Originally Posted by
merry2
it is not that i find bike shops with guys intimidating. i find them dishonest and sometimes, not as knowledgeable as they think they are. even in my ignorance, my sense knows when someone is a bullsh*tter. and for me, i've learned the hard way that going to a woman is no guarantee of respectful, honest treatment sorry to say. i learned that the hard way.
luckily, i've found a couple of people (guys) who i like. one of them took the squeak out of my bike and i'm forever grateful. at the end of the day, i could do without the frustration and aggravation.
almost as soon as i got used to being in the saddle, i road about 20 miles without any training or build up. i couldn't just run 20 miles, "comfortably," without training. so i have found cycling to be much easier than running for sure. i feel like running also tests you mentally a bit more.
the only problem with finding a bike that is comfortable for hours on end is that you probably don't know how comfortable you'll be for hours on end until you ride comfortably for hours on end. no?
Well Merry 2, the reason you could do 20 miles on a bike with relatively no training or build-up is because of your marathon training. Generally, there is a rough rule for fitness equivalency, the ratio is about 3:1 or 4:1. This means for a marathon of 26.2 miles, you can easily bike up to 90 miles with relatively little training or build-up. The issue here is saddle time. You need to build up a lady's version on an "iron butt"! Just like marathon training, you build up your mileage so your feet will get used to the pounding up to 26.2 miles. Otherwise, you'll be in a world of pain if you start out too fast! Same with biking a century. You should build up the mileage not necessarily to build up fitness, but to build up saddle time. 20 miles on the bike isn't going to tell you a lot about fit. However as you progress towards longer rides, you may start to feel some discomfort. Address those either by swapping to a more comfortable saddle or adjust height on the handle post or swapping for a different handlebar? Most bikes out there will need to be modded somewhat to ride a century comfortably. Which means, you can do it with your D7. Once you've done a century on a D7 and you still need a second bike, at least you've got a template of a good bike fit.