I'd like to see what kindof mileage some of you have recently put on. I guess "long distance" is subjective. My usual route is 16-20 miles (wife and kids only allow a short time for a ride). But I'd say over 30 miles is what I'd consider "long." My two recent long rides this season are:

33 miles, 2300ft gain
60 miles, 4000ft gain

Coming up in a month or two- century with 5000ft gain, and two days of 120 miles, 4000 ft gain per day.

My bike is a Steamroller, set up fixed and ~70-74 GI (depending on the route).

I do 37miles 3 times a week for base training and some weekends I do 90 miles. The longest one on fixed would be to another state in 2 days 140 miles each day.

I did 60 miles and 128 miles earlier this year. I consider <20 to be short and anything from 20 to 40 to be normal.

Elevation gain in central Illinois is nothing to write home about.

I tend to think in terms of elevation. If you are doing 19 miles, but climbing 2700 feet, to me that's about the equivalent effort of a 40 mile flat ride.

In SF, we have just about every awesome thing one can think about : flats, winding flats, rollers, winding rollers, and plenty of elevation.

Just 3 miles of my door, I have a 1200ft hill I love to climb a few times a week.

The only problem is that we encounter serious headwinds after 12pm. So if you want to go on a ride past 12, prepare to be demoralized

Also, Yummygooey, they have asians in Illinois? Crazy

Haha! Central Illinois, no less. I always wonder what drivers and homeowners think when they see a random group of kitted up Asians truckin' along in the middle of nowhere, where everyone is a farmer and white.

I think Central Illinois' version of hills is headwind. 20mph is pretty normal here.

For me, it's the % grade. A mile of 10%+ grade does me in. My usual rides have a couple miles of 8% grades, which I could ride for a good while.

I'd like to ride in SF one day. Looks like a fun town to ride in.

Yummy - I hate headwind more than I hate elevation.

Palu - I agree with the grade factor. If you like elevation, SF is definitely fun. Just riding around town you can pick up 500-1000ft easily.

no one likes headwind

headwind: work hard

tailwind: profit

Longest ride this last week (before I got sick the last couple days) was a metric I did last Saturday. Tomorrow I'm doing 55 miles @ 81GI. Headwinds about 65 percent of the ride @ 20-30 MPH SSE. Ambient temperature is 92 degrees with subtropical humidity (20 percent chance of rain, but humidity will probably be at 85 percent or better all day).

This is pretty typical weather until November here, other than the temps climb up into the century mark from June-September.

End of May I'll be doing 12 days, a century a day in Central Texas visiting my old haunts. Average temperature for that time of year is 100+ with extremes like no wind at all.

So 1200 with about 4,000 feet of climbing over 12 days at 81 GI.

Since I don't really have any other pressing engagements right now the majority of my rides are 40-60 miles generally averaging around 50-75 feet of climbing/mile for the total route. We don't have mountains and only a few serious hills, so it's usually just a ton of short/medium rollers.

Some recent highlights from the last couple months include my first century (104 miles/5800 feet) my first metric (63 miles/3800 feet) and today's ride of 68 miles/4000 feet.

I ride a steel Schwinn conversion running 69 gear inches. I've been thinking about gearing up now that I understand the terrain better and can generally plan for or avoid the really climb-heavy routes. I've accidentally done a few rides of around 50 miles with 100+ feet of climbing per mile and it's a bit much.

*Elevation is provided by ridewithgps.com so it may be a little high.

Please post some after-action reports. I'm always interested in other people's long distance fixed rides.

Typically minimum of 20 miles a day. Usually more. First ride of today was about 26 ish miles I'd say. A couple days ago I rode the whole length of one of our local bike trails and a little more. Roughly around 45-50 miles I think.

Indianapolis is mostly flat, winds can get up there though around 20-30mph. 35-40 on a bad day. Doing about 78.9 gi.

Just did a metric century today in the Tour of Long Beach.

Went out for a 35-miler today. Windy. About 3,000 ft climbing, which included a grinding 3-mile climb at 8-11%. I was an idiot and didn't think I needed a good meal or any real snacks along the way. I bonked hard at mile 30. Last 5 miles sucked, as I hallucinated about ice cream sandwiches and a punch bowl full of cereal.

@spoonrobot - if I can muster up the energy, I'll post some.

One scenario I love headwind--steep descents. I keep my body upright as possible and usually don't have to use brakes.

Did around 35 miles today. I would say I usually average around 25. It's fun to go for those longer rides over 40 but I can't seem to find the time to do it. 25 seems to be a good compromise.

I consider anything >or= to three hours to be a long ride.
Distance will depend on route, weather, intensity etc.

In the winter I do alot of these but for now i just hammer hard or cruise ez for less time. I still do a long ride once a week or so.

https://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5445907

5816.8000 ft elevation gain.

houston to la grange is my furthest ride to date.

alot of you guys have done some pretty epic rides.

i've never done more than a century, and even that only happens a few times a year.

the tour of the unknown coast in humboldt. co is the real deal tho. 100mi and 10,000 vertical gain. The first 30 are pancake flat...
i dun think theres ever been a time under 5hrs.

Sounds like a beast of a ride, TMonk.

Thanks for all the posts. At times, I'm tempted to go geared. Reading about your rides is a good motivator.

82 miles today. Minimal climbing (maybe 1.5k?).

30 miles the other day. 4k foot climbing. This ride was much much harder than the 82 miler.

I do about 125-150 miles a week just riding around town. I live about 12 miles from my favorite neighborhood in terms of bars/restaurants, so I make that roundtrip pretty often. Then on the weekends I'll try to do something closer to about 40 miles, which I've found to be the longest I can ride without bonking if I don't eat.

But Louisiana is pretty flat. I did 70 miles the other day and had less than 1000 ft of elevation gain. Most days, the biggest hill I come across is the bridge over the river.

44 miles:



im proud of myself, accomplished a goal i set last year and i didnt go out with the intention of doin that much riding at all