Boydsta

Its not so much about distance but intensity. If you can do a hilly 50 mile ride yuo wont have issues doing 100miles. It would only be a case of endurance over intensity plus get your food intake sorted well in advance.

Drew Eckhardt 

25-35 miles a day on weekdays.
40-60 miles on Saturdays.

That makes rides past 200 miles comfortable.

FrenchFit 

When you can ride 60 miles comfortably, ready for more, then you are ready to push your training for a century. If you are riding in pain at 60 miles, you'll have to fix that problem first.

MikeOK

Comfortable? I wouldn't describe any of my centuries as comfortable. They all sent me home crying for momma!

Drew Eckhardt 

Provided you're not trying to set a personal record and taking your turn pulling hard at the front of a paceline or riding in bad weather, you have solvable issues if a century isn't comfortable. Last year I rode two centuries, two double metrics, and two double centuries (one hitting the two highest paved mountains in the area, with 12,000 feet of climbing) all solo unsupported and felt great during and after all of them.

Pacing, fitness, bicycle fit, shorts, eating, and drinking issues can all make you miserable.

Drew Eckhardt 

It'll be fine with enough total riding time each week provided you don't have position/equipment issues that take that long to become uncomfortable, or neglect to eat/drink enough. After my saddle had gradually sunk I was fine up to 100 miles but developed knee pain after that. Getting it back to a reasonable height immediately fixed that. I can ride a couple hours in shorts with squishy chamois, but don't feel good after four.

I rode my first century having never gone farther than 50 miles (125 miles a week) and double centuries with a weekly long ride only 40-60 miles (out of 200 total, although I did a ~130 mile ride a month before the first one).

While I wouldn't recommend a jump that big, I agree with lots of people believing you can do rides up to your weekly total mileage all at once, 50% longer than your longest recent ride (within a few months).

astrodust

I did my one and only century ride last year. All centurys are not the same though. For mine I chose a 75 mile flat bike path so I could avoid hills and cars. I rode 50 miles then turned around and headed back. Make it as easy as possible for your first one. Good luck!

Drew Eckhardt 

See a professional about bike fit. Riding shouldn't cause pain except when doing hard intervals, and in that case your legs recover a few minutes after slowing down.

Saddle and shorts which don't match your anatomy can cause problems with sore spots and chafing. Saddles with a kicked up tail stopped working for me so I switched to a flatter model. I wasn't comfortable after a few hours riding new fangled shorts with squishy padding although flat synthetic leather was fine and EIT chamois with 120kg/m^3 foam beneath the sit bones are awesome.

Lumpy bar tape or gloves can cause numbness and pain in your hands. A few fingers go numb if I wrap cork tape in a figure 8 to completely hide the bar with my Campagnolo Ultrashift levers. One wrap with a short piece of tape that doesn't look as nice works great.

All these things are solvable problems.

Note that fitness and endurance are about average daily riding effort, not your longest ride. You'll be more than twice as fit on 20 miles every week day with a 40 mile long ride on Saturday than a 70 mile once a week. Your daily average is twice as far, and you'll be able to ride with more intensity for a greater total.

I wouldn't try to ride a century on less than 100 miles a week, and haven't ridden one on less than 125.

Ride frequently, with one day a longer ride twice as far as the other days. Increase your total time riding 10% 3 out of 4 weeks if you're young, 2 out of 3 weeks when you're over 40.

You need to pace yourself to maximize distance. Provided running out of muscle glycogen doesn't stop you sooner (at best, I have 3 10 minute intervals totaling 30 minutes 15% harder than I can manage for 1:15), fatigue is proportional to the square of intensity. Ride with 1/2 the intensity and you can go 4X the distance.

On rides over about five hours, maximum average effort is limited to your aerobic threshold. You're past that if conversation doesn't flow or your legs are burning at all. Probably not coincidentally that heart rate matches the Maffetone formula for me.

Stay below that level. If you're heavier and/or riding in steep hills that will take lower gears.

You'll need to eat carbs to avoid running out of steam. Since you can only digest 200-300 Calories per hour and even that much may give you digestive troubles, you'll want to eat a little constantly on long rides.

I eat 10-13 Calories/mile on rides over five hours which is 30-40% of the total and matches the carb requirements.

I like Clif (peanut butter, pomegranate chia, blueberry crisp) and Clif Mojo (peanut butter). Anything easily digested that's mostly carbs will work. Some people like dates.

bnsafe

great info and greatly appreciated. i ride a extremely hilly 23 miles every other day and did 63 miles last friday. the pain i was having in my back is pretty much gone in the last two weeks. i think it was because i always ramp up to fast instead of training for a few weeks. still have some neck pain but its much better to. i ate and drank MUCH better last week when i did the 63 and could have gone farther if i had wanted to. i stopped because i had things to do and dont want to burn myself out. i plan on doing 65 tomorrow or saturday again and will increase that in july to 75 an prob one 85 in august. frankly the 63 was easier than the 23 in the hills around here. there is no longer a doubt i will finish as long as i dont get lost and add 20 miles or have mechanical issues. i know i could do a 100 tomorrow, it would not be easy or pretty, but i could do it.

rm -rf

The Svitak 2015 100 mile route on ridewithgps. It looks like the 100 follows the 67 route, then adds an extra loop instead of stopping at the finish line. (It looks like the northbound last segment of this 67 is different than the 2015 map.) So you should have plenty of sag stops along the way.

Yeah, that looks great for a first time century ride. The steepest grade is 4% (but ridewithgps can be wrong sometimes on very short, steep climbs). Even the "big climb" around mile 50 is 230 feet at mostly 2% to 3%. That steep looking climb at mile 96: just 110 feet at 2% to 3%, easy. The total 3000 feet for 100 miles is an easy "flat to rolling" ride.

It could be windy, I suppose. And maybe hot -- I'd fill two bottles even with lots of rest stops. I'll splash some water on my arms and legs if it's really hot.

You don't really need to ride an 85 miler first. A local hilly 85 mile ride would probably be harder than this 100!It would be helpful to do a 6 to 7 hour moving time ride (basically ignoring the mileage) before the 100 mile ride, to sort out any long ride problems.

~~~~
On my few 100 mile rides: I've looked at my bike computer after riding for quite a while, and it would show "18 miles" or "22 miles". Woah, I've got 80 more to go! Intimidating! But once I get to 40 miles or so, it starts seeming quite doable. Finally, counting down the last 5 or 8 miles seems to go on a long time -- I try not to check the mileage excessively!

bnsafe

wow, not sure how you found all that info on the ride. its not on the site yet, but sounds very encouraging. i did 67 here today in 4:50. but i was pushing harder than i wanted to or was comfortable with cause i had to get some other things done. i did ok but didnt feed or water like i should have, an it wasnt as easy as last weeks. lots and lots and lots of big hills im training on here, so sounds like i should be good to go as long as i dont have a major mechanical issue and fuel myself. on a side note, i put clip pedals on a month ago and had my first "crash" with them today. so guess im officially part of the club. no injuries other than being sore.

caloso

Make sure you get your fit sorted out. You've gotten good advice on ramping up your mileage. Are you doing these rides solo? I'm as introverted as they come (INTJ, holla!), but find that riding with others is a huge help and motivator. Especially if you ride with someone just a little bit stronger.

stroudmears

My furthest ride was 50 miles before doing a century.
There wasn't much difference in my opinion.
I brought about 4 liters of fluids and 8 or 9 high carb bars.
Paused two or three times to smoke a cigarette.