I completed my first century! Did it on my 1984 Shogun 100 which has been made into a single gear with a 46x18 gearing. The route had somewhere around 5000 feet of gain. It took me 5 hours and 30 minutes to complete, but sadly I discovered that the time kept rolling even in the two aid stations I stopped at, so it's slightly longer than I actually rode it in. Anyways, I'm pretty happy with that time.

It was pretty funny riding on a single speed, everyone seemed to pull up to say something about it or commented to someone else about it. But what really tickled me was that I managed to finish well ahead of the vast majority of the people there, and most of them had very nice bikes. I spent $100 on mine.

Congrats!
They only get easier from here on

Glad to hear it! After finishing I drove home, took off my nasty sweaty lycra, and fell asleep for 14 hours.

Good job. I tried a century but had to call it quits after 75 miles, granted 30 miles was the most I had completed prior to that attempt.
I had the same reaction from people when I was riding my fixed gear bike, they thought I was crazy (which I am).
Don't worry about time, completing it, especially your first go around is quite an accomplishment.

Congrats! I can't wait to get the funds together for a nice fixed gear so I can give one a go. Great job though. You must have slept like a baby.

Well done, man! Especially impressive that it was on a budget conversion - that had to drive some of the folks on fancy bikes nuts

Good job! That's a fantastic pace IMO.

I swear riding a moderately high geared single speed bike makes you ride faster than 80% of the population. I pass roadies in full kit on alu/carbon bikes every time I ride the local trail on my Steamroller. Sometimes I'm pulling a kiddie trailer too.

I'm 95% sure I'm gonna do RAGBRAI next summer on this bike.

Way to go man, that is a fast pace!

Thanks guys! My next organized century is on the 16th of Aug. After that I plan to ride an organized century every other week until the end of Oct. (I have it all scheduled out in my calendar). I hope to get my pace up a bit over the next few months, I think I will see some serious improvements, personally. When I started riding four weeks ago I could only manage a 12 mph pace, it didn't matter the distance (20 miles or 60 miles) it was the same pace. Last week I saw the real jump in pace, going up to 15 mph and then this century saw the 16.5 mph pace. At this pace I am averaging about a 80 rpm cadence. The next century has some serious climb, so I don't expect it to by a fabulous pace, but the ones after that are all relatively flat with lots of rollers. In between now and then I plan on working on getting my cadence up, as that is obviously the only way to increase speed on a ss. A cadence of 90 is very doable and that would have me sitting at an 18 mph pace. I know from time on trainers that I can maintain a cadence of 90 for an hour at a 20 mph pace, and so I believe that 18 is well within reach.

My goal for the end of October is to see a cadence in the 100 rpm range, which would get me into the 20+ mph pace, 110 rpm would be wonderful and that means a 22 mph pace.

Now obviously I know that I can't keep that cadence going continually, since I ride a ss, but that is my goal on flat and slight incline.

The ultimate goal is to save up enough money to buy a bike fit for competition racing and to begin running in crits and road races. Figuring out a training plan has proven difficult because everyone uses technology these days, and all I have is a GPS to tell me my current speed. I may be able to get a hr monitor and or a cadence/bike computer soon, but I'm honestly not too concerned about either of them currently. I figure if I just put down lots of miles, lots of effort, and lots of climb I should take care of strength, VO2 max, and lactic acid thresholds without much problem.

But right now my only problem is that I have not been able to get on my bike since the century, on account of bad weather, and my legs are knots!!! I'd go to the gym and use a stationary bike, but the ones at our local gym always seem to mess with my knees, so I'll hold out until tomorrow and see if the weather chippers up.

OP ~ how old are you?

22.

Awesome!!!

I have a very similar cycling background as you - starting riding fixed/ss around age 20/21, transitioned to road and crit racing by 22, track a few years later. At this point in the game, you shouldn't worry to much about training as you will continue to see gains by JRA (Just Riding Around).

Personally I take great pleasure in planning and executing training plans, possibly as much as riding and racing itself. If the time comes when you wish to prescribe yourself workouts, due to fitness plateau or any other reason, feel free to post here or PM me. You will need some sort of metric to track your exertion, like HR or power, because things like speeds and times are too variable. Obviously HR is much cheaper.

Keep doing your thing! Remember, to ask if you have questions, I love helping new riders, especially ones that demonstrate talent, like yourself.

right on, man

Thanks. Yeah, I probably don't need to worry about training but it is something to do when I'm just hanging out. I'm a goal oriented guy, so I work best when I set something in front of me and work towards it, and that's how I view this fairly primitive plan I've got. And I will def. drop you a message when I get onto a comp. bike and start collecting data.

If this century took you 5hrs and 30 mins to complete, then you averaged 18.2 mph.

And there goes any credibility I had at being a mathematical genius.

I think it's because I used two different things to determine pace and time. The thing I used to track my time was my GPS, it doesn't collect speed or height, it just tells me what turn is next and how long I've been going. I paused it eventually at the stops, but not without a few minutes extra rolling by. My speed/pace was determined by a different app and I never bothered to even switch to it, since it is set to tell me my current speed at a given interval.

It never even crossed my mind to consider that, and I feel even more stupid because I kept the speed/pace thing going during my cool down, which is probably why it's so much lower than 18.

So the first two things you need to do in developing your training regime are to learn some basic maths and learn how to read a watch

Seriously. You seem to have a great attitude and you're certainly doing rather well. Well done.

You, sir, are a stud! Doing 100 miles on a geared bike is a big deal to me right now!

Great job!

That's why you should do it fixed gear, it's easier

You're right though, he's definitely got bragging rights.