 2 lane road back to the hotel without lights on their bikes! They were angry that we had left them, but easily consoled with wine, beer, and plates of French cuisine that we had saved for them when the kitchen closed.
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Interesting listening to the post stage interviews. It sounds like some of the riders credit Zwift with an increase in their overall fitness levels, saying that the workouts are shorter, but more consistent. The men’s winner, Woods, says that he can stand longer due to not having to worry about aerodynamic penalty.
I was thinking that if the V-TdF gains more traction, which I almost wish that it wouldn’t, that there will need to be some controls over equipment and biological ethics. Better to keep it more organic and feeling grass roots as it does now.
Of course it won’t, given the sanctioning of the WSO and list of current sponsors. I hate to sound like a hippy, but in this case commercialism is probably best kept minimized and out of ancillary activities as much as possible. I’m saying this wanting to give the participating teams and riders all credit for their efforts and contributions to the sport during the pandemic.
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Thanks Chipwich…
I’ve not done Ventoux in RL. It must have been amazing on TdF day !! Thanks so much for sharing your story of the day. 
You also had to cope with the heat and obviously the altitude, which must make a huge difference, as well as the wind.
Doing this today reminded me of the Croix der Fur ascent I did in the alps last year and would love to do this for real. I’m not so sure I’ll do it virtually in a hurry as two hours on the turbo trainer is hard work. I’ve had puddles of sweat below my bike before, but this was a lake. 
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No worries, it will kick my behind either way!
A few more memories about that day that rose to the surface after I posted above.
As followers of grand tours know, you can easily tell when the when tete de la course is approaching due a few marshalls and press cars and motorbikes coming by, accompanied by helicopters suddenly overhead. Our table was pushed right up to a small barrier lined with Gendarme. At the appropriate moment, we stood with mas beer in one hand, small USA flags in the other. A couple of solo riders came by wanting to hit the initial slope hard, most likely Richard Virenque (stage 14 winner) or Laurent Jalabert, knowing the importance of the day. Then the peloton came roaring by led of course by le train bleu. Our most infamous Texan, resplendent in the maillot jaune, was sitting about 4th or 5th wheel, and the whole thing was gone in a heartbeat. Enthusiastic toasts and high fives were exchanged, probably at the consternation of our hosts 
But hell, when your team and boy are out front kicking ass, the expense and energy sacrificed to arrive at that spot at the perfect moment were soon forgotten.
On the way to the bus, we passed a few team cars who had also stopped in Bedoin for a bite before continuing to their hotel. We paused to check out the bikes strapped to roofs and were surprised to see that some of them had triples. It was the first time (but not the last) that I had seem a triple crank setup on grand tour team bikes.
Among our group of stragglers was a teenage boy, the son of one of the riders on our tour, perhaps 15 or 16, who was a strong rider for his age, but out of the country for the first time and probably not prepared for 150 km day. We thought that the tour operator said that it was 17 km to Bedoin, not 70. Lesson learned, always consult a map or have GPS, and trust, but verify the tour organizer (don’t blindly head out following a dufus with one bottle on his bike!). We learned later that the boy had dropped his dad on the climb, who told him to continue with the strong climbers, and that they would meet at the top.
Apparently dad never made it to the top due to the road being closed by the Gendarme, so like many others with the same unfulfilled plan, watched the Tour pass where they stood. Probably shared quality time with the devil or the longhorned Texan . Dad made it back to the bus, but the son didn’t since he was with the guys who had hung around at the finish to chat with the riders before descending. No amount of pleading would convince the bus driver to wait. With little chance of finding his son in the post stage chaos and with assurances from us that he was in good hands, dad finally agreed to ride to the hotel. Secretly we all worried about him, because someone mentioned having seen him stopped on the road a few days earlier having trouble with his carbon wheels. They were quite new at the time and prone to warping under continued braking.
When the lost group triumphantly walked into the hotel around midnight, the lad had the look that he had seen the real devil that night. I can imagine him trying to hang on to the group while being harassed by angry motorists in Renault Espaces passing our lost bunch in the night.
The young man enjoyed his first beer that night with a relieved father.
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Went looking at my ‘Average Power’ in Strava … and quietly backs into a darker corner of this thread.
Nice job @keets!
