lungimsam

I commute to work and I am pooped. Legs sore.
Longest I have gone at once on a bike is 50 miles. That was fun and not very hard at all.
But I can't imagine the hours on the bike needed for Centuries and Double centuries, and 24 hour races.

Where do you all find the energy?
Is it that only certain people are "built" for Ultra-Cycling? Like, not everyone can be a pro baseball player, or professional boxer.
Maybe something is wrong with my health?

I love cycling, and day-long rides sound like great fun to me. Would love to do them, but don't know if I would have the strength to do the heavy training every day.
The other issue is that when I go all out I only manage to attain between 15-17 mph average speeds. But I couldn't keep that up for 100 miles. So everyone would be packin' up and goin' home when I was finishing. Ha ha!

krobinson103

I can manage maybe 100 miles at the moment and that would take me 8 hours. I try and ride 80 miles+ every weekend and extend the distance each time by a small amount. During the week I ride 20 miles in the morning then commute 10-20 miles. I find doing that gives me the fitness I need to ride many hours in the weekend. You do need to carry plenty of water and for any ride over 2 hours or so some food to nibble on every 20 minutes or so.

As for 24 hours? I think once you have a certain level of fitness its about nutrition and commitment. You have to want to ride for a seriously long time. If I didn't have two young kids I'd be out every weekend doing just that, but alas family duties must come first. I can manage about 22 miles per hour for as long as I care to ride.

drmweaver2

I think that doing centuries is within the capability of most people who have no major physical issues - it takes determination, that's all (if only that's all was simple). Doing them fast is another issue; my average speed is between 15-17mph when rolling on the flats - so I'm no speed demon over that 100 mile distance.

I say that as a 240pounder who rides a long wheel base recumbent and has just ended a period where I rode solo centuries 6 out of 7 days since starting May 1 up until this week. Prior to May 1, my mileage this year was woefully low - probably under 1500 miles total - and nothing near training level intensity for most people.

If you want to ride 100 miles, remember that the first one is only hard because it's unknown territory for the rider. After 4 consecutive days riding centuries, the distance itself no longer held any "fear" for me. Otoh, different terrain and different weather would present new issues for me.

StephenH

My first century was on my Worksman cruiser, took me about 10 hours, and I stopped at every rest stop (a charity ride, with rest stops every 10 miles.)
If you ride with other people, it's more fun.
There have been a lot of 600k's done at 14 mph around here, so speed is nice but not essential.
For most, but not all, of us, "average speed" means the average speed shown by our bike computers, not total distance divided by total time.

There are some issues that could have a major impact if you were doing them wrong- wrong bike for the job, seat height wrong, uncomfortable saddle, cadence too low, etc. From your post, I can't tell if you're a regular club rider or out there on a Walmart mountain bike.

Machka 

Just keep gradually increasing your distance ... the recommendation is 10% per weekly long ride. So if your longest ride is 50 miles and you felt all right with that, go do 55 miles next weekend. Then the next weekend do a little over 60 miles. Then the next weekend, do 66 or 67 miles. The fourth week, take it easy, maybe back to 50 or 55 miles. Then go back up to 66-67 miles. Then maybe 75 miles, and so on. Every fourth week, take it a bit easier.

Before you know it, you'll be riding a century. That might be all you want to do this year, but keep up your fitness, and maybe next year you might want to try a couple centuries, or maybe a 200K randonnee.


It's not like we rolled off the sofa and hopped on a bicycle and rode a century ... many of us have built up over a period of years.

And as for speed ... I've done centuries in 6 hours and centuries in 15 hours and everything between. It depends a lot on fitness, experience, weather, terrain ....

unterhausen

when my legs are sore, it usually means I have depleted my stored energy. The trick is to get the body to fix that for you without overeating.

Summer is a really good time to add a few (say 10) extra miles to the commute after work a couple of times a week. This will help you adapt to your commute and get you ready for longer distances. My theory is that if you can ride 60 miles in good form, you can go just about forever. At 60 miles, you have to eat somewhere along the way. Getting to the point where you can ride 60 miles without issue is a matter of doing regular shorter rides. My commute is not quite 20 miles round trip, and it isn't enough. If I add just 10 miles to that, my fitness goes way up.

