Charity cycle ride preparation

pjacko

OK, i have several questions but I'll start with some background:

Me and a group of my colleagues are doing a charity cycle ride from Bristol to Paris over 4 days in September to raise money for Sue Ryder Care and the Great Western Air Ambulance. The group is of very mixed ability ranging from people who've not cycled long distances ever before to a couple of us who are keen mountain bikers but no experienced road riders.

Most of us will be getting bikes for the event on the bike4work scheme so everyone will be on appropriate bikes that should be up to the task (either hybrids or road bikes) and we've given ourselves plenty of time to train with it not being until September.

My main question is with regard to training and exactly how much we should be doing (as well as what sort) When it comes to the actual event, we'll be doing between 70 and 120 km per day, so how should we plan our training? Do we set a mileage to achieve per week and gradually build up. Or would it make more sense to do one (or more) long rides (i.e. building up to 120km) in the week with smaller rides becoming less relevant?

As i mentioned previously I (and several others) will be buying bikes specifically for the event and i've been looking at the Specialized Allez 18 for a little over £500. Is this a good bet for a beginners road bike? I looked at the comparable models from Trek and Giant and they didn't seem to be as well specced (i'm particularly keen on the external BB with shimano cranks due to the endless problems i used to have on my mtbs before i moved up to external BBs!!)

Finally if anyone has any particularly useful advice to pass on about organising and partaking in an event like this, i'd be very grateful.

Cheers,

Phil

oldwelshman

If you and your friends are keen mountain bikers you will have no trouble whatsoever.
I actually did one of these two years ago, and there was a huge difference in ability in participants.
Are you doing it with discovery adventure?
There was on young lady on our trip who paid the £1800 and did it as a holiday!! She had never ridden a bike at all!! Did not even own one, she turned up and hired one. On the monring we set off it was 5am and very cool, about 7 degrees and she had shorts and sleeveless top on She borrowed a top off one of us and fair play she completed the entire route.
There was also an old couple who were over 65 and they had hybrid bike with huge tyres and rode the entire route in sandals!! They were a lovely couple and I rode with them for a few miles at the start of each day.
Yhe organisers are very experienced and the route will be split with a break for lunch (good lunch provided including decent drinks) which can last for over hour or so as they wait for entire group before resuming, so no need to race all the way
If you are capable of riding 40 to 50 miles currently just keep doing what you are, obviously the better prepared you are the easier it is for you, and two 50 mile rides a week and a couple of shorter ones would suffice.
All of this is ok if doing the one I did, but I know there is a much harder faster one which goes (Think Sean Kelly goes on this one) and that would be a different stroy and it would take much more preperation mainly due to the higher speed of the ride.

pjacko

Well initially we were looking at doing an organised event, but the one we looked at partaking in fell through so we looked at our options and we have managed to persuade the company we work for to help financially if we organise the whole lot ourselves and call it a team building event as part of the graduate scheme we're all on. So it's up to us to set the pace.

The route we're currently looking at breaks down to:
day 1 120 km
day 2 40 km (with most of the day being wasted on the ferry
day 3 130km
day 4 80 km


In order to get an idea of what it's gonna be like i've been timing my mtb rides and last week i managed 40km off road in 4 hours (including several stops) but i'm not quite sure how this will translate to on road pace on a road bike.

That only covers myself though and as i mentioned there are several group members who aren't keen cyclists and seeing as they all know i'm into my mountain biking, i keep getting asked for advice and i'm not really sure what i should be suggesting!

oldwelshman

This is going to be more difficult depending how you organise it.
The benefit of doing it with the organised trip is that they organise everything.
Are you going to organise the following?
Support vehicle?
The organisers use support vehicles at fron and back of the ride, with mechanical support for bikes etc. Are you all going to rely on your own mechanical support? We had a couple of riders who broke a wheel, collapsed bottom bracket etc. It may not be as simple as eplacing an innertube though you may be lucky. Who will assist with the non keen cyclists?
Food stops.
The organisers drive out in advacne and prepare a really good buffet with good food, pasta, chicken, cakes, drinks etc at about half way distance for each ride.
They also book the hotels all of which provided evening meals.
The ride into paris can be very dangerous, but it is much easier with an organised event and they have the vehicles with you all the way to the Eiffel tower.
For the training, as some of you are fitter than others it could be a nightmare as there could be 4 hours between the slowest and fastest finishing, are you all catching the same ferry?
For these non keen cyclists, I would suggest if they haven ridden at all to start with abot 10 miles flat riding three times a week for at least two weeks.
Then do a longer ride on weeken up to 20 miles.
The general rule of thumb for new cyclists is to increase your weekly mileage by about 10% a week.
To be honest after a few weeks they will notice that the 10 mile rides become no effort at all wheras initially they may find them hard.
Once they get up to 20 to 30 mile rides they will improve and get stronger quickly.
WIth respect to speed I would not expect them to go above 12mph average, though you probably will.
Maybe you should carry a ruck sack full of bananas for them and carry gels for reserve
By the way who is going to transport your spare clothes and how will you get back?
Our organiser had a vehicle with out clothes in and all bikes were transported back by lorry and we returned by train.

pjacko

you've raised plenty of valid points, but we've addressed most of them so far and in particular we have plenty of people who are keen to get involved, but don't consider themselves fit enough, so these are the folk who will make up the support crew, with rented transit vans providing the transport.

We are planning on sorting our mechanicals ourselves, but as above, the support vehicles will be carrying spares and tools.

Food stops are something we're currently discussing, but obviously we'll need large quantities and it's not something thats been overlooked.

We're also in the process of booking/negotiating with hotels for all those involved. and the plan is to include evening meals in our bookings.

We're not actually looking at finishing in central Paris (even though that would be nice) but at our companies HQ on the outskirts, so hopefully that should address the major dangers of riding in the big city

The idea behind keeping the distance low on the second day was to ensure that there wouldn't be too great a distance between the cyclists by the time we arrive at the port.
The bulk of the cyclists will be flying back to Bristol, leaving all the bikes and kit to be transported back in the vans and support cars.

Thanks very much for the training advice as well as the points you raised regarding the planning

Phil

capilinconnemara

it might be an idea if you all start thinking about cycling your commute if its possible. Thats miles in the week that you will not see adding up on the + side of your miles balance.