My first long ride
 

I recently bought myself an Origin-8 Cutler 7 and went on my first long ride yesterday. I rode 16 miles at the park near my house. Coming from a 20 year old who weighs 150 lbs and stands at 5'10", how did I do? I finished in a little over an hour.

I must say, I probably could have gone longer, but it was getting late...and my butt really hurt from the firm seat.

16 miles in one hour is a pretty fast pace. If you are measuring your speed using a cyclocomputer, I would calibrate it. Map out a 1-mile course on MapMyRide, do that course, see how close your cyclocomputer matches up with it, and adjust your cyclocomputer's wheel diameter settings accordingly.

Seat comfort is a highly personal thing-- Everybody has a different butt. If you can't get comfortable on that seat after a few rides, you need to find a new saddle that is comfortable to you.

BTW that 7-speed freewheel on your bike might become troublesome later on. An upgrade to a more reliable freehub/cassette system might be in your future.

This would be a pretty inaccurate calibration method since there is no way to be sure the ride has followed the one-mile course line exactly. The proper way to calibrate a cyclocomputer is to roll the bike down a marked straight line for exactly one wheel revolution (mark the tyre with chalk or something similar if necessary), and then measure the distance. For additional accuracy, repeat the process three or four times and take the average result.

First long ride equals you´re going through data such as why this saddle, adjustment saddle, ajustment saddle height, why this stem, adjustment stem heigth & length, why this bar, adjustment bar, and then theres apperel etc. all these things affects your comfort. Good luck!

Taking only one wheel revolution is dodgy since you are then extrapolating the slight error you made and multiplying it by thousands.
The best way is to take a measured course.
The second best option is to use google maps and find a straight road with cycle path next to it ... then ride from and to a specific point that is easily pinpointed on the map and take a long enough ride of 10 miles or something like that ... the margin of error will be very small then.

Honeydutch, first off ... not wanting to insult you or anything ... but I find it strange that a 20 year old calls 16 miles a "long ride".
16 miles may seem like a lot for a commuter, but for a cyclist this is peanuts.
Things like 100 miles are considered pretty short stages in cycling.

This is all a very personal thing, so if 16 miles is a lot for you then I congratulate you and wish you courage and fun in your future cycling.
If you start doing this on a regular basis you'll notice that after a while your speed will be greater and you will start doing longer distances.

To give you an idea of how fast people ride ... in 1 hour:

-slow riders go about 10 miles
-normal riders go about 14 miles
-good riders go about 17 miles
-fast riders go about 21 miles
-cancellara goes more than 30 miles ;)

I'm at about 22 now ... and training for more.

16 miles in a park that must be a big park or did you go round in circles:rolleyes:
Plan a round trip so you dont ride the same road more than once and explore.:)

Adelaar, I didn't know you do rides that take as long as an hour! I though 10K was your usual distance.

Congrats! 22 miles is some serious distance for someone just starting out!

I disagree. For a new or newer rider and assuming the OP is such, whether a ride is long or not depends on the ability/experience of the rider, not the age. It is a moving target (hopefully upward!) for someone who has not cycled for a long period of time. I started less than a year ago and can now do 31 miles at 15.5 mph. When I do 40 (probably next weekend) that will be a long ride for me and will be a personal accomplishment. I'm sure there are 6' 225 lb. 45 year olds with the same level of experience that can kick my butt and some that cannot.

It sounds like the OP did a pretty nice job on this 16 mile jaunt and was held back by saddle comfort, a very common issue for newer riders. Keep up the good work. Your young age (assuming no physical liabilities) should allow you to improve quickly but you can be proud of your numbers so far.

That's 10k one way full on and I usually take a detour on the way back making the whole trip about 25k.

Again you have to make sure you're following the measured course exactly, which would mean drawing a line and then making sure you don't swerve from it for the whole course - much harder than rolling the bike down a straight line for one full wheel revolution a dozen times and rounding out the result :)

Maybe the best is to use both techniques and if they come to the same result you're fine :)

If you use the wheel rotation measurement it also helps to do multiple rotations at once ... 10 is a nice number ... then use an accurate laser measurement device to pintpoint the total length and divide that by the amount of revolutions.

Another thing which I will try soon is to attach my GPS to my bike with duct tape and see what it reads. It's pretty accurate i was told.

Congrats on your ride, be proud of all your accomplishments and your first 16 miler certainly is one.

As for measuring distance, for those with an iPhone, check out the runkeeper app.

"AdelaaR
Honeydutch, first off ... not wanting to insult you or anything ... but I find it strange that a 20 year old calls 16 miles a "long ride".
16 miles may seem like a lot for a commuter, but for a cyclist this is peanuts.

