Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Sleeping?

Ok, so I am not a long distance rider . . . yet. I took up riding this past year, discovered I am now a typical roadie/racer type. I just wear regular shorts, a wicking shirt, and usually Vans or teva-like sandals. I just enjoy riding and with the Brooks saddle have never had an issue with needing padding (though I am only doing 40 miles at the moment).

Long story, short . . . I went from 5 miles to 40 miles and enjoy just riding as much as I can. I want to continue to improve endurance and tackle a century.

However, reading the forum and reading about 400k, 600k, or whatever, where do you guys sleep/nap? Do you bring a sleeping bag with you on a rack and pull over on the side of the road? Is their designated spots? I know a stupid noob question, just curious.

Sleep isn't really an issue on 200k, 300k and 400k brevets. You just ride 'til you're done. Some might nap for a few minutes where ever they can find a place to lie down.

On a 600k there's typically an overnight control at around 400k into the ride. On the 600k rides I've done the ride organizer usually reserves some motel rooms that riders can crash in for a few hours. You'll be sharing the room, and often a bed with whoever else needs the room. Of course it's always an option to keep riding through the night, and I've done that on a 600k too.

I've only done one 1200k, but I believe 1200k rides are often broken into four separate chunks with three overnight stops between. The overnight controls may have you sleeping on the floor of a high school gymnasium or possibly in shared motel rooms like what I described for the 600.

Also for rides of 600k and longer, a drop bag service is fairly typical. They'll throw your bag of spare clothes, bike parts, food, etc. in a truck and have it waiting for you at the overnight control.

This is all just based on my fairly limited experience. I would imagine different groups may do things differently.

I want to continue to improve endurance and tackle a century.

However, reading the forum and reading about 400k, 600k, or whatever, where do you guys sleep/nap? Do you bring a sleeping bag with you on a rack and pull over on the side of the road? Is their designated spots? I know a stupid noob question, just curious.

You shouldn't need to sleep on a century!!

I ride up to and including the 400K distance without sleeping. There have been a couple 400K-ish rides I've done where I've taken a quick 5-minute snooze, but that's about it. You can catch those snoozes anywhere ... in the ditch, in a cafe with your head resting on your arms (like you would do as a student in university in the classroom or library) or wherever.

I have done one 600K straight through with no sleep, and it was one of my better 600Ks, but on all the rest of them, I've grabbed a couple hours in a motel or at home. Aside from that first 600K where I rode straight through, for the rest of the 600Ks in Manitoba the small group of us doing the rides agreed to book a room in a motel ... the first ones to get there would book the room for the night, and would be gone by the time the rest of us got there. There were never any bag drops on the Manitoba rides.

In Alberta, I designed a 600K route which had me at home at the 400K point ... so I grabbed a nap there. I designed the route like that for the benefit of other riders as well ... the start/finish area was in a central city and the route was one 400 km loop in one direction, and then a 200 km loop in another direction. This allowed me to stop at home, but allowed other cyclists to either book a motel or use their car as a sleep/bag drop area. Other than that, Alberta rides don't provide bag drops either.

On the Manitoba 1000K, my ride partner and I booked a room in a particular location which we hit twice on the route (out and back). On the third night we stopped and napped briefly on the doorstop of a cafe.

I've done four 1200Ks and started another three. Most of them use community halls or something for sleeping/control purposes, but I've napped in all sorts of places on those rides. If you get tired enough, you'll sleep anywhere.

I was beat-down tired on my 400k last weekend so I took 3 naps since I had plenty of time banked.
1) on the sidewalk against the wall of the gas station we used for a control
2) under the front awning of a grocery, using a sack of stove pellets for a pillow
3) in some guy's driveway in the middle of the night. Just pulled off the road, left our blinkies on, and took a nap.

Randonneur or hobo... tough to tell.

we were out looking for a rider on a 1200k and finally found them sleeping under a picnic table in a park.

There was one time I bonked really badly with about a mile left on a century and slept for over an hour next to the road in a subdivision. Unfortunately, that seems to make people concerned for your imminent demise.

A couple of years ago I met and cycled with a guy who had just come fifth in our national 24-hour time trial championship. He covered 452 miles (over 700km) in the 24 hours and told me he was off the bike for no more than 15 minutes during that time.

The winner did 501 miles.

