Thanks for the good suggestions. My usual interval routines involve shorter hard phases, so I find your suggestion for longer ones intriguing--and logical. I'll give them a try. I always do my intervals in 3 week successions, with a 4th week of recovery.

The 300km event in Sweden remains tentative. One of my training partners--who is also riding in a team at Roth--is a Swede, and apparently every Swedish male is more or less required to do the Vätternrundan at least once in his life. But we're not really riding it as prep for Roth--just for fun. We figure it can't set us back too much for Roth, as long as we're smart about it.

And thanks for the tip about getting used to the aero bars. I have never used them, so I figured I'd need some time to practice, but I hadn't thought of the orthopedic aspect.

I'll keep you posted how the training comes along.

Cheers,
Jamie