To give you an idea of how fast people ride ... in 1 hour:

-slow riders go about 10 miles
-normal riders go about 14 miles
-good riders go about 17 miles
-fast riders go about 21 miles
-cancellara goes more than 30 miles"

So, by your own criteria, Honeydutch's first long ride was and is in fact perfectly respectable (verging on your category 'good rider'): about 16 miles (about 25kms more or less), in about an hour.
I agree, but consequently don't understand the gratuitous comments you make at the beginning of your post, especially from someone whose typical ride (apparently) is around 25kms (or16 miles).

I never said it isn't respectable ... I was foremost suggesting to ride more and longer :D

It's all very personal depending on the specific physical abilities, training, bike, technique, etc ...

Sorry, but Sheldon Brown disagrees with you. Sheldon Brown suggests using a measured course to fine-tune (his words) your cyclocomputer setting. http://sheldonbrown.com/cyclecomputer-calibration.html

I stick by my stated method.

Oh my, I do apologize for daring to disagree with Sheldon Brown.

But do read his method more carefully - notice the "10 miles or more" part. Riding a one-mile course mapped through MapMyRide simply isn't very accurate.

I just got a bike 3 weeks ago and I started off with 14-15 mile rides. Honestly I haven't had time to really push myself but I'm averaging about 100 miles a week including my commute. Avg speed is around 14mph moving (MyTracks).

I'm going to bike the drive in Chicago in a week and hopefully I can hit 30-45 miles, I'm really going to push myself to see how far I can go within 4 hours.

Let me say in a different way what AdelaaR perhaps meant: you did just fine for a first long ride, but at your age and weight if you want to, if you work at it, you will do a lot better before too long and have a lot of fun doing it! I, for one, won't be able to keep up with you for long.

In my experience your butt will adapt to the load and in a few weeks the soreness will pass even as the length of the rides increase. There are plenty of things you can do or buy to help, it is just that in my experience the butt needs no help, it just needs to be challenged to harden up.

Ken

I am newbie. I ride a cannondale Adventure 3. First few days it was jus riding around the block (a few miles) and then I did 20 miles at 14 miles/hr average speed. The major problem with riding in a paved trail is that it is difficult to keep the pace due to fellow bikers/walkers/joggers. I am going to try hitting the trail early in the day and see if I could avoid this.

I think riding must be enjoyable whether it is 1 mile or 100 miles. My two cents - it doesn't matter. You can ride only X (X = any postive number) miles all your life and if this keeps you healthy and happy, then thats cool!

Yeah sorry ... I can come over as a total dick sometimes ... it isn't my intention ... I converse quite directly ;)

"Sheldon Brown is dead" tadadada DAMDAM! tadadada DAMDAM! tadadada dadadada dadadada DAMDAM! :D

No seriously you and mr. Brown are right that one mile isn't enough to be very accurate, but if you use this technique from and to two easily distinguishable points on the map and following a straight road for more than 10 miles ... it will definately be accurate enough.

It cannot ever be completely accurate because there are other factors like the heat of the road that will heat up the air in your tyres pumping them up slightly and thus increasing the length of one rotation or when you go up a steep hill the pressure will make the length of a rotation smaller, etc ...

Runkeeper is awesome. Love it!

I wouldn't worry just yet about that Shimano Freewheel. Two of our bikes came with that same freewheel. My wife's bike still has it. My commuter hybrid bike came with it as well, though i ended switching it out for a different freewheel with gears that were better suited to my commute. I didn't need the huge 34t granny cog on the freewheel. They wear well, and are able to be replaced on the cheap. Granted, the freehub/cassette is better, but I wouldn't throw money at it unless I was already replacing the wheelset, relacing the rear wheel, etc.

Thanks for all the positive posts everyone! I did another 16 mile ride, then followed up with 21 miles. Tomorrow, I'll be going back to the park and shooting for 30. My last ride, I ended up meeting this group of cyclists who let me tag along with them and they WORKED ME HARD! I did 14 miles with them and cruised at a steady 20 MPH the whole time (according to their computers). The other 7 miles, I probably averaged 15-16 MPH.

For the record, yes I am a newbie and I ride in a park that is nothing more than a 7 mile loop. It's hard to really go anywhere else because of all the traffic and narrow roads in my neck of the woods. Not to mention, most of the residents are retiree's (AKA "snowbirds") and I've witnessed one of them hit a man on his bike...

I don't really know much about freehub/cassette systems or bike mechanics in general. But, I have a lot of time to learn so I'm stoked. I'll let you know how my 30 miles goes tomorrow :]]

EDIT: about the bike saddle...I'm going to suck it up and get used to the pain. But, I'm going to buy a pair of gloves for my hands. I noticed my pinky finger went numb after a while.