Commodus

I think anyone can do randonneuring. The time limits are set up to be generous enough to give everyone a shot at it...now I'm not saying that everyone will complete every ride. Things happen! Bike fit, pacing and nutrition are the things you have to get right, they're more important than having extreme fitness.

lungimsam

I am bad with technicalities of training. I get too worried about the complexities of it and it is more enjoyable for me to just keep trying to go farther and eat and drink when I feel like it rather than scientifically trying to figure it out.

Is there really no way of doing the long rides with this casual and old school take of mine on training? Does it have to be so scientific?
I tend to stress about if I am eating right, drinking right, is my fit micro adjusted right. Which then leads to worrying about, I am gong to hurt myself if I am doing it "wrong"? Riding loses its fun when I have to be scientific about it.

lungimsam

I have a 2009 Defy 3 Aluminum road bike with composite fork. I do commuting on it and recreational road rides (solo). Would be fun to have a friend to ride with. But seems like every rider I know has 19-21 mph avspeeds and I couldn't keep up.
I am looking to get a lugged steel Soma San Marcos road bike. I like the idea of getting the drop bars higher for comfort. Those Rivendell bikes are designed for that.
I don't like being so low like most of the modern road bikes are made with the threadless steereer tubes cut so low.

StephenH

There are some people in the local club who pay a lot of attention to training and nutrition and all that, and others who just go ride a ton of miles. I suppose paying attention to details is a lot more important if you're trying to solve specific problems or trying to maximize the effects of limited training time. As for me, I ride what I reasonably can, do longer rides on the weekends, and between the two, try to maintain around a 1,000 miles/month. But that's enough that I can go do a 400k or 600k okay, too. I think I'm actually a little faster than this time last year, although I'm actually a little heavier, too (and it's not all muscle, unfortunately.)

chasm54

There's nothing scientific about making sure you're comfortable on the bike, and tweaking your position until it feels right. And that, in my experience, is the most important thing when riding long distances. If you can spend a long time on the bike without too much discomfort, then speed matters very little, you can just take your time. And if you find you are lacking energy, you can stop for a while and eat and drink and give yourself time to recover.

If that's your approach, there's no reason to get scientific about the training at all. Just ride lots of miles. While doing that you'll figure out what works for you as far as eating and drinking is concerned.

Machka 

What's scientific and complicated about gradually increasing your distance?

Go ride 60 miles this coming weekend. Try to consume one 750 ml bottle of water and/or sports drinks every 1 to 1.5 hours. Try to eat 200-300 calories per hour. And if you feel all right on the bicycle, it is probably set up right. If you start to develop consistent joint pains, your setup is likely wrong.

surreycrv 

Left foot, right foot. Keep advancing one then the other. Seriously, all the lab rats are missing out on the KISS principle, and trying to develop a Manhattan Project just to go on a long ride. Hydrate, eat, drink, pedal, repeat.

If it's just the ride you want, then tape over your cyclecomputer. Who cares about the distance, just go see the countryside. You want to get an approximation, use ridewithgps for a plotted track. Hydrate, eat, drink, pedal, repeat.

You can only get competitive once you have become able to repeat the exercise many times easily, it ain't that hard.

max-a-mill

depending on how long your commute is and how often you do it you might just need time to make that amount of riding become easier.

when i first started my 13 mile each way commute i was BEAT. i slept like 10 hours a night most nights and generally just felt worked over.
over the course of a year or two the commute just became part of the routine and i was able to commute reglarly and still enjoy some mtb riding on the weekends.

over the last 1/2 year i have actually found i became faster when i cut down my commuting overall and focused on riding harder a couple days a week and just commuting on my "off" days.

so don't underestimate how tired a new longish commute will make you until your body adapts to it! but commuting (especially forcing yourself out on the days you really don't feel like it) is a great training tool for long rides. it may not be the best training physically but it is awesome for the mental side of the game.

mprelaw

I'm missing something. Why would you ever think that it would take you 8 hours to ride a century, if you can average 22 mph for as long as you ride, and ride the amount of mileage that you do?

