The Bridge Ride

The members of this year's H2H team have been regularly training for a few months now, as everyone wants to be in shape come April 3. While there are some nice big roads here in Saigon where you can put in some decent distance without having to deal with extremely heavy traffic, the big problem with training here is that the terrain is completely flat. The most hill 'training' we get are the small bridges over the canals on Nguyen Van Linh, which runs out from District 7.

These are a far cry from the hills and mountains we encounter on H2H, especially south of Hue. Therefore a few riders have gotten ambitious and cycled over the ginormous Phu My bridge over the Saigon River, by far the highest and steepest road surface in town. I took a crack at it myself today, and it's a great ride. There is little traffic, particularly on the weekend, and the large vehicle lanes are separated from the bike lines. I did H2H last year and I can say with confidence that many of the climbs on it are much more difficult, but climbing Phu My is still a good way get your body used to the concept of hills.

I'll probably do this every remaining weekend before the ride. Anyone care to join?

Mike T.