This may be completely unhelpful/unrelated to the question, but my best long-distance rides (qualifying brevets in IA and MN, and PBP 2015) have been because of supportive and interesting riders at my side. You can put up with darn near anything if you have good company.
I do like how we generally use a century or 200k as the minimum for "long distance" in here. While it's true that 5 or 10 miles can be a significant accomplishment for some people, I think committing to covering a lot of ground in one go is what really sets long-distance apart.
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Originally Posted by
chandltp
There's no such thing as too far.. just lack of time
Originally Posted by noglider
People in this forum are not typical.
RUSA #7498