Last summer, once it was clear my yearly cycling adventure in Europe was not going to happen, I found myself lacking motivation to go out biking.  I never realized how much my vacations motivated me to cycle.  While a lot of people were getting into cycling for the first time, I was trending in the opposite direction.  While Minnesota does have some decent longer paths like the Willard-Munger, Paul Bunyan, and Lake Wobegon trails, I've ridden most of all of those routes and they weren't that exciting.  It's also hard to find campsites.  In the end I opted to just spend a week lounging around the house and, while I did go out riding regularly, I stuck to more like 30 mile rides instead of 40+ miles.

This summer, with the fresh prospect of a real vacation, I've been doing a lot more riding.  We also had a much earlier spring than normal so I was able to start riding outside back in March.  That gave me quite a bit of time to build up my hill climbing as well.  

I normally set up .gpx tracks for all my routes to get a good idea of the amount of climbing.  Sundays are dedicated hill days and, while we don't exactly have long hills around here, we do have some shorter steeper ones.  I end up riding up and down those several times to get enough elevation gain to sort of simulate riding in the Alps.  I also made an investment in a smart trainer for indoor riding.  That combined with the FulGaz app have been great for working on my hill climbing.  The trainer doesn't quite accurately replicated the really tough hills, but it still let's me push myself closer to the limit knowing I won't fall over or get run over by a car.  Another unexpected benefit is that FulGaz actually has some stretches of routes I'm hoping to ride if my vacation actually happens.  The ride back to the Antholzersee was particularly nice to try riding.  Now I know that I'll probably want to bail out a few miles from the end of the ride and take the bus instead.  It really does get awfully steep and there is no separate cycle path there.

I usually opt to ride 6 days a week.  Sundays are hill days (presently up to 2700 ft elevation gain), Monday-Thursday I do shorter rides on the indoor trainer of 45-60 minutes, sometimes hillier routes, sometimes flatter ones, and then Saturdays I do longer rides of 40+ miles with maybe 1500-2000 ft elevation gain.  For where I'll be riding that should be sufficient, especially since my rides here involve only an occasional restroom stop.  When I'm touring I stop a lot.  Bakeries, scenic vistas, getting lost, etc.  Those rest breaks do make a big difference.