You should easily finish one in under 5 hours.

chasm54

I'm not surprised you're confused. The same poster is saying today in the general cycling forum that he rides centuries in six hours on a mountain bike.

mprelaw

Maybe he has a lot of very looonnnnngggggg red lights over in Inchon**********

krobinson103

Before that time I hadn't tried a century. I HAD tried 125km. After I tried it and DID complete it 6 hours RIDING time with 1 hour of assorted drinking/eating/playing break making it 7 hours total. Beileive what you want. I know what I did and I checked my computer with endomondo its correct.

zonatandem

Ride. Drink. Eat. Repeat.

wez312

When I was getting ready for my first century I did a lot of research, made up an elaborate training program and followed it pretty well for about 2-3 weeks. After that I got fairly sick for another 3 weeks and recovered a few days before I was set to ride the century.

Rode it despite my lack or preparation and did fine. Took about 7.5 hours riding time (about 9.5 with stops.)

For reference sake, my previous longest ride before trying this was about 30 miles.

c.miller64

Ha! If it ever gets easy when you're trying to be competitive, you're definitely doing it wrong.

AsanaCycles

I've been riding bikes daily for about 20 years now. I haven't owned a car for about 10.

basically, I have a pattern of about 3 months that I seem to naturally fall into. During those months I'm doing about 200 to 300 miles a week.

once I start to feel tired, I taper way down to about 70 a week for 2 to 3 weeks, then bump back up, focusing mostly on about 70-80% effort.
then I start doing some small drills here and there, like power, etc...

which ultimately helps increase speed and endurance.

thru the years I've trained to a variety of programs, but for the last 5 years or so, I pretty much just follow what I've come to know

today:
[TABLE="class: summaryTable overall"]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Distance:[/TD]
[TD]66.56 mi[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Time:[/TD]
[TD]4:21:12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Avg Speed:[/TD]
[TD]15.3 mph[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Elevation Gain:[/TD]
[TD]4,749 ft[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Calories:[/TD]
[TD]4,343[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

last week about 200 miles

7/4/12:

[TABLE="class: summaryTable overall"]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Distance:[/TD]
[TD]89.84 mi[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Time:[/TD]
[TD]5:44:09[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Avg Speed:[/TD]
[TD]15.7 mph[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Elevation Gain:[/TD]
[TD]5,318 ft[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Calories:[/TD]
[TD]5,813 C[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]





Details


Timing
[TABLE="class: summaryTable timing"]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Time:[/TD]
[TD]5:44:09[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Moving Time:[/TD]
[TD]5:43:54[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Elapsed Time:[/TD]
[TD]6:04:17[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="class: summaryTable timing"]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Avg Speed:[/TD]
[TD]15.7 mph[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Avg Moving Speed:[/TD]
[TD]15.7 mph[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"]Max Speed:[/TD]
[TD]44.6 mph

[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]




[TABLE="class: summaryTable overall"]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: summaryTableLabel"][/TD]
[TD]C


[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

AsanaCycles

or maybe you've become accustomed to that type of "work".

RobE30

Before you get a new steel bike, check out some older steel bikes from the 70's and 80's. A bunch of guys I ride with regularly do centuries and 200k rides on "old" steel bikes and love them.

Ive been working my way up to a century by getting out and just riding, no computer etc. Just fig newtons, water and some granola bars and ride until I get fatigued. I'll go out a few days later and repeat the ride with a computer just to see what my speed is and how far I've gone. I surprised myself the other day when I realized I rode over 75 miles maintaining a computer avg speed of 18mph with lots of climbing. I was thrilled.

There is a Randonneur event in VT in Sept that I want to participate in so that is my motivation.

Most important is to have fun and try not to sweat the details