Number of Days to Recover?
 

What's the least amount of time to let your legs recover to at least 90%? (given you've got adequate protein, electrolytes, etc) 48 hrs? 3 days? 4 days?

I think it depends on fitness level. When i was new to the sport, i took one day off after 30 miles thrashing but eventually realized it wasn't enough after suffering leg injury. 3 years in and 1 day is good enough to recover some but not 100%.
I discovered the roller stick and for $20, that is the most amazing thing, i've spent my $$ on so far :). I spend 20 minutes on my glutes after doing two Crits or saturday 60 miles group hammering and next day i'm 90% fresh.

Depends what you need to recover from.

If you ride with a power meter, you use it to measure how much effort you're capable of, and then each time you ride you compare the effort from that ride against your personal limit to get a pretty good estimate of how much stress you took on. That gives you a reasonable time frame: you'll be recovered tomorrow for this much effort, but it'll take two days for that much.

You can get recovery estimates from a chest strap HRM and good software, too.

I'm beat for a couple days after a long climb. A weekend ride is usually easier and I'm mostly ok the day after. Evening week day rides usually take less than a day.

Depends on your fitness, diet, and riding stress. Those 3 are all important. I put in 247 miles on our tandem last week, rested 2 days, then led a 117 mile ride, felt and was fast. Then rested 1 day and did intervals and heavy legs at the gym. The next day, yesterday, I'd planned to do more intervals, but felt tired and took the day off. Today, I'll make up for it by riding twice, once a zone 2 depletion ride and then later an interval ride. That should pretty well exhaust me, so I'll do a 40' recovery ride tomorrow and then take 2 days off before a long 6000' climbing ride on Sunday.

I'm in pretty good shape right now, about 3 weeks before peaking for the season, and I fuel well. I'm 71 though, so younger folks can do more, a lot more.

The important thing to learn is what it's supposed to feel like when you hit it. If you can't go, best to just put in some easy miles. There's a big difference between riding hard when your legs still hurt if you're in good form, and doing that when you're not. You have to feel your way along. Experiment. As in skiing when if you're not falling you're not learning, in conditioning and fueling if you don't make mistakes, you're not learning.

Recover from what?

A century? When I'm less fit, I can ride a century on a Saturday and will likely have my leg strength back by Tuesday. When I'm fit, I can ride a century on Saturday and have my leg strength back by Monday. When I'm really fit, I can ride a century on Saturday and do it again on Sunday.

If it takes 4 days you are doing something wrong.

I believe it takes me a couple of days .

I think it's rare to not be back at 90% after one day. It can take up to a week, however, to get back to 100% after a hard stretch of riding.

A few hours, depending on duration.

I typically do a 1-2 hour AM ride with some efforts before doing a PM crit.

Have we found out what we're recovering from yet?