Cycling-Related Strength & Conditioning

@gregorio - personally I'd not bother with a weight training regime. Spending that time on the bike would be more beneficial.

If you can ride 50-75 miles then I think the Marmotte or the Etape is achieveable for you, but it will take a fair amount of commitment. Training needs to focus on two areas, the endurance you'll need to spend 8 or more hours in the saddle and having the sustainable power to ride up 20 km alpine climbs.

The former is easy, start trying to do one long ride of at least 4 hours every weekend from January onwards and increase that as the weather improves. The latter is a bit more difficult but start doing a 30 minute session, with a 15 minute warm up and warm down, once a week where you ride at what I'd call 'time-trial pace', essentially at a intensity that you can just maintain for that 30 minute period. As your fitness improves you can increase the length of the session to 45 or 60 minutes and/or do it more frequently than once a week.

If you can afford it then I'd strongly recommend a weekend in the Alps 1-2 months before the event you choose to do to give you an idea of what is ahead of you and get a feel for riding long climbs.

Cheers for that andyp-very helpful to have that blueprint to work from. Now I just need to figure out where I'll be living and take it from there... Thinking about commiting to the Etape Caledonia and possibly one more sportive like the one on Skye before the etape proper (or marmotte) to make sure I aint freakin out before it and to ensure adequate levels of motivation... I may also promise myself a nice new steed to do the deed too ;)