Oh also, your playlist is unique to you alone, so don’t let others sway you otherwise. Personally I would have ended with GOAT but I decided to end the Quest with Defender because I can (joking, but because I really like that workout).
Yup, it is 5 rides in a row and you will enjoy that session. It was the best session to practice my kit change and answer calls of nature.
P/s: Oh thanks for your shout-out on my write up. Really hope you enjoyed and gave you some insights as well. Plan your suffering well
Adding additional knowledge: Practise, practise, practise the following;
Hydration. You don’t want yoo much nor too little. Too much and you’ll be thinking Loo, too little and all sorts of bad things happen.
Food. Yes, you are going to burn around 4K Calories. You aren’t going to replace it. But you don’t want to end up with stomach issues on ride 7 either.
That really short 10 minute break. Learn to switch kit, go to the Loo, stretch, or whatever in 10 minutes. It goes fantastically fast.
Prepare as much as you can in the days and week before.
Have all your drinks and food ready to go before you start so you can just grab and go. Package all your snacks into measured sizes. You will not have the mental capacity to do carb math any time after video 3 or 4. The more you have pre-prepared the better so you can just grab and go.
Have all your possible kit changes ready and laid out.
Eat and drink on the bike. Those 10 test minutes go by really fast.
Use your break time only for using the potty, kit changes, and a stretch. Even simply taking off your shoes at the end of your ride and putting them back on is great to make your walks to the potty much faster, but take care because they can also take a minute or two which is a lot of time when you only have 10 minutes.
Plan to get back to your bike in 8 minutes or less. It can take 2-3 minutes sometimes to start a video and get all your sensors reconnected.
Also, have a backup device ready just in case. This almost ruined my first quest.
And lastly, have all your videos downloaded the day before so streaming issues won’t ruin your day.
Altogether these are just a bunch of small things, but when added up they can make a huge difference when your brain isn’t working right after video 6 or 7.
1) Trust the plan and plan your ride
So I did the KoS prep plan mainly because it was the only way I felt like I’d want to spend that much time indoor on the bike before the KoS itself. The tip to spend the 5hr training block the second weekend doing my first 5 videos was invaluable (thanks Sir David Branstetter) as I ended up pulling out one of the videos I had planned to do after it killed my legs. I also wouldn’t recommend doing that trial run at 80% unless you have legs of steel.
The only other thing from the training plan that I think I messed up is that the final taper week has Cadence Builds. I very much regret pushing super hard and going for max cadence on these rather than topping out at 140/150 - as I definitely felt that in my quads for the couple of days before the KoS.
I intentionally put GOAT at 6 because I knew it’d effectively be a recovery ride. That tiny bit of daylight by having two 45min videos in a row, the second of which was GOAT gave me a real boost for the final 4 videos. So think about when you’re likely to flag and plan accordingly.
2) Nutrition
Related to the above - doing the trial run let me try out nutrition for the day itself. For example - I got super nauseous on the trial and thought it was because I ate too much/drank too much nutrition drink. On my KoS after drinking half a nutrition drink and feeling nauseous I realized that was the issue so stopped - I still had to get through the whole thing with a not great-feeling stomach.
Having a mix of sweet/savory is great, and for me alternating hydration drink/plain water worked really well. I ate mostly real food the first half, and that helped a lot. I had lunch after ride 6 (bagel with cream cheese and salmon) and I mainly grazed after that on nuts/pita chips/dried apricots and fig bars.
I would see this is the part where it’s most important to try things and know your own body and listen to it during the KoS attempt.
3) General purpose tips
Have a ride day checklist - in spite of mine, I still managed to start ride 1 with all my liquids in the fridge not on the bike
An ironing board right next to you makes an awesome ‘things’ stand - food/drinks/phone for posting updates etc.
Have all your snacks within arm’s reach on the bike
Use warmups for things that matter less - posting photos to Facebook/drinks/small snacks
If other people are storming on the castle on the same day as you, say hello and connect beforehand. Knowing that Dame Andrea Houge was also suffering made my suffering in tandem a bit more bearable.
Having a treat for yourself after ride 9 helps you get to the end of ride 9 (chocolate chip cookie FTW)
Try to mix up how you use your breaks - i.e. try to have some where you do nothing at all other than stretch and walk around. I tried to consolidate my breaks into 3 types - recover, bathroom and change kit, and eating/refilling water bottles
Have a plan to charge anything you need to charge - I had a power bank beside me which was good for wireless headphones
Change kits as often as you like, I did three changes, and apply chamois cream liberally between videos
Make sure you don’t get too cold - I felt like I was burning a lot of calories w/ the windows open at 7am and felt a lot better as the day warmed up.
