bondiblue

In the past few months, I had conversations about centuries with two different people, both who are somewhat serious bikers. When I told one that I was planning to do my second century, she asked "which one", I responded "I haven't come up with the route yet", thinking in my head "the one that takes me 100 miles, duh". The other one was asking me about a century I had done last year, and when I told her I had done it on my own she said "oh so it wasn't a century, you just rode 100 miles".

WTF?

It seemed to me unfortunate that they thought that a century necesarily was either a fixed route someone else came up with, or an organized ride with a group on a fixed route.

Get creative! Find a friend if you want, pore over some maps, come up with a route on your own. You might not end up with a water bottle or a T-shirt with sponsors on it, but there is a feeling of satisfaction knowing you can figure out how to do 100 miles in a day.

Anyway, those were my thoughts. Tear them apart if you want.

Red Rider

I now differentiate between centuries & organized rides of 100 miles. Kind of keeps the confusion down.

We're looking at doing more of our own century rides w/o support, as we have so much great riding within a couple hours' drive of home. I know most of them are charity events but I'm tiring of the cotton T-shirts & water bottles. They multiply like rabbits & I'm running out of room for them.

You make a good point. Maybe there's a definition out there other than what we think.

SandLizrd

No tearing-apart here, I agree with you - I would've asked "organized ride or solo effort?" And knowing my luck, some nay-sayer would say "had friends with me, was NOT solo." yeah yeah.

We must remind ourselves that there's a million riders who would never ride alone, if the club isn't there they stay home. There's also a million riders who do fast 30's but their only centuries are the big organized rides. It sounds like you've met one of the latter. It gets even more complex when you include UMCA rules, where a 95-miler can be included in the year-rounder challenge but some pundit has to say "that's not a century." And then there's the rando riders, if it's not 200k or more it's "ONLY a century."

Terminology is a beech. And you can't please everyone, so you gotta please yourself.

A word of caution / sanity check: Route discovery CAN be a bear. Last weekend I tried a new route & discovered that the road narrows at the county line, plus that route is immensely popular with cars on holiday weekends. Some of our distances are just too far to walk, and hitchhiking near the Mexican border is bad for my health

Six jours

Nonsense. A hundred miles is a century, whether you did it with a zillion other people at Solvang or rode around the block 100 times by yourself. Like Wiswell said, it seems to me that it's tougher to do your own thing by yourself than to spend the whole day sitting in a pack on a marked course with organized meal stops every 25 miles and somebody in a van to fix your flats.

The term your "serious bikers" are missing, IMO, is "organized" centuries. A century is 100 miles. An organized century is the one where you get the t-shirt.

HTH!

spokenword

actually, if it's not 200k or more it's "training"

but that's 'cos randonneurs are crazy. I remember when I started last year, I mentioned off-hand to a friend at a party that I had to leave early because I was going to do a century tomorrow and they were all, "oh, really? which one? Tour De Cure? MS?"

"No, it's just a training ride."

"... wait ... what?"

but yeah, all the more power to folks who DIY their 100 miles. The other label that I apply to it is 'a fast tour', which adds a nice reminder that there's more to a century than just getting the milestones. You can see a lot of beautiful places in a 100 miles.

ronsmithjunior

Yup, a century or a 200k is just a long training ride. If I don't see the sun both come up and go down during the ride it is not a long one.

Seriously though (I was being serious), doing 100 miles is a century, with extra credit for doing it solo and planning your own route. Tomorrow I am doing my 55 mile training route, and I am trying to figure out how to add another 45 miles.

ronsmithjunior

A couple of hours drive? One of my favorite rides, the Knoxville Double Century, starts in Pena Adobe Park on the west side of Vacaville. I was just in Davis to do their double, and there is great riding all over the place.

Me, I got the ocean to the west, Mexico to the south, mountains to the east, and suburbia to the north. Bah.

rodrigaj

I ran into a fellow workder on the road the other day, we rode together for awhile and he asked me what I was doing out here (about 25miles away from my home).

It is about a 46 mile loop that I do daily. He asked me what I was training for. Since I don't do races, centuries, organized rides, or anything like that since I much prefer solo riding, I didn't know what to answer. I finally answered the Tour de France.

