Here is the GPS data for this ride, in case anyone is thinking about riding it next year.

Cyclemeter - Cycle - Jun 7, 2014, 7:07 AM

Cyclemeter - Cycle - Jun 7, 2014, 7:07 AM

GPS data for the Pioneer century. Edit: oops, double post.

My "lessons learned" are
- We wasted a lot of energy. Every point in the GPS trace where we were riding over 18 mph and not on a downhill, is wasted energy.
- We stopped too much in the last part. Some of that is stoplights, as the 45 mile loop is a bit suburban in spots, and there were stops to repair my flat, my buddy had a shoe problem, and there were pee breaks. But they added up.
- Both riders need a cycle computer. My buddy had one but I didn't, so when I was leading, our speed usually crept up to the energy-wasting range.
- [edit] We didn't eat or drink enough. My Cyclemeter app estimates I burned 5500 calories, and I only ate about 1000 during the ride.

Youda!

Good job.

I'm curious why you consider riding above 18mph 'wasted' energy? You could consider the whole ride 'wasted' since you probably rode in a loop and didn't go anywhere :)

Well, I just now saw this thread, so should I jump in late and say what you should have done? :roflmao2:

Anyway, well done. On the stops, you should stop exactly as often as you need to, as long as you need to. If you're not winning valuable prizes for coming in first, no point in killing yourself to keep moving. Ditto for the speed. I ride lots of miles, but normally not over 16 mph rolling average, and that's if everything is working just right. Going fast can be fun, too, but no reason to feel obligated to do so.

Took a sanity day off from work Wednesday and did a century.

i'm way slower then probably everybody.

Get off the saddle frequently, and sometimes just lift your weigh off the saddle. Letting hood and airflow in there does wonders...

Good fortune!

Because the power required rises much faster than the resulting speed increases. Looking at a bike power calculator, 19 mph requires over 30% more power than 17 mph, but is only 11% faster.

That's the essence of riding a bike. Most of your energy goes into overcoming air resistance, even at 18mph.

Nice ride, you really did great!!

Hey you did a 6 hour riding time century on low mileage. I'd say you did great ! :thumb:

And yep....you know that it's about saving it when you don't need it and using it when you do. But 17 mph through a century on low preparation is nothing to frown on for sure.

Congrats on a great ride!

And that's why I train in the drops. Prior to an endurance ride I raise the bars an inch and set them back down for speed training. As for pace (at this point) I keep an eye on the mph keeping it in the 15.5-16.0mph range when on the flats.

How did you feel the next couple of days?

For me, it's the triceps and traps near the neck. If that pain lays off I'm good in the butt and legs.

My body type favors speed/power quite naturally (not to mention my personality). All the decades of powerlifting seem to gang up on me in the upperbody aches due to static position.

That evening, my quads protested when descending stairs. My lower back was a little sore. Otherwise the muscloskeletal stuff was fine.

As for how I felt . . . we've been burning the candle at both ends and the middle. My daughter is turning 18, graduating high school and getting ready to fly off to her summer job, my son is graduating middle school and getting ready to go on a class trip to Costa Rica. Friday before the ride we took my daughter and her friends out to dinner, we were out until 11 pm or so. I got 5 hours sleep before the ride. Saturday after the ride we went to a dance performance at a company my son may train with next year, then my daughter had a dozen friends over for a loud teen party/sleepover while I tried to sleep w/ earplugs. Sunday we fed the kids breakfast, cleaned up, and then had 30 people over for an afternoon cookout. Meanwhile we're getting the daughter ready for graduation, packing her and the son up for their trips. Last night we went to the HS graduation, a four hour (!) thing. Tomorrow we have 40-50 middle school kids at our house for an end-of-year party (and it is supposed to rain, so we'll all be stuck indoors!). Saturday one of the kids flies off, Sunday the other one goes. Plus I start work at 5:30 am, so late weeknights are killers.

So, I am fried, but the ride was only part of it! I am going to have the world's best nap on this coming Sunday afternoon. Until then I am just hanging on.

On bar height - on the commute bike I brought, the bar tops are level with the saddle so it is an un-challenging position and I can ride in the drops for hours. On my other road bikes, the bar tops are a few inches below the saddle, so the hoods are equivalent to the commute bike's drops and the drops are lower. I have ridden those other bikes up to 45 miles, but not 100 miles. I will bring one of those on the next century to see if my back/neck can take it.

A glutton for punishment no doubt :p Congrats on the accomplishment, a flat century for me would be a coastal run up to San Onofre and back, I may have to give it a go this summer...

while I know there are going to be critics and naysayers, I found so far that the product sportlegs definitely seemed to help me on several longer rides (century and 100k+ rides) My legs felt stronger throughout the ride and felt better afterwards in recovery

What I've found at 63 is that I have a hard time keeping my head up hugging the stem on descents unless my bars are even with the saddle anymore.

I'm okay in the drops with a moderate saddle-to-bar drop, for awhile - like 1/2 hour - but am not sure my neck will tolerate hours and hours in that position. My next helmet will be a road type, with no visor, which might help. If I keep my hips rotated forward and my back flatter, it also helps a bit.

I think I appreciate the added leg power on the drops more so than aerodynamic advantage. I've never used a speedometer though so it would be interesting just to compare the difference of an inch and a half or so in bar height using the drops.

You inspired me to haul off and plan for the Six Gaps Century this September - maybe - but I'm coming off of 5 years of sedentary living :( not sure if I'll do the Century, the half, or the Valley ride. I have the summer to train, its a horrifying 11,000 feet for the Six Gap Century, Three Gap 50 is over 6,000, and the Valley 35 is 2,900 feet. As soon as I'm up to it the next couple of weeks I'm off to Neels Gap to see the insanity of it...

The aero effect at higher speeds is large. My riding buddy is taller than me and usually rides on the hoods. On long downhills when we are coasting, if I am on the hoods we descend at about the same speed, if I get down in the drops I accelerate and pass him, with the speed difference during the pass quite significant. On one descent during the century, his top speed was 38 mph and mine was 43. I started out behind him and ended up well ahead.

The effects of getting in the drops is immediately measureable especially if you have a ride computer. When in a stiff headwind and you find yourself doing the "small chainring boogie" hammering away on the hoods, drop down and immediarely there is a speed increase and pedal pressure lessens.

But then, we all know this.

Getting in and staying in the drops is an acquired discipline and quite uncomfortable at first. Best time to train for this position is (for me) when the snowbanks are high and I'm drafting Jeff Gordon on the stretches of a superspeedway. :)

Get the computer. As already mentioned, the performance gain is easily measured.

The gain for me, can easily be 1-2 mph difference.

Well I would but I'm likely to leave my stem at seat height on both bikes anyway. I'm especially uncomfortable anymore on descents while tucking and ducking because when my stem is that low I alternate between looking up down the road and not.......dangerous.

And coming back off a decade layoff on low mileage I probably wouldn't have the strava accounts to brag on anyway. I can time my sanctioned centuries with a watch. I'm sticking to relatively flat ones for now and being a Texas boy I know what I used to do on those in my 30s......Plus I'm a lifetime incurable fanatic about cluttering up the bike with electronic gismos. I've never even bought a cadence meter......My Luddite creds would just be ruined :50:

Plus you just told me what the advantage is for lower stem height....So thanks :)

Well yeah I well understand the difference between hoods and drops but was referring to stem height differences strictly on the drops but didn't exactly clarify that very well in my post.