Have your own music available. By the end I needed all the tricks I had up my sleeve to stay motivated.
Lip balm is awesome for 10hrs in front of a fan, cycling glasses are great if you wear contact lenses and need to avoid dry eyes
Ride whatever cadence keeps the pedals turning - by the end of Bat (video 10) I had to dig in to ride at 110rpm as anything slower I thought my legs would stop
Get out of the saddle for 30 seconds at least every 20mins - this helped me keep real saddle soreness at bay until video 7
If you have a KICKR Climb, use it!
Ride for a cause - any time I thought about giving up, knowing why I was doing it made it easier to push through. - Nipple chafing is a thing
4) Expect the unexpected
Starting ride one without water was dumb but recoverable. What was worse was somehow slicing my finger open on the edge of the chamois butter tube 5mins into a break and suddenly having to deal with a bunch of blood and band-aids with 4mins to go before getting back on the bike. Try to keep a cool head, and if you need to, ask a Minion for help.
I had planned to do the entire ride on 75% but had some real nausea/stomach issues post-drinking the nutrition drink, so put Revolver down to 70% I felt immensely better after that and went back to 75% for the remainder.
For reference I rode:
1 - A Very Dark Place
2 - Defender
3 - Thin Air
4 - The Hunted
5 - The Best Thing In The World
6 - GOAT
7 - Revolver
8 - Power Station
9 - Who Dares
10 - The Bat
Using ironing board is such a brilliant idea! I currently throw all my stuff on a couch next to my bike and it’s hard to reach during a ride. I was seriously considering buying a trainer table, but a board off the side will be just as good.
“main” device for my latest quest was my tablet, backup both my phone and a laptop computer. backups are useful if a device fails, you need to make sure that connections work for all of them and you could - in case - “skip” immediately. i.e. pre-download all your workouts on your backup device. for me, my phone works best and I also use it as a backup for regular workouts
@hobbyhoarder, what Dame @IsiSchneider_KoS said, and I also had a spare chain, spare trainer tube and tire, fresh batteries in all sensors, plus xtra batteries. Additionally dual recorded the whole quest on my head unit (in case device recording failed). Left as little to chance as Sufferlandrian possible
No firm date yet, but it will be closer to mid year. It’s summer here in NZ and my pain cave is a sweltering sauna , with all the cyclonic action and thunderstorms we’ve been having. I sweat profusely , so I think it’ll be easier to control hydration in the cooler months (but I don’t want it to be too cold either). My current options are 3/4 June (it’s a long weekend here - King’s Birthday celebration) or 1/2 July (start of school holidays - I’m a teacher ).
I’ve been wondering about my selection too. I gather from your post that you haven’t done all the Sufferfest rides yet? I haven’t, though that will be rectified by then end of the The Wahooligan Tour, as many of my unridden workouts are in the training plan (yay!). As such, I don’t have any real favourites yet - just some that I’ve suffered more in than others. I’ve thought of picking the first 10 SUF rides I did, but will work on that. Also want to give myself enough time to ride all my chosen workouts again, probably in blocks of 2 or 3, as per the suggestions above.
I did It Seems Like Thin Air yesterday, primarily for the Climbing badge (yes, I will ride for badges ). It totally cracked me - 45 minutes in, I wasn’t sure I could carry on. I’d done ISLAGIATT before, and it was tough, but I finished it. This 2 hours 27 minutes was like nothing I’ve done on the trainer, though I’ve done plenty of 5-6 hour rides on the road. I managed to crawl through to the end (didn’t want to ‘waste’ the time I’d already invested - I know, dumb!) and ended up on the floor in a pool of Sufferlandrian Holy Water, blubbering like a baby. Blame it on the heat, not enough nutrition, whatever - I know it means I need to do a lot more work to prepare for my Quest.
Do you have a date? What else are you planning to prepare yourself physically and mentally?
I remember doing It Seemed Like Thin Air plus The Best Way Is Blended plus Do As You’re Told back to back with minimal breaks in between as long prep for my latest quest, all of them at 80%, but I don’t remember how I managed to get off my bike afterwards. that was the point I knew I was ready
I’m from Europe and I had a similar idea in mind; doing it towards the colder months of the year, because my bike room is also blasted by summer sun. That’s a shame though, it would be great to share the dates/pain.
You’re right, I’ve only done one or two of the approved rides so far. I plan on finishing my current Systm plan (I think it lasts about 3 months), then I have a few non-competitive group rides/races in the summer, which I’ll follow by the KoS training plan. I think it lasts about a month and it includes 5 videos (back to back) before the actual KoS attempt. I think this training plan is an excellent trial run to see if you’re ready for the real one.
