Originally Posted by pedex
nothing incredible about it at all, its just business, and my business happens to be riding
just for perspective, 200 miles a week or 10k per year, thats maintenance mileage for pro racers, double that or even triple it during training weeks, TDF is 2100+ miles in 21 days, you dont do this w/o being able to do it in training too.
The other thing you have to understand is when you do this for a living, some things many think are tough become quite easy and normal, like I can ride all out for most of a day and fully expect to get up the next day and be able to do it again, I dont need recovery time from a century like most rec riders do. I can literally at any given time be able to jump on my bike and do 100 miles in around six hours or so with zero planning or prep needed and do it on a singlespeed bike. Heck, riding in a nice pace in a relatively straight line for a few hours is much much easier than messenger work most days, alot less calories per hour thats for sure.
I don't do it for a living, and I think there are quite a few non-pros who can do sub 6 centuries with no planning or significant required recovery. I did one a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't on a single speed, but it could have been. I got 5:23 for 100 miles and then did a much harder 60 mile ride the next day. I think this type of fitness comes more from the type of riding you do than the straight number of miles. If you ride 500 miles a week, but you do it at 13mph, you might not be able to ride a sub 6 hour century. If you ride 100 miles a week, but you do it at very high intensity, you can probably ride a sub 6 hour century at will without requiring recovery.