RIDERS! Stage 7 - the Queen Stage! - is OPEN. This is the Sir Dan Corrick Stage and HONOURS Dan, his wife Nikki Corrick and his daughters. We lost Sir Dan last month when he was hit by a driver.
This stage also features, during Blender, personal messages from Sufferlandrians who have dug deep into their wallets and donated a bit extra to say something to you. It would be great, after the stage, if you could find something more to donate to Team DPF as well.
Two notes:
If you’ve previously downloaded Blender, you’ll need to delete and redownload to see the personal messages. Do log out/log in again as well just to be sure you get the new narrative.
The stage should be done in order SUF Idol > Blender > Cash Register. This is how GvA intended it. If you can’t get them back to back, then try to do them as close together as you can manage for maximum GLORY. Or was that Suffering. Not sure. Anyway. Onwards!
The tribute to Sir Dan is touching, a great inspiration that we cannot take what we do for granted.
Also ironic at 5:23 in Blender to see the late #3 South African Champion Burry Stander lining up centre stage in green on the start line. He too was hit by a motorist whilst on a training ride many years back.
ToS’22 completed. All stages in Nuclear Option. But it absolutely doesn’t matter to me. As I wrote after the first stage, I do not feel any satisfaction. My thoughts are over the eastern border where a real nuclear threat is possible… Ukrainians do not give up! STOP WAR!
This community is awesome
Thanks for the support everyone. I would not have tried the 3 workouts of stage 7 back to back if it weren’t for your encouragements
Thank you @David.McQuillen.KoS and everyone else involved with the ToS this year. Somehow managed to drag myself through the sprints of cash register.
Some of the posts have been absolutely inspiring and look forward to catching up with everyone else’s suffering over the next couple of days. Go well Sufferlandrians!
That was one hell of a finish…SUF Idol went well, felt better than i thought i was going to do at this point…Blender, well that was tough, really tough, at one point it asked for 110 cadence, yeah like thats was going to happen!..held the power but cadence dropped, never really felt settled until the 3x4min TT!..onto Cash Register, and that first “opener” sprint was like hitting a brick wall! …the second “opener” was like hitting the wall again!
Overall really pleased with how it all went, the legs however not so hahaha
Stage 7 done. Definately a tough end to a great tour. So glad to complete and confirm Sir Davids prophecy of “it will be fine” after my 252 mile warm up
Took the day off work to really be able to savor this one, although I needed to dial it a bit lower than the focused levels prescribed. This is the longest ride I’ve done in nearly 5 years-with 4.5 y/o and 2 y/o kids, I’m all about the hour of power-so I’ll bask in the Sea of Agonia for quite a while after this one.
And now for a much less glorious form of suffering, starting on my income taxes
And this completes my very first Tour of Sufferlandria! I ended up doing the 7 Stages in 6 days…
Today’s triple threat stage was brutal, but i completed all workouts at the prescribed Focused levels (how cruel t was to not reduce FTP levels, except for a measly 3% for Blender!) and with less than a 10 minute break between the workouts.
SUF Idol targeted muscle fibres that had not done too much work so far in this tour, and got me hot, tired and sweaty for Blender.
I truly sympathize with all participants who have a “Sustained Effort” weakness, as Blender will absolutely grind you down. While I don’t have such a weakness, I found the repeated longish FTP blocks very difficult. But the encouraging customs messages were helpful, and helped me through this horrible, horrible stage.
Cash Register went well - after all, with all of the work already done, a short 32 minute session is nothing!
I loved the experience of riding the tour. But I’m now completely drained… and need an adult refreshment to recover. Oh, and lots and lots of rest and sleep!
I wish all who have yet to do Stage 7 a lot of courage!
Done! Hit all of the targets in Suf Idol, none of the targets in Blender, bit of a second wind and cramps for Cash Register. That was a tough final stage.
And I think Davis Phinney will be ok with me donning my WoS socks for Cash Register for the Women of Sufferlandria who have raised an eye watering 12k!!! Fantastic work ladies!
Well Stage 7 is in the books. Finished at 100%. Legs feel as bad as I can remember in a looong time. And I am afraid I have Stage 8 to do tomorrow before the close of the Tour.
I did Stages 2 - 7 Nuclear. Sadly I had to do Stage 1 at just 80% on doctors orders due to an injury. Since I planned to do the whole thing Nuclear, the only logical thing (by Sufferlandrian logic anyway) is to do Stage 1 again before the end of Tour at 100%.
. “Just” queen day left tomorrow Saturday.
