Touring - Not As Ready As I Thought

After planning on touring for some 3 years and being thwarted by health reasons, I'm determined this year. I've been working hard on building up my fitness after the winter and thought I was doing well enough to aim for a mid-May tour. I'm not so sure now.

I spent the first part of the year cycling with big tread tires with studs and now, since I've swapped to my normal tires, I started loading the weight up. 15 miles with 1/3 of my gear weight felt like work, but after the ride was over, I felt fine. I rested a day because of appointments and yesterday, I did 23 miles with 2/3 of my gear weight. It went very slow and I was noodle kneed and half-asleep the rest of the day.

Today is another rest day and I'll ride tomorrow with 2/3 of the weight again, aiming for 30 miles to see how I feel. I might just go any way, even if my first week is full of 20 mile days. Summers are short here in Sweden so I need to get my rump moving. :P I won't have any particular destination and no time restrictions, so it's not like I have to crank out 50-100 miles a day to get to X-Place in X-Time.

It is frustrating though. Good thing I can see lots of cultural sites in 20 miles. :D

do what you can to have fun. If it's not fun, maybe you can enjoy the suffering?

Fitness often comes on tour. You don't have to be in "peak condition" to enjoy bicycle tours.

It seems almost to be a waste to be carrying touring stuff and not going anywhere except on fitness rides.

Just go & have fun. Rowan, it's not a waste, it's training!

Don't forget that you have a long time to get in your miles in. If your rump can take the saddle time you can get pretty far while stopping to smell the roses. Just go and enjoy yourself:thumb:
Touring in my opinion is all me time so I do what I want when I want...luckily I like to ride solo.

15, 23, 30 miles in six days? If this is an unfamiliar amount of miles then of course you'll be tired. That's the other part of the ride. It sounds like you're expecting life off the bike to be different than life on the bike. It's not.
See if you can have a 5-10 miles rest days with no weight on the bike instead of rapidly ramping up miles and effort with zero riding rest days. Seems to me that pushing until you're exhausted isn't really needed if it brings negative emotional consequences. With EASY riding rest days where you hold back from any effort you'll enjoy a feeling of potential while riding and experience what recovery while riding feels like. If you're always getting on the bike to push it with time off the bike for recovery your association for riding is mild suffering. There's no reason to do that in order to build up fitness.

anelaasu, Trying to merge your desires with what is done training for a century ride you need to schedule light effort days plus an off day during the week. An over simplification, it's during the light days that the muscle torn down by the heavy days is rebuilt stronger, actually healed.

Brad

to me its a misconception that you need to be fit AT ALL to leave on a bike tour
i've met families with children on bikes, 12 yrs old, coming from Alaska all the way to South America, or retired people of 60-65 enjoying the trip, all at their own rhythm
to me traveling by bike is a way of life, a way of seeing things differently, more slowly, its about meeting people, being close to nature, enjoying the little things, its not a competition about how many miles you can do in a day

but i guess its different for everyone, all is good!
either way, you get used to your rhythm after a few weeks and get in shape pretty quickly

If you have good train/bus service perhaps take trains to different spots you would like to visit. Drop your gear off at a hotel and use your bike to explore unloaded. If you have an open schedule you can always ride between towns if you feel the urge.

I won't have any particular destination and no time restrictions, so it's not like I have to crank out 50-100 miles a day to get to X-Place in X-Time.

It is frustrating though. Good thing I can see lots of cultural sites in 20 miles. :D

Sounds like you're fine. I've only had a few multi-day tours. I kept thinking that I needed to prepare for them, but I just never got around to it. My first ride with the bike fully loaded was the day I set off on my trip. Admittedly it was a short trip: only a few days, but I was able to get where I needed to when I needed to. My method is to take breaks whenever I'm feeling run down. Early in the day my legs feel ready for more pretty quickly, later in the day my breaks get longer and saddle time between breaks gets shorter. If 20 miles is your limit, then go 20 miles, but my guess is that you'll be able to knock out that 20 miles early, take a relaxing break, and then knock out another 20, and maybe another 20. But you have to time line and no set destination, so even if you only go 20 miles in a day, you're still making progress, and you will be able to ride longer soon.

Nothing wrong with 20 miles a day if you are enjoying it. I generally carry some kind of a load on my bike. This last weekend I did a 64 mile group ride without the panniers, and it was a fun ride. Even though my LHT was the heaviest bike out there it felt great to me bc it was lighter than it usually is. How about mixing it up with loaded/unloaded?

Thanks for all the responses.

I'm settling down to the idea of 20 miles a day at first though I'm sure if I can convince myself not to blow all my energy and stamina in the first few hours, I can cover more. I admittedly was in a big rush for the 23 mile ride. As for staying in hotels, I'll be sticking to small country roads most of the time where even B&Bs are scarce and woods plentiful (thank you right to use laws!). I don't really have that much free cash to spend on sleeping places. I still have about 3 weeks to work on my fitness and one week of that will be on vacation on an island where I'll be cycling as much as I can possibly stand. ;)

I'm feeling pumped rather than frustrated now. :)

Sounds great!

It's great that you are training for the next few weeks.

It sounds like you are pretty careful about overtraining, so you may not need to hear this.

Realisically you probably aren't going to up your daily mileage capability significantly over the next few weeks. And you dont want to hurt yourself through overtraining.

Just keep that in mind as you get closer to the day.

Thanks for all the responses.

I'm settling down to the idea of 20 miles a day at first though I'm sure if I can convince myself not to blow all my energy and stamina in the first few hours, I can cover more.

when I first started doing long rides as a teenager I made a point of going easy enough in the first hour or two that I was breathing out of my nose. On flat ground that isn't hard to do.