lungimsam

Hi y'all,

I was wundrin' if anyone has done a metric century or regular century without training. Just from your commuting rides. Do you all think it is enough training on your commute rides to handle a metric century. I do 12 miles minimum round trip daily commuting on undulating roads. 20 if I escort my wife to work on her bike (she commutes too a few times a week).

hiyer1

depends...personally my muscles fatigue and recover on 3 days cycles, and that's typically how I train for endurance events. To be more specific, I go hard on days 1, 2, and 3, then rest for 1-2 days to allow my muscles to fully recover. Whatever I can do in that 3 day period is usually a little above my total distance potential.

To give you an example, I prepared for a marathon by regularly running 10 miles/day 3 days in a row, 1-2 days of rest to heal muscles, then repeat. Because I knew I could run 30 miles before allowing my muscles to fully recover, I felt prepared (at least mentally) for a full marathon, Now, I do my 40 mile commute, really fast and hard on Mon,tue,wed, rest thur (either work from home or carpool, drive if no other option), then go hard again on fri, then do light stuff on the weekend to recover

As you might expect, right around the time I was able to do my 40 mile commute 3 days in a row, was around the time I attempted and completed my first century. Could I have done it earlier? Maybe...is this 3-day calculation accurate for me? Maybe...Would it apply to everyone? Probably not.

I hope that helps at least a little

contango 

I know this might sound like nitpicking but it depends exactly what you call a century.

I ride for pleasure with a bit of utility cycling thrown in (usually visiting friends here and there). Having ridden up to 30 miles in a day I did 150 miles in two days with some friends, then 110 in one day getting back again (via a more direct route). So that was a century in the sense it was over 100 miles in one day, but some would say it doesn't count as a century because we stopped for breakfast, stopped for lunch, stopped for coffee at a little cafe beside the river, and took the entire day to cover the distance.

megalowmatt

I don't have any desire to ride a century but have done my share of "metric centuries". My commute is roughly the same distance as yours. What I have found is hills and time in the saddle make a big difference in how comfortable I am on long rides.

I don't know where you live but in my area there are some pretty major hills and I can't ride 30 miles around here without a good bit of elevation gain. If I were you I would find out what the elevation gain of the century you're considering and get a feel for what it's like riding some of those hills. My commute is relatively flat and it would do nothing in preparing me for a 60+ mile ride with 3000 feet of elevation gain.

Andy_K 

How old are you? What's your general fitness like?

I'm 42 years old and in marginally good shape most of the time. I commute 14-20 miles round trip each day. In a pinch I could probably do a metric century without any other preparation, but I generally try to get in 20, 30, and 40 miles on a single weekend ride in the weeks leading up to it. Being prepared makes it more enjoyable.

For a regular century, I definitely need to prepare. The level of climbing involved is also worth considering. Many organized centuries have a lot of climbing. If your training miles are on relatively flat ground, the mountains can crush you. I speak from experience.

chefisaac

You can do as you please but for me, it was still a training thing. I did a lot of 30-40 mile rides on the weekends and then went up from there. A lot of time, I hammer to work when commuting but you cannot do that on longer rides because you spend more time in the saddle and you have to learn to pace yourself.

Just my two cents

AdamDZ

I've done at least two 40 mile rides this year, then two 60 milers, one around 75 and they all turned out to be much easier than I was expecting. I will do 85 tomorrow, but I'll probably ride to the meeting point so I may actually end up doing a 100 tomorrow. It'll be the most hilly so far too, so I don't know... I've lost some weight around the waist in the last month because of all this riding. So each ride comes a bit easier. I also try to eat well, take my vitamins, drink enough water, all that jazz. So you may consider all that a "training", but that was not my intention. I just want to ride as much as I can and that causes me to become lighter and stronger. But the primary motivation is just to ride. To feel good and have fun.

I commute 16 miles daily too.

AdamDZ

Same here. I'm 44 and "marginally good shape", I carry at least 15-20lbs of unwanted cargo around my belly. If you ride that much daily you should be able to to 60 mile ride without any preparation, unless it's extremely hilly. You may want to get some extra rest a couple of days before the ride, but that's about it.

But yeah, I wouldn't attempt a full 100 without doing at least some 40-60 mile rides every weak prior to the century.

Finally, I have weak upper body which led to neck and shoulder pains on longer rides. My legs, heart and lungs could still pump it, but my neck was killing me sometimes, I'd get bad tension headaches and I had to rest more often after 40 miles or so. So I'm trying to work out with some weights and also stretch. Last 60 mile ride was much better after only two weeks of working out and stretching. So I guess you can call that "training" too, but again I only do this so I can have more fun riding. I'm not looking to beat any records or even prove myself. I enjoy being on a bike all day and I want to get stronger to avoid fun-destroying physical discomfort.

