Be sure to check out the Cascade Message Boards on a regular basis. The Rides section is pretty quiet this time of the year, but as we get closer and closer to STP, it will increasingly heat up.

Definitely do the Cascade Training Ride series, if you live in the Seattle area. You will learn a lot from your fellow bike riders.

Continue to commute to work – this is the best way for you to get in lots of miles.

Consider joining us on this goal . I’ll be posting regular monthly mileage goals, and if you make them all, you’ll also achieve this goal
If you’re even more ambitious, go for this one

In addition to announcing your goal(s) on 43things, tell everyone you know that you’re planning to do this. This makes it really hard to back out. Tell your friends, your co-workers, your family. Believe me, they will say things like, “have you done that STP thing yet?” “How’s the training going?” It makes it really hard to give up.

Nutrition – my best advice is to experiment with different things on all those training rides you’re going to do. Different people swear by different things, because every body’s different.

There’s lots of specific advice about doing the STP itself, but I’ll limit myself to this one: realize that bicycling an event like this is mostly up in the head, and not in the legs. What you think makes as much difference as how physically prepared you are. For example, many people quit the ride shortly after Longview because now they’re in Oregon for goodness sakes, they should almost be there. This is purely a mental thing.

One way to view the ride is a whole series of 10 to 15 mile segments. You might have a regular ride from your house (ride to work? that usual loop?) that’s about that long. You can just think, “oh, 12 miles to Vader – that’s no problem”, and then, “oh, another 15 miles to Lexington – and lunch! No problem” rather than facing the fact that it is 67 miles still to Portland. Do you know what I mean?

Good luck! We’ll see you on STP!