funbun

How do you train for a tour? Say 400+ miles. Just ride everyday?

blonde

Ride regularly, be able to ride 50 miles without your arse killing you and feeling like you want to die. If you have the time then try a century but take the entire day over it so plenty of rest and food and fluids - don't race, spend 10 hours at 10mph if need be. This will really point out any areas where the bike is uncomfortable. Make sure the bike fits.

Start the tour slowly so if you need to do an average of 50 mpd over 8 days do 35/40 on the first two. It's worth trying to ride loaded around town as then you really get used to how different the bike will feel at low speed.

[ disclaimer - I don't train for tours so this is what I would do if starting out! ]

abbub

I'd say just ride regularly. In my experience, no amount of riding around town will *really* prepare you for a loaded tour. I've been getting around 250-300 miles a week in with commute and a few weekend rides, but I expect that the first few days of the trans-colorado trip my roomate and I are starting on saturday are going to be a bit rough.

bradw

Even with 250+ miles a week you anticipate a difficult start to a tour?

Is this a loaded tour where you stop and smell the roses, or is it more speed oriented? I ask because I only ride maybe 125-150 miles a week and was hoping to do about a 500 mile tour. It would be very flat terrain, but at about 65 miles a day, much more riding than I'm used to. I'd be carrying food, water, clothes, tent and sleeping bag. I can do 100 miles in one day, and a few months ago did 150 miles over two days with a loaded bike (spent the night at a B&B, though). I've worked out the comfort issues, and feel that if I ride at a casual pace I can put in 65 miles a day for at least a few days in a row.

As for my training, I obviously don't put in big miles (120-200 miles a week), but I do try to load up the bike every few weeks and go for a 50-100 miler. And I ride my regular road bike at a faster pace on weekends to improve my aerobic base.

funbun

thx guys. I want to ride a recumbent trike. DF give me too much crotch corrosion. But I imagine the training is the same. I'm intersted in stopping and smelling the roses. no speed test.

natelutkjohn

I agree with the other posts and say just ride regularly. I started slow in mid May, 10 miles a day, and moved up to 25 miles a day by mid June with one 65 mile ride a week. Then in mid July I went on my first loaded tour for a little over 300 miles and it went great. I felt that I was totaly prepared for it and even pulled off a 112 mile day where the last half was very hilly. I was a little sore the next day, but mostly in the butt region. I think you just got to take it slow and not push it. My first 30 miles were so easy just because I tended to not push it with my loaded bike, it really helped me pace myself to a nice 13 miles per hour average. Good luck!

abbub

Well, I'll be carrying a lot more weight, I'll be getting 60-70+ miles in a day as opposed to 25-40, and most of my commuting has been relatively flat rides at 5000 feet. The first couple of days from Kansas to Pueblo will probably only suck because of heat, but after that, we'll hit the mountains. I don't think it's going to be awful, but that it just takes a few days to get into the swing of things, and just as I'm going to be getting into the swing of things on this tour, the mountains are going to hit.

We have almost 600+ miles to do, and 9 days to do it in. Start at 4000 or so feet, and end up at 7000 feet after 2 9000 foot passes, 1 10,000 foot passes, and Monarch, which is somewhere above 11,000 feet. We're not going for any speed records, but we're going to have to make 65 or so miles a day to get where we need to get on time. (I'm hoping that we might have a good tailwind (or at least no head wind) and pick up some extra miles between KS and the mountains so we can take it a bit easier on the climbs.)

We did do a century from Fort Collins up to Estes Park and back last week, which is at 7,750 or so... I guess that was a training run.

Roughstuff

Yes...i think I everyone has it right..riding prepares you for riding. If you need to develop your overall aerobic fitness before you go on (your) tour or (any) tour that involves long climbs such as the Cascades or Sierra, you might want to use stairmaster machines or the more recent, lower impact aerobic training machines that many gyms have.

I am rather old fashioned and trained for my world tour (and other, summer tours) by running stair laps in the winter months. It is powerful exercise that build immense lung/oxygen capacity which comes in handy when you are on the 15th mile of a 30 mile climb! But stair laps have fallen out of favor since they can be brutal on the knees and other joints.

roughstuff

RWTD

As others mention just consistantly try to improve your "training" milages.I don't really focus on miles/wk or number of times a week I ride but my rule of thumb is on a tour I can comfortably ride almost twice the milages I can confortably ride day in day out training.For instance if I have built a training base up to 30 mile rides I can do a week tour of 60 mile days with no problem.I do usually do all my training/riding with some load and find even touring it is best to increase this consistantly for instance I recently did a weekend tour of 60 mile days with a 30 mile base built up and then a week later did a 5/6 day tour averaging 80 mile days (one nearly 100miles).If I was to do a longer tour again I would start out with moderate milages and build up to longer days as I progressed.

salvaico

Just to repeat everyone else in my own words, make sure you can ride harder than you expect your hardest day to be. So if you want to do 60 miles fully loaded on your tour, if you can ride 80 miles fully loaded you'll have no problems.

There are injuries that only appear after several days of riding which are harder to train for. On my first tour on day three the spot between my shoulder blades really started to hurt. I started taking advil and a couple days later it went away.

On my last tour my ankles became inflamed and I couldn't walk by day ten. We moved weight to my friends bike and I adjusted my bike so my achilles would move less while riding (low seat, cleats near center of shoe) and I managed to ride slowly, using lots of advil. Another week and a half and it mostly went away.

Both of those are from pushing my body harder than its had to go before, but they were from consistent cycling, not lack of aerobic conditioning.

Zin

The following link is a nicely written article that explains how to train for a tour.
https://www.adventurecycling.org/features/getinshape.cfm

Chris L

Something that may not have yet been mentioned here. How about go on a shorter (overnight possibly) tour to begin with? Get used to carrying all that gear without ever getting too far from home should things not work out. It will give you the chance to iron out any "bugs" in the system before setting off for real. I think the most physically difficult aspect of a tour is riding the distances day after day -- even if you've done single day rides that were longer, you need to adapt to backing up the next day as well. An overnight tour is an opportunity to see where you're sitting in this respect.

Kodama

As I commute to work everyday, I added all four panniers to my bicycle about a month before I set out. Every week I added more stuff until I was probably at about 75% of the touring load. This really helped in building strength, endurance and adjusting to the handling of a loaded bicycle.