Did you do those two rides at 100%? From what I understand, the Sufferfest rides themselves are meant to be near full exhaustion, that’s why it’s more or less impossible to do 10 at full power. Someone here replied that they started at 75% and then adjusted up or down accordingly, which is what I plan to do as well.
Mentally, I’m doing the Mental Strength training on Systm. It seemed kinda silly at first, sticking notes around the house and such, but the longer I follow it, the more I feel it’s actually working in getting me motivated and ready.
My biggest concern is running out of fuel since that’s my biggest weakness on longer rides. I’ve found a nutrition calculator that prepares a drinking/eating plan for you. The interface is very clumsy, but once you get it working, it shows you what, how much and at which point (time) during your ride should you drink or eat something. Anyway, here’s the link if you’d like to give it a try: https://app.fuelthecore.com
Edit: I forgot to mention that entering all the approved videos in a spreadsheet really helped me get an overview. I’ve added columns for length, TSS, IF and a chart for each one. You can then easily sort by what’s important. It really makes a difference when you’re able to glance over all the power charts at once; you can see how they compare, how the warm up parts line up between videos and so on.
drink by thirst, that’s the best option from a scientific point of view. as for food, you might want to have a table or something similar right next to you. I then used a folding box filled with goodies I like and just reached over to feed almost constantly. my favourites (but that’s always a matter of taste - pun intended) are pre salted jacket potatoes, corn or rice waffles, different types of bars, nuts, dried fruit, energy gels just in case… just make sure there’s enough of everything, craving for a potato when you had the last one half an hour earlier pretty much sucks
Make Defender your favourite then. Hahahaha, just joking
Actually I remember the wise men and women in the Knighthood ranks mentioned to that in the quest, have 2 favourite rides. The one which you enjoy doing the most at the mental half way point which is ride #7 and one which you feel particularly proud of riding to end your quest with a bang as your #10.
I did Defender as my #10 because I wanted to end of with a big bang but it was also one of those few rides I enjoy.
I did mine in one of the hottest months of the year. I mean, since when it isn’t hot in Malaysia to begin with.
Truth be told, I was quite fortunate that the weather on the day I did my quest was pretty good, it wasn’t that hot although indoor temperture was around 27 degree Celcius and peaking at 30 degree Celcius
Totally agree with you Dame Isi. I got bored of my food and ended up relying on bananas and energy gels for the last 2 hours or so.
Oh another thing I’d like to share would be to have a good mix of slightly savoury food and sweet food as well. The one mistake I did was to have more variety of slightly savoury food than having more sweet food as my body kind of shut down on savoury food…
My first two attempts I relied mostly on solid foods and Gatorade. I tried to eat at least 60g carbs per hours. My third quest I primarily relied on Maurten and then supplemented with solid snacks and extra water when felt like it and tried to get 80g of carbs per hour. I felt stronger on that third quest than either of the other 2 - and I’m pretty sure it was because my nutrition was better with more carbs that were easier to digest. But everyone is different. Definitely train your nutrition beforehand just like you train on your bike. I’d been using Maurten for a few months ahead of time to be sure it worked for me.
I love ISLTA. One of my favorite videos. I did it 2.5 times in a row at 80% power to complete my first century ride. Too bad it’s not on the approved KOS list. Or maybe it’s a good thing it isn’t.
Ha, you shall not fool me, no Sir. I’ve done Defender twice, and it is definitely not a favourite. I don’t love sustained efforts, prefer shorter, harder punches. But, maybe it can be my nemesis…
(joking, but because I really like that workout).
, with all the cyclonic action and thunderstorms we’ve been having. I sweat profusely 
, so I think it’ll be easier to control hydration in the cooler months (but I don’t want it to be too cold either). My current options are 3/4 June (it’s a long weekend here - King’s Birthday celebration) or 1/2 July (start of school holidays - I’m a teacher 
).
). It totally cracked me - 45 minutes in, I wasn’t sure I could carry on. I’d done ISLAGIATT before, and it was tough, but I finished it. This 2 hours 27 minutes was like nothing I’ve done on the trainer, though I’ve done plenty of 5-6 hour rides on the road. I managed to crawl through to the end (didn’t want to ‘waste’ the time I’d already invested - I know, dumb!) and ended up on the floor in a pool of Sufferlandrian Holy Water, blubbering like a baby. Blame it on the heat, not enough nutrition, whatever - I know it means I need to do a lot more work to prepare for my Quest.