Andy_K 

One of my friends suggested that the difference between a metric century and a century is that a metric century is a good distance for a fun ride while with a century you're just torturing yourself. That's definitely true if you don't train for it.

AdamDZ

Yeah. There is something to that. 60 miles is a good ride. Anything above is a hard ride.

gerv 

You don't need any particular training to do a metric century. If you have been commuting a while, it'll seem like you didn't have to take that crappy 8 hour break between rides.

megalowmatt

I think it all depends on where you live. 3000 feet of climbing verses a flat 60+ miles can make or break you.

modernjess

+1 I would agree, there is pretty big difference especially if you aren't specifically training for it. For me I feel like I can handle a metric pretty much any given day, it may not be a PR, but I won't suffer. A full century without some training is going to be a suffer fest in that last 20 miles.

weshigh

I was commuting 30miles RT for about 6 months when I did my first century at the Tour De Palm Springs. No other training besides that. I had ridden 40miles in a day max up until that point which involved going someplace on way home from work. I found I didn't need more physical training but needed to tune my fit for that much time in saddle and work on my pacing. The first 50 miles were fun and fast. Last 50 sucked, but I did it. My commute I don't need to worry about managing nutrition or hydration most of the time or pace myself as I'll have 9+ hours of recovery between segments.

kdgrills

It's nothing magical, just a bike ride. As long as you're in "reasonable" shape
& you have a good bike fit, it just depends on how much time you wanna spend.

My 1st imperial century started with a massive hangover, I was just gonna go
for a short ride to try & work it off. 30 miles into it I was feeling much better.
Stopped for a sammich at 60 miles. One mile led to another & ~6 hours later
I was at 100.

The beer afterwords was _really_ good.

Cheers,

Kelly

gerv 

I'll concede that. And I suppose a 40mph headwind like some folks had here today... that would be brutal for 100 km.

HardyWeinberg

I have not tried to ride a century completely cold but for commuting. I rode a century w/ a buttload of climbing last ... July? I went from commuting 70 miles a week to adding a 30-50 mile ride on weekends, and then tried to get in rides of 60-70 miles in the last couple weekends before the big day, which was a Sunday, followed by another 70 mile commute week. I believe I did no more recreational riding until the last week of September and then I did another century cold-esque except for the May-July century practice plus commuting year-round. That 2nd time was a bunch less climbing and much easier despite no additional riding beyond commuting.

I am planning a couple more century rides this summer but at this point I mostly just want to ride on weekends so I am not holding back, I did 40 last weekend, will aim for that this weekend, might do 50-60 the following, after that I don't know except I don't think I will try century rides until August or September so I may have slacked off my weekend rides by then.

azesty

I ride about 25 km per day, 5 days a week.

One week last summer I got on my bike and rode 140, had a day off, then 120, had a day off, then 150. I had two full panniers, and there was a bit of climbing.

I am 47.

I had been riding for a few years straight then.

z

kookaburra1701

Also depends on where you work. My 6 mile round-trip may give me my half-hour of aerobics for the day, but it's not going to be adding mileage in any sort of serious way.

AdamDZ

stdlrf11

My experience was that my pace was a lot different than everyone else's. I was the slow and steady type while everyone else hammered it out. I had no problems completing the century using only my 30mi round trip as my training.

ItsJustMe

About once a year the company I work for will have a meeting at a place that's about 40 miles away, I'll ride there and back, admittedly with a 2 hour meeting in between, but I'm back home by 1 PM and it has never seemed very hard. My daily ride is 11 miles one way, 5 days a week, during normal commuting even with errands I have never topped 28 miles a day, but doing 80 miles a day wasn't really any trouble.

I guess it depends how you ride. I'm a slow and steady guy, my average on commutes is only about 16.2 MPH, I don't push much unless I'm trying to keep up with traffic through narrow areas or construction zones or something, so generally I feel like I could just keep cranking all day.

thenomad

The century is not so daunting if you take it easy and ride at a steady pace (unless its a climb-fest). I tend to crank it to 80% and try to go relatively fast (for me) so I push it hard. If I settle back to 60-70% effort like a long touring ride it would be a lot easier.

Some people think its just the fact of completing it that is the challenge, but its also how fast you are completing it.

HardyWeinberg

Yes. A 5 hr century would take training, a 7 hr one not so much.

unterhausen

My commute is just under 20 miles RT, and I don't think it gives enough of a training effect to keep me in shape to do a century in good form. But the longer rides I do tend to have a lot of climbing. For example, I just did a 126 mile ride with 10000 feet of climbing.