>  Know what?  How do you say this without seeming to boast?  I'm there
now.  I am fully confident I could handle this >weeklong ride from
Telluride, Colorado to Moab, Utah with no up front training whatsoever.

Careful Jim. I thought the same thing a few years ago. I seriously believed
Arthur Jones' philosophies regarding specifity of training, and I figured I
would be able to jump right back on a bike after years of high intensity
weight training and be able to pick up right where I left off many years
earlier.

Boy, was I surprised. True, I re-adapted to the bike much more quickly than
I would if I had been sedentary, but it certainly wasn't "easy". Same
results with a backpacking trip a couple years ago. Even though as a youth
I "lived" on a bike, and backpacked hundreds of miles, I revisited muscles
I apparently had not used for years :)

I suggest you do some specific training.