Went to a brevet seminar last Friday, where we talked about how to get through 600k brevets and longer. One of the suggestions was to plan on how much gear you're going to use during a long brevet and start packing all that gear onto your bike during all your training rides.

I sat down and figured that I'd probably pack up to 10 packets of Sustained Energy, a bottle of Hammer Gel, and some miscellaneous gear. I packed all that into my seatpost bag, loaded my bike with 3 bottles of water, and headed out. I have a 74cm frame from Zinn Cycles with 2 cages on the down tube and 1 cage on the seat tube. I still need to add my lights, but I think the bike in its current configuration was pretty close to what I'd be using in the brevet.

Anyway, training when the bike is fully laden is a very different kind of experience than when it's stripped down for speed. But the point is well taken that I should start training now for the actual conditions. I rode only 40 miles or so, and skipped the big hills, mainly because I'm getting over a chest cold and the 400K doesn't have a lot of hills, so maybe a week of recovery rides will be the right thing to do to get ready.

I'll post again after the 400K.