General Cycling Discussion - Preparing/Completing A Century Ride

Okay, freshman in college and I need to write an informative paper. I decided to discuss how to prepare/complete for a century ride. The professor told us we need to be "experts" on the subject or know how to do it really well, seeing how I am a biker I decided this would make a good topic. I have a small list right now of things on how to prepare/complete the ride. Just seeing if anyone else had anything else to add.

-Get a good nights rest.
-Eat a good meal. (types of foods?)
-Drink lots of fluids.
-Prepare your biking/saddle bag. (types of equipment?)
-Get changed into your biking clothing, and check your bike before you take off?
-Next comes the bike ride (pretty much stay hydrated and keep power bars or some food handy?)

This is of course a very very rough list, does anyone have any suggestions on additions or what types of prepartions needed for completition I might have missed?

P.S. Never done a century ride...yet at least

I've done 79 centuries or longer rides ... and I've written a similar article on my site (see signature line), and it has also been published in a magazine ... so no copying it verbatim, but you can read it over.

You might also check out http://www.ultracycling.com/ - there are a whole pile of good articles there.

What's the longest ride you've done so far? When is this paper due? Any chance you can do a century before you hand the paper in ... then you will have some first hand experience at it which you might be able to add into the paper.

I'd say an important step you didn't mention is to plan your route. Also, consider ways to prepare for unforeseen circumstances (rain, crash, bonking, etc)

Good luck with the paper. Maybe you can post it here when you're done as a how-to guide for us forumites.

How to find/set a good pace.

Thats muy importante for a longer ride like a century. On my first century I started out way to fast and burned out at mile 70. Took a break and managed to barely finish though...