JMRobertson

I made it though my first century yesterday.

Morro Bay, CA ---> Gorda, CA--->Morro Bay on highway 1.

Data from Garmin 705:
Total miles: 106
Total ride time: 8:16
Climb/decent: ~6000ft mostly in miles 40-60
Ave speed ~13mph
Ave cadence~64
Ave Heartrate 150, max 180.

I know this isn't "athletic" performance, but was pretty good for me. I can average 18mph on a 15 mile ride when I try for speed, and even that is far from "athletic". I'm not training for races or whatnot.

What I'd like to know from y'all is how does the course I ran compare with other centuries out there. Is this a "strenuous", "moderate" or "easy" century? I'm surprized at how good I feel today, I thought I'd be wasted. My butt's a little more sore than usual, and my legs are sore but not shaky.

botto 

feedback is: congrats. seeing as it wasn't a race, the rest of the information is irrelevant.

Daytrip

I've done two. The first one was a lot harder than the second one. Congratulations.

fatdad

I try to do my club's summer century most years, called Climb-to-the-Clouds. It has 7240 in elevation and is actually 105 miles, not sure how to compare exactly with yours, this one goes up Mt. Wachusett in the middle of Massachusetts. Usually runs third sunday in July, typically quite hot and humid, not sure of your weather during your recent century. This is the webpage if you want to compare...https://crw.org/CTTC/climb2clouds.htm

garysol1 

Congrats on getting the first one under your belt

caloso

100 miles in a day. That's a bike ride, man. Well done.

johnny99

Congratulations. Completing your first century is a worthy accomplishment for any cyclist.

Regarding the route, I think 6000 feet of climbing is moderate for a century (at least here on the west coast). Hard core centuries will have over 10,000 feet of climbing in 100 miles. On the other hand, there are lots of easier centuries with less than 5000 feet of climbing.

carpediemracing 

Good job. Seems like you prepared well, based on your feelings the day after. Based on that, you'll be amazed at how much easier the next ones become, and how much quicker you can go.

I train at 16-18 mph avg most of the time, and I race (crits only), so I wouldn't put your pace down at all. If I were to do a long ride like that I'd be in the 13-15 mph range too.

As far as 'rating' it, I think that would be considered a moderately hard century for "serious" riders. Easy implies almost no climbing, and strenuous I'd say would need 10k feet or so of climbing. Maybe Moderate then, in your listings, although if you were rating a charity ride and expected riders with very little training, 6k feet of climbing would probably be considered "strenuous".

150 bpm avg and 180 bpm max sound like numbers I'd rack up (I'd be a bit lower on max), and if I averaged 150 bpm, that would be a pretty decent slog for me, esp for 8+ hours.

Also, how did you feel 2, 4, 6, and 7 hours into the ride? Were there trouble spots, did you have a lot of reserves at 7 hours, etc. You can use that info to pace your next century.

cdr

sojourn

Congrats! Excellent job for ANY Century.
Now go out and do another as you're already in shape for it..........

kimconyc

Nice job!

From what you are saying, it was not hard enough Were you coasting a lot (downhills), because your cadence is a bit on the low side. I'm deducing this by the fact that you say you are not sore (guessing you didn't mash it out), combined with the cadence number and average speed.

Daytrip

I haven't been able to figure out why my centuries are some of the fastest rides I've done in my short road biking career. They were both at 15.3 mpg, and I had an 83-miler at 15.75. All my shorter rides (all 31 of them) were in the 13-15 mph range. Seems like it should be the other way around.

rydaddy

Stop and go has a greater effect on your average speed for short rides... assuming you hit a few stops on a ride.

umd

Did this include the climb up Old Creek Road, or was it all on hwy 1?

NYJayhawk

Congrats. The centuries around here run somewhere in the 6000-8000 feet of climbing range. I would put anything over 8k as pretty serious climbing, and anything under 5000 as being fairly mellow.

Still, even that's not necessarily the full story. A flat-century with a 5000 foot climb in the last 10 miles would be insanely difficult.

rydaddy

The wind can always spice a flat century up too.

caloso

Testify, flatland brother! A headwind is a hill with no top.

umd

I hate flat rides... the ~4,000 I did on this morning's 100 mile ride is about my lower limit of climbing before I feel like I want to shoot myself.



I prefer a little more variety like this ride two weeks ago (9,600ft)



And this the week before (11,000ft)...

mkadam68

I find I'm agreeing with the others. FOr a few centuries around here that I've done: 6,000 feet (Cruisin' the Conejo) is moderate. 3,000 (Cool Breeze) is "easy" (as easy as 100-miles can be ), and 8,000+ (any of the KOM's) is strenuous.

Nachoman

You mean to tell me that you pedaled 100 miles in one day? Are you crazy?

Nice job

bdcheung

What kind of job do you have where you can ride 100 miles in a morning and still bring home a paycheck?

Are you in the adult film industry?

umd

I take the morning off usually once per month to do a long ride, then go work for 6 hours. Around this time of year so many people are off on vacation nobody really cares anyway. I started in the dark at 6:30 in the morning and the whole ride took about 5:30 door to door.

And no, I'm not.

BigSean

Id say its pretty standard for the area of Nor Cal and the bay area.

bdcheung

gotcha. that's a neat plan.

umd

Yeah, it's a nice ride that I would never get to do otherwise. It's pretty much the same loop I often do on Saturdays, but the pace is much more casual most of the time, especially this time of year when the Saturday ride doesn't slow down as much...

I'm trying to finish off my stupid century-a-week goal, so I'm squeezing them in where I can. Only 4 more to go.

Bontrager

Congrats on the century!