Originally Posted by
The_Cretin
The physics of climbing vs. flat riding vs. riding indoors are different. It feels different because it is different (sometimes it's not your imagination). And that's why performance in one doesn't transfer fully to another.
This is BS. The physics of riding a bike are not dependent on the terrain. Power is power is power. What differs is procedure. You choose different gears for different speeds and you really need to know what to expect out of your body for a given effort at a given time. This is why it is important to train in the terrain you are going to ride at least once in a while, but at the same time, you can do the bulk of your training on the flats for your climbs.
Fitness wise, the advice to work up to a century is good. The advice to once in a while travel to the mountains to train is good; bring some buddies and make a day of it. On the fitness front, finding some long country roads (doesn't matter the terrain) and keeping a pace where you are breathing heavily and can't talk for 20 minutes at a time is good training.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter