flr

I was curious what are the expenses needed to ride a century? 10-15$?

Reynolds 

Expenses? Aside from bike/clothing wear, which is so small it can't be evaluated, I'd only spend on food, say about $5 at most.

TGT1

3l of H2O .0002
1 Gatorade .89
1 PPJ .50
1 Lg Payday 1.20

Bike, zeroed out on depreciation. estimated maintenance cost per 100 mi? $1.00

About 3 bucks

If I spent the time working?

5-7 hrs times billable rate

If you are talking organized events, that's a whole other story. Just make sure you know where the money is really going.

Bunyanderman

If you get cliff bars and gels to fuel you century, it's going to be over $10.

TGT1

Cliff bars and gels are just a marketing magnates dream sell for a candy bar and a pb&j.

caloso

$5 for the muffin and soda I bought on the way back?

Machka 

1) Why?

2) Well ... you'd need a bicycle and that might cost something. Probably more than $10-15. But if you have that already, you can get a box of 12 granola bars at the local grocery store for $6 and water is free.

CliffordK

Organized rides will have an entry fee.
But, going on your own, it won't cost a lot.

I usually buy a few bucks worth of food, sometimes on the road. Plus water is free. However, I have to eat whether or not I'm riding 100 miles.

kbarch

Hmm. Is the question about incidental expenses associated with a 100 mile ride (as the suggestion of $10 and other answers above suggest), or total costs?

In the first case, it would depend on whether it's an organized event and if so, how prepared you are to begin with and whether you'd have to travel to get there (other than riding your bike). If it's not an organized event, and you just want a reasonable amount of cash with you when you head out on a long ride, I'd go with $15. If it's an organized event and you can ride your bike home and to the start, refreshments should be provided, but you might still want to take a few $, in case you need to reimburse someone who offers you a spare tube or something.

Total costs would again depend on whether you mean for an organized event, for which entry fees vary widely, but generally a lot more than $10, or whether you mean to amortize the costs of your bike, equipment and everything in 100-mile units.

znomit

Is there a french bakery on the route?

mapeiboy

Marcus_Ti

Or more importantly, a winery?

Phil_gretz

Entry fee?
Miles driven at $0.53 per
Hotel before?
Food bought out?
1/25th of tire life consumed?
Post ride beers?

series1811

Gatorade - $5
Power bars - $10
Gel blocks - $5
New shoes, helmet and kit - $1,000

Looks like $1,020

Reynolds 

In fact, if I start and finish at home I won't eat or drink anything extra, so $0. Maybe I'll eat a little more when I get back home.

cleansheet

$0.575 per mile.

Leinster

A clif bar won't melt in my back pocket like a snickers will, though. Which is my primary reason for preferring them, there's no significant difference in price.

benlees

I'm a recent convert to Clif bars. Really convenient, tasty, doesn't melt or crumble, and contains decent nutrition.

Seattle Forrest

Cliff Bars are pretty expensive for a laxative, but if you guys enjoy them, more power to you.

Leinster

Yup. I buy the 18-packs of Clif minis; the majority of my rides are under 2 hours, and a full size bar is too much calories for that time frame. I think the last time I ate a full clif bar was actually on the final push of a century, I picked it up at the next-to-last rest stop and it got me through the last 40 miles only stopping for more water.

dpd3672

How much spent per century?

Well, I've spent probably $10,000 in the last year on cycling and related activities, so I'm figuring a cool million bucks should cover a hundred years.

Lazyass

I recently switched from Cliff bars to Bear Naked bars. They taste better and go down easier. A little more crumbly but not so much that they fall apart while eating on the bike. 3-4 would suffice for a century ride. A box of 5 cost less than $5 at Walmart, I drink only water so I'm looking at a cost of less than $4 for a century ride.

kbarch

How much does that really matter? Presumably you're referring to whether it's going to the associated charity, as if one chooses a ride in order to support that charity. Maybe others do that, but I do organized events because they are fun; the fact that a charity just happens to be the recipient of the profits doesn't enter into the decision. In any event, how would one be sure what the costs of running the event were - publicity, signage, local govt. fees, food & drink, marshaling & support, clean-up, etc? The logistics never cease to amaze me, so I wouldn't presume to say they should be run any differently.

Going off on a tangent - one of the most amazing things to me is how they manage to have tons of bananas, and all of them are perfectly ripe on event day. You go to the grocery store, and they're all in varying states of ripeness, or some terribly green, with others going brown, or maybe all green or all going brown. But at events, they have so many, and all so perfect (or nearly so)... I can't imagine being the guy responsible for bananas - imagine how easily that could go wrong, and how bad it would be if it did.

Up North

Blood transfusion $700.00
EPO $350.00
motor home rental $850.00
Dr. $3000.00
gas for Sag car and motor home $300.00
podium girls $750.00 per hour