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Ha…I just finished watching nearly seven hours of Paris-Roubaix on my NBC-SN Cycling Pass…while not knowing if it was the 2020 edition or the 2019 (which I had not seen).
You see, Paris-Roubaix popped up on April 20th on the NBC-SN app on my iPad about a month after the last stage of Paris-Nice (which was shortened due to COVID). The title on the app didn’t say anything about it being 2019, and for the first couple of hours I was scratching my head wondering how they could have shortened Paris-Nice, and then had a race actually happen a month later.
A didn’t want to Google it because…well…Google is always full of spoilers. So it wasn’t until the race ended that I could go back and see that it was indeed the 2019 edition. Of course, with Phil and Bobke not making any COVID references, and noticing that nobody was masked up, I kinda figured it wasn’t the 2020 edition…
Anyway - spectacular race. Spoilers below if you hadn’t watched it…
I thought Sagan was going to win it there toward the end…it was smart of Gilbert and Politt to put the hammer down in the last 15K to ride Sagan off their wheel because nobody is going to beat Sagan in a sprint.
I’ve seen Paris-Roubaix before, but I guess I didn’t realize just how much they ride in the “gutter” so to speak. I was surprised that Phil and Bob were commenting that it was smoother and faster, but risked a puncture…I always figured the cobbles would be riskier for punctures and mechanical issues. Can’t say I’ve ever ridden on a cobble surface other than short stretches in Old Town, Alexandria VA. Seemed pretty sketchy…and murderously slippery in the rain.
I see the 2020 edition is now tentatively scheduled for October 25.
Anyway - now it is on the Ultimate TDF stages that are showing on the app. That should be good times since my memory of a lot of those classic stages are lacking.
EDIT - I should add that the 7 hours of Paris-Roubaix I watched actually took a couple weeks. I like watching while I’m making breakfast or cooking dinner. So short 15 minute snippets at a time.
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Don’t feel too bad about your average power. Unless you have a power meter on everything you ride (I don’t), Strava records weighted average power, which equals the amount of power to push your weight along at the speed you are doing on the incline.
All my turbo trainer rides are higher than the riding I do outside as the turbo has a power meter. I’m also tending to push it a bit more and tend to keep my watts up on the flats and downhill.
E.g. Alpe D’Huez numbers in RL
Vs
Alpe D’Zwift on the Turbo
The Paris-Roubaix is something else. How they ride on the miles of cobbles I don’t know. Legs, arms, wrists all must be in agony.
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Great read. 
A cycling buddy of mine saw the TdF on one of the stages when he went to the Alps and described the physical “suck” you feel as a spectator as the Pelaton passes at full chat.
I’m enjoying reading your stories @chipwich, thanks again for sharing, I am determined to get out there one year and see it for myself. It was my turn this year to plan the cycling break and we’d decided to go for Mallorca, with excellent roads and challenging climbs including Sa Colobra, sadly cancelled due to Covid-19. Its worth watching the descent, I love descending and was looking forward to it so much. Maybe next year we can do this, or I can see it still being my turn and we can go and see the tour.
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Watched the final woman’s and men’s stages of the V-TdF today, which of course was on the Avenue de Champs Elysees virtual. Froomie made an appearance, albeit not a factor, since he was racing from the team camp at altitude.
What seems to be a continuing theme is that the smart trainers produce a more consistent effort.
Thanks Keets, but when I read them a day or two later, they seem more like incoherent ramblings. Majorca sounds amazing. I hope that you your tour happens eventually.
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Really? THOSE were the body parts that first came to mind?!
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I don’t know if you guys (GCN) have seen some of these (they remind me, somewhat, of Top Gear in their challenges) but this one was pretty cool.
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That must have been one grueling ride in 1903 considering how tough it was for them using modern well paved roads.
Wheels
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Love the GCN channel and that’s a wonderful video. What surprises me most is how little the bikes have changed until recently with disk brakes, digital shifting, and sculpted CF frames.
In the front window of a bike shop in the commune at the foot of the climb to Les Alpe d’Huez, Le Bourg d’Oisans, there is the Campagnolo rear derailleur that Jacques Anquetil used on the climb in one of his TdF victories, probably 1964. In 2004, I stood there looking at it astounded at how small the cogs were. They pushed some big gears back in the day.
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