Rowan started a thread called "Places I Have Slept" a while back ...
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?607999-Places-I-have-slept

My experience has been a bit of 'all of the above'. On 400k's that might start at some indecent hour, like 3am, I'll sometimes get sleepy after lunch or dinner and will pull over to the side of the road and just catnap in a ditch or in a park for a few minutes. Helmet for a pillow. Wristwatch or phone for an alarm.

On a 600k, the route organizers have designated sleep stops where I'll usually sleep for about 90 minutes or 3 hours depending on time allowances. As a randonneur, you get fairly intimate with your sleep cycles and learn to sleep within one full cycle rather than wake yourself in the middle of a cycle. It seems counterintuitive, but you'll feel more rested with 90 minutes of sleep that ended with you just coming out of the REM phase, than getting 145 minutes of sleep where you were woken up from deep REM. At a sleep stop, it's either been: spare bed with a blanket and no drop bags, but spare clothes packed in with regular gear on the bike, or motel room floor with sleeping bag and spare clothes from drop bag, or field cot in a parking lot of a gas station with no spare clothes and just a promise of a hot shower and the end of it all.

On PBP, I had anticipated overcrowding of sleep controls along the route and actually packed a sleeping bag and changes of clothes and toiletries with my bike to give myself flexibility to sleep anywhere that I wanted. That was a little on the extreme end of the packing scale, but it was good to know that I could be comfortable if I wanted to spend 3 hours zonked out in an empty church, for example. I wound up catching 90 minute sleep chunks in the floor of a friend's support van.

On a 1000k that I did recently on Vancouver Island, there were no designated sleep controles. I wound up riding with another fellow for most of the route and we just chatted up waitresses and got them to recommend motels that we could sleep in along the way; then booked reservations as we needed them. There was one motel in Sayward, BC -- The Fisher Boy Lodge. We showed up at around 1am or so, rang the doorbell and the owner came out -- looked at us dressed in grubby bike garb and said, "well, I suppose you're one of those bicyclists who've got one of those peculiar French cards that I have to sign? Probably going to be here for only a couple of hours? Well, here's your key. Pay now. I'll unlock the store and you can buy whatever food and water you need. Then slip the key back under the office door when you're on your way."

We were the only riders who'd come through that day, but she obviously knew the drill from years past. That was nice.

Friends support van at a PBP?

Tisk, tisk, tisk.

:)

Cyril

A couple of years ago I met and cycled with a guy who had just come fifth in our national 24-hour time trial championship. He covered 452 miles (over 700km) in the 24 hours and told me he was off the bike for no more than 15 minutes during that time.

The winner did 501 miles.I find 24 hours awake to be no problem at all. It's the next 24 hours after that which can be a big problem.

Friends support van at a PBP?

Tisk, tisk, tisk.

:)

Cyril

You know, if he had broken into a van to sleep there, then it wouldn't have been considered outside support.:innocent:

Randonneur or hobo... tough to tell.

Randos usually have nicer bike luggage and don't invert their drop bars. :lol:

Friends support van at a PBP?

Tisk, tisk, tisk.

:)

Cyril

There's actually quite a bit of that at PBP and other 1200ks as well. Usually for riders who are trying for sub 50hr times.

Back in 2003 at PBP one of the officials was sweeping the course and noticed a blinking light out of the corner of his eye. He turned around and found a bike laying on the side of the road. After some searching he found the rider. He was standing with his head in a dumpster, the lid laying on his head. He was sound asleep. :) He stopped to eat and went to throw a banana peal away and fell asleep with his head in the dumpster.
At PBP it's not a good idea to sleep in the ditches along side the road, at least on the first day or so. You never know what you'll be laying in... ;)

There's actually quite a bit of that at PBP and other 1200ks as well. Usually for riders who are trying for sub 50hr times.

... or for riders who were recovering from stroke, as my friend was.

I also recall taking a 15 minute catnap on someone's lawn in the middle of Connecticut during a fleche. A teammate waited with me, and had to reassure the homeowner that I wasn't about to expire on their property.

Nowadays, I tend to keep my spare clothes (arm warmers, leg warmers, rain jacket, spare socks, etc.) in a waterproof stuff/compression sack. It helps as a packing organizer during brevets and also makes for a fine pillow for naps such as above. The compression helps it maintain structure in a way that a balled up jacket usually fails at, and it's certainly more comfortable than a helmet.

you can legally sleep in a private van at a controle. It's not done that much in the U.S.

When I get tired and need a nap, I just stop and sleep. I don't even need to unclip. I did it many times on the Cascade 1200.

That's one of the advantages of riding a recumbent trike.