Waxbytes

Tell him that your "training" for life by living it.

bmike

100 miles is 100 miles
i'm doing the UMCA year rounder... but all my rides will be 100 miles minimum. its the principal of the thing.

i've started riding with some club folks on the weekends (typically the 'touring' crowd) - and when i speak of brevet mileage their eyes glaze over... i also get the 'which one?' question a bit - as if the only way to ride is on an organized ride. compared to a brevet though, the organized century i did last year was pretty posh - food and drink every 15 miles or so, a bagpiper on the toughest climb of the day, food and masseuse at the end...





one problem that i've had to deal with is feeling anything shorter than a century is a 'real' ride.
seems if i only go out for a few hours (or less) i get all depressed that i didn't really 'ride' and stress my body.

working with a local coach he's quickly tempered that.
some days i ride easy (nothing above 75% of my MRH) for 2 hours. im out smelling the flowers and taking photos...

other days i do some intervals and max out to where i want to puke.
neither is a century - but after 4 weeks, i see their place in the grand scheme of things.

SesameCrunch

This anecdote sounds like a dumb blonde joke ....

spingineer

I agree with BMike ... 100 miles is 100 miles. However, I have done some centuries where the actual length is < 100 miles. My take is, as long as the organization considers it a century, even though < 100 miles, it is a century.

Rex G

I thought the same myself.

oboeguy

WTF? A century is a 100+ mile ride, no? Simple as that, right? I'm looking to do a t least one solo 100 mile ride this season and plan to call it century. Heck yes.

Machka 

Only one???

All but 3 of the 9 centuries (or longer rides) I've ridden this year have been solo.

supcom

For randonneurs, centuries are either warmup rides or recovery rides.

You know you're a randonneur when you catch yourself saying, "Only 100 more miles to go."

zowie

Probably comes from the concept that running 26 miles solo is not the same as running a marathon.

Bentley6

Seriously though (I was being serious), doing 100 miles is a century, with extra credit for doing it solo and planning your own route. Tomorrow I am doing my 55 mile training route, and I am trying to figure out how to add another 45 miles. [/QUOTE]

I did my first century ride this past Memorial Day. It was great. But instead of mapping out a long course or loop I just took the route I use as a training ride. It's an out and back of 25 miles. I did it four times. Though it could really be boring as far as repetitive scenery, I knew where all the stinking road kill was, where the dogs lived, how to prepare for the tough hills and nothing really happened unexpectedly. I could leave my house and my mileage was 25 miles exactly each time I came back home where I could rest for 20-30 minutes. I just needed to get the first 100 miler under my belt so I could decide it I would want to do any more later. I'm hook! The only suprise during the 7 hour & 45 minute road time was how easily I did it. Yeah I was fatigued at the end but still I thought that I would be a dead man walking at the end. My next ones will probably be some kind of loop routes and I'd like to do one every other month or as time allows but I also hope to stretch the next one to a 200K ride.

tibikefor2

Well I have done over 30 100+ mile rides this year. Only one of them has been organized, does that mean I have only done 1 century? Let's get real, 100 miles is a 100 miles plain and simple.

From the UMCA:

Rules Summary:
For routing reasons some centuries are just under 100 miles. In the Year-Rounder a century is a ride of 90 - 149 miles.

An "Organized" century is a ride with: a name, designated start/finish location and starting time(s), route plan, organizer, and advance publication of the ride or ride series in club newsletters, etc.

A "Personal" century is a personally designed ride. For credit, you must complete at least 90 miles in a 12-hour period including off the bike time (and maintain an 8.33 mph average after that). Personal centuries provide century-length riding opportunities for riders in seasons or locales where Organized centuries are sparse.

Any Y-R ride counts toward the Larry Schwartz award - brevets, double centuries and ultra events.

We like to keep the holidays free for time with the family, so the Year Rounder ends on December 21, 200X.

Riders in any country may participate.

Goonster

Fixed it for you.

donrhummy

A solo, unsupported century is tougher than a supported one where you can draft. (Not even to mention all the work putting the route together, etc)

Machka 

+1!!

My fastest, and easiest centuries have been fully supported, organized ones that draw 150-200 people.

roadfix

Yeah....I agree, 100 miles is 100 miles. The only physical variation on the centuries I've ridden was elevation gain......ones with less than 2,000 feet and others with over 10,000 ft of climbing, but that shouldn't matter.

Machka 

Yeah, because the one with less than 2000 ft might have gale force winds to deal with, as are common in flat areas. And all too often, if you've got a headwind going out, when you turn, so does the wind, and you've got a headwind going back.

In Manitoba, we called those gale force winds: "Manitoba Mountains".

OldsCOOL

If I do a century it will be by myself riding my own route. Time is a factor for me so who knows how far I can push the distance riding in terms of training for it.