I have been idly thinking about fitness goals - which leads to my First Ever BF Poll*.

One of my goals is to be fit enough as a cyclist so that I could ride a century (miles, not kilometers) at any point in time, as long as I had a few days warning to ease up for a few days in advance.

"Riding a century" to me means:

- finish at a decent, but not race, pace
- riding comfortably - which means not just finishing, but having enough time on the bike so that when I do a century-length ride my butt, neck, hands, feet, etc. are accustomed to hours in the saddle
- feel pretty good the next day -- like I could do another long ride the next day, even if I don't.

I'm wondering how much "cycling fitness" this means.

I'm *not* talking about:
- training for a first century, or training for a "fast" century
- learning about nutrition, pacing or hydration
- or even prepping for the first century of the year...

...but talking about a normal, weekly level of mileage required to be "century-ready" - pump up the tires, fill the water bottles, grab some food and go.

One rule of thumb I've read is that "you can ride in a day what you normally ride in a week." That would imply that if you wanted to always be ready for a 100-mile ride, you'd need to be "normally" riding 100 miles/week.

That seems a little high to me; I think if you've got a good base layer of fitness and you've ridden centuries before, you could be ready for a century about any time if you were riding less than that.

What do you think?


* A quote from Churchill: "Never was such a pointless question asked of so many by so few."