Typical daily touring mileage?

jrab

I have a colleague who is looking to do a 355-mile UK tour next summer, camping out so will be loaded with tents etc.

They are experienced hikers and so not unfit, but don't currently cycle much. Plan to build up some miles before the off though.

Bearing in mind the loaded bikes, pitching and taking down camp, and a fairly leisurely ride, roughly how many miles per day do you think they could reasonably expect to cover?

Rich.

pneumatic

I normally budget for 100kms per day. Not much, I know, by road riding standards, but it lets you:

1. get up when you are ready
2. pack the tent at leisure
3. stop for a mid-morning coffee
4. ditto lunch
5. pause at any interesting sites or sights
6. get your tent pitched in time for a leisurely recuperative evening

Three or four of those kinds of day in a row, fully laden, and you feel the "benefit" in the legs, believe me!

tatanab

Daily distance varies between 40 and 100 miles depending on temperature, terrain, wind etc. Generally works out at an average of mid 60s a day, or 100k as pneumatic says. That is carrying full camping kit. Daily sequence is also as he suggests - relaxed.

jrab

Thanks for that. Ties up pretty much with what I was thinking, but from a roadie perspective where nipping out and doing 60 miles in 3-1/2 hours is nothing much, spending all day to cover the same distance seemed a bit out of sorts.

Like you say though, doing that 6 days in a row with a heavy bike is a different story.....

Rich.

jrab

On a slight tangent, one of them needs a new bike, but doesn't want to spend an arm and a leg, also something not too specialised so it gets use after this ride. I was thinking to suggest Ridgeback Voyage, Edinburgh Country Traveller or Edinburgh Cross. Route will be mostly tarmac plus some tracks, quite hilly. Any thoughts?

Rich

pneumatic

Assuming you don't mean "not too specialized":

Not sure what a Spesh tricross costs, but a mate of mine has one and enjoyed it very much on tour this Summer.

When not touring on it, it makes a handsome road bike, too.

Big Wib

pneumatic wrote:

Assuming you don't mean "not too specialized":

Not sure what a Spesh tricross costs, but a mate of mine has one and enjoyed it very much on tour this Summer.

When not touring on it, it makes a handsome road bike, too.

Did the C2C on one of these (the sport) last week & very good it was, I wasn't camping but I was carrying all my other stuff - mainly waterproofs :? . Also use it for going out with the family which tends to involve light off road & use on the commute.

Was described in one of the cycling mags last month as the bike they would have if 'god forbid' they were restricted to one bike

vernonlevy

JRAB wrote:

On a slight tangent, one of them needs a new bike, but doesn't want to spend an arm and a leg, also something not too specialised so it gets use after this ride. I was thinking to suggest Ridgeback Voyage, Edinburgh Country Traveller or Edinburgh Cross. Route will be mostly tarmac plus some tracks, quite hilly. Any thoughts?

Rich

A solution that's a bit 'left field' is one of the Decathlon hybrid/tourers. I had the solution forced upon me when my own bike suffered from a fractured rear drop out in France. The need to press on and a back of the envelope calculation indicated that a Decathlon B'Twin Triban Trail 7 At €399 to be a cost effective solution considering that my broken bike needed a lot of work done on it over the coming year.

In the UK the Dacathlon range is cheaper:

B'Twin Triban trail is £299
B'Twin Riverside 5 is £359

Both bikes have Shimano hub dynamos. The latter has a Deore drive train.

Have a look. I am very happy with my purchase and still consider it value for money even though the Fench price is around £40 more than the UK price.

nicktheluddite

Maybe it will make me sound like a wuss, but fully laden touring I end up averaging 40 miles a day. 60 miles on the flat, 30 miles in the very hilly wilds of NW Scotland. I would like to be able to average 50-60miles a day but I like an easy life too much. Also bear in mind that most of the responses you will get on a cycling forum for daily riding distance are likely to be at the higher end since people here are pretty keen.

Bike suggestion - Dawes Horizon. I think you should be able to get one for about £400 - I'm sure the Edinburgh Country Traveler was made to compete with this bike. If you're staying on tarmac or towpaths then I reckon a tourer is the best bet.

GyatsoLa

For some reason, most people seem to settle on the 100km (60-70 miles a day) as 'normal' for touring. I think it comes down to being a reasonable distance after 5 or 6 hours in the saddle, which is about right for a comfortable day. Knock about 20% off it for difficult conditions - hills, bad roads, bad weather, etc.

In my experience the main limitation for distance for newbies is not fitness - its the ability to stay in the saddle for that length of time. If I go on tour when I'm a bit unfit I find that I'm stopping all the time for a break, or for a stretch - any excuse really. But after a week or so everything toughens up and the opposite happens - I'm so comfortable cruising along I find I resent it when I have to stop and get off for something! But even though I'm not going very fast, if you stay in the saddle for a few hours at a time with just one or two stops you'd be amazed how the distance stacks up. Its when your momentum is always getting broken that it becomes a chore to do more than 50 or so miles.

priory

agree with all the above.
and staying in the saddle can be painful. Tell them to lift off it at every opportunity and every few minutes.

Saddle pain is the thing that can make you unhappy if you have to keep going. If your legs are jelly you can still coast along and walk up the hills and eventually get there, but you have to sit on the saddle, especially if you are tired and trying to finish a too-long day.

If you get there early and full of energy explore the locality.
Newbies may get thick, soft saddles. I would discourage that.

TerryJ

jrab

Thanks for the replies guys, useful info.

Agree with the point about avoiding soft saddles - tend to feel comy for first hour or so, then less so...!

Decathlon hybrid range was interesting - they used to do a Triban with rigid forks and disc brakes which would have been good, but they seem to have dropped it now.

Thanks
Richard.

dang100

I just did a 2-week trip in Spain and France and averaged 100 - 110 kms a day. I don't cycle regularly but I run twice or three times a week.

I did it on a second-hand spec tricross sport (used three times, €525 euros) and it's a great bike.

Wallace1492

Just back from my first ever cycle touring. Was on a Tricross with panniers and rack, brought camping equipment and stove etc. Went from Corran Ferry to Mull, lap of Mull, then back the Ardmamurchan peninsular. Over three days did 39, 47, 45 miles. Kept distance down as was first time doing this, the weight of the panniers did make a difference as I was not used to it. I found that I could have done more, but the hills and weather were not the best, so was not too tough but still demading, but made me appreciate what is in store for longer trips.

Average speed increased each day as I got more used to it, and found it pretty relaxing.

I am going to do Glasgow to Durness in the spring, and really like the idea of cycle touring now, it is great and you meet lots of characters.

geoff_ss

Distance depends what you want to achieve. If you're genuinely touring with sight seeing then often 30/35 miles is enough to give you time to appreciate the scenery/things of interest even if you're really fit. OTOH if you need to cover some distance then 100 miles plus is possible, but don't expect to have a relaxing day.

And, of course the terrain makes a difference. My wife and I have covered as much as 130 miles in Northern Spain with full camping gear and as little as 30 miles and one col in the Pyrenees or Alps. I found I was flying in the second week of a fortnight's tour but my wife seemed to get slower. The important thing IMO is start out fit rather than hope to get fit. Then you can enjoy the ride without too much suffering.

We do rather fewer miles these days as we're fast approaching 70 and leave the camping gear in the loft

Geoff

Gotte

My friend and I did about 350 miles in nine days just recently. I think it broke down to somethning like 30 miles the first day, then a couple of 45s and maybe four 50s (if all that adds up).
When I started touring, I used to figure on no more than 35 miles a day, with a couple of 50s thrown in later, when you're toughened up.
Of course, we weren;t carrying tents.
Remember, enjoy it, though. No point in setting unrealistic targets and hating every minute of it. All that will mean is you won't do it again.

andymiller

Gotte wrote:

Remember, enjoy it, though. No point in setting unrealistic targets and hating every minute of it. All that will mean is you won't do it again.

Very wise advice.

Stuck on a Giant

I'd look to keep distance to nearer 50 than 60 miles.
I don't know how old you guys are, but as a teenager I'd go touring and get stronger every day. I have to say this summer (now 44) I found by the end of the fortnight I was gradually getting more tired. This was averaging around 55-60 miles a day. I think we should have had a day off, or at least a couple of short days, but we'd been a little ambitious in where we could get to, so didn't have much choice.
Oh well, only our second tour, and we live and learn.
Or live at least.

Gotte

I think the age thing does get to you after a while. You just tend to creak more in the mornings, and suffer more from lingering problems.
I'm 45, and I found this last tour harder going than my previous ones. True, we were going farther than we normally would earlier on, and there were a lot of hills involved when last two tours we were on the flat. Also it was colder - 16 to 20 degrees compared with 25 to 30 before, and it rained for two day, and we've been really lucky in that we've never had rain before. We had constant headwinds, and I also had a chest infection that seemed on the verge of turning into something nasty, and which seemed to rob me of a lot of my strength, but still I was getting knee problems, and pulled a muscle in my back from pushing my bike up some really steep hills, then pulled one in my neck from doing God knows what.
We spent most of the tour doping ourselves with paracetemol.
We were only away 9 days, but for the first time took a day off (we've always at least buzzed around a stopover town on our bikes for a day).
We felt beat, but luckily, the weather came good, and we finally got a tailwind, and a long, day on the flat, and that made all the difference. We felt back to our own form.
Maybe a lot of it was in the mind. Maybe it wasn't. All I know is I felt a lot older at times than I have done before.

blorg

For people who "don't cycle much" I think 100km a day would really be pushing it.

People who have suggested a mix between 30-50 miles (50-80km) sounds far more like it.

Even if they are very fit otherwise they will not be cycling fit. I know people who were very fit in other sports but it took them a while to acclimatise to cycling. Except the rowers, they were fast from day 1.

Of course next summer is a long way away so they could well be at the 100km a day level by that time. I imagine they will be best placed to judge based on how their experience of cycling goes between now and then.

pneumatic

Gotte wrote:

I think the age thing does get to you after a while.

Stuck and Gotte THANK YOU! It never occured to me seriously that age might be a factor.

When I toured as a teenager, I did some crazy daily mileages, had some sleep and got back on the bike next day. Later in life I did long tours where I felt better and better every day. Last time out, we did three heavy days in a row and three of the four of us were completely washed out at the end of day three. Worse still, the next day, we didn't cycle at all in favour of some sightseeing but we kept falling asleep on park benches. It took me days to recover.

Part of it is also complacency and not training for a tour on the basis that we tend to assume that if we have done it before we can do it again. The only one of us who was disciplined about training in advance was, naturally, the only one who didn't die a death. What is more, he was the oldest!