24,000miles a year

Frank the tank

Watching the coverage of the tour of California the other night, they had an ex-pro cyclist in the commentary box (forgive me I didn't catch his name). He said over a year he would ride 24,000miles. No small distance and a fair amount would be at race pace,obviously. This, give or take is about 500miles a week.

When I've done babbling, the point I'm going to make is this one.

A lot of people who post on here (assuming there not telling porkies) do in excess of 6,000miles a year, but, crucially they hold down full time jobs which must account for at least 8-9hours a day. Imagine how many miles could be "logged" if all that was paid cycling time.

Suddenly 24,000miles doesn't seem quite so far ralatively speaking.

passout

24,000 miles is approximately once around the earth! I know what you mean though. I met this old fella, an OAP, a while back and he did over 300 miles a week & didn't 'do' touring. He never even took out a water bottle! I make sure that I get at least 100 miles a week in, including commuting, which isn't much really! As you say though, life gets in the way.

mrushton

There are some people in audax who clock up 25000km per year but they tend to be retired/unemploy(able)ed/mad.
Remember that pro riders get paid to train and work to a plan. To achieve that level of cycling they have to be motivated anyway. Life/work etc does get in the way but tends to pay the bills for most of us.

Frank the tank

mrushton wrote:

There are some people in audax who clock up 25000km