Time goal for a hilly century
 

The Barlow Trail Century is this Sunday and I am trying to set a time goal for myself.

For reasons ranging from pride to peer pressure, a 5-hour century has my goal on a flat century. However, living in a hilly part of Portland, I have nothing but hills and hills. In other words, all my centurys have always been over 6K of climbing. The Barlow Trail ride is 100 miles with about 7K of climbing (it's a modified version of the ride that I have in my signature.) One month ago, I did 107 miles with 10K feet of verticle in 6:50 of ride time. Caveat: that was with dozen of stops for photos, taking gravel roads and going solo. If I were to translate the Barlow Trail Century group ride into a flat-century time... what would be your best guess/approach?

will you be pacing or going it alone...makes a huge difference.

ed rader

This will be a group ride with pacelines however pacelines breakdown on the hills, as you know.

i think a 5 hour goal is realistic. it'll be hard, but not unreachable.

Clarifying: I am wondering what a flat 5-hour century would be in the context of a century with 7K ft of climbing. I have never done a flat century before so I have no basis for comparison.

A five hour flat century is pretty damned good. Add in two miles of vertical and I'm thinking you should take a long hard look at making a living in the saddle. The rest of us are looking at ~8 hours. The x factor is how much mileage can be done in the paceline?

I am shooting for 6:00 for the ride this weekend. I haven't raced since HS but I want to get back into road racing. I've been riding a lot recently...

If you're talking ride time, you should be able to do it. The key thing is have a group of friends or hook up with people with similar capabilities as yours, and form a pack/paceline. Work togther as a group. Take breaks togther at rest stops. If you can do 107 hilly solo at 6:50, a group ride of 100 at sub 5:00 is possible.

A 5 hour solo flat century would not be hard at all and most racers could probably do it on their endurance days.

I vote shoot for 5 hours.

You think so? That's actually encouraging.

Hell, i finished 3 state 3 mountain in Chattanooga in 6:39 saddle time, 100 miles and like 6947 ft of climbing and I was 240 lbs when i did it back at the beginning of May....you should have no problem.

My group centuries always take longer. I'm a sucker for taking it easy to let folks catch up.

I love company on rides. Alone, I haul ass.

I think 5.5 hours is doable with hills.

I just did a hilly 100 miles this past weekend with a small group; the first 30 miles were at 14.5 mph average as we had one wife accompany us then. Ride time: 5:51 minutes. And the hills were mostly after mile 70; bunch of rollers before that.

Joo can do eeet!!!

Intellectual ************ here:

Isn't joules the measure of work? Is there an online calculator that calculates joules with and without elevation?

i averaged 18 mph for the first 90 miles of a flat century without pacing. headwinds and fatigue became a factor at mile 90 and i ended the ride with a 17 mph average. i was 43 at the time and overweight :eek: .

ed rader

Work/Energy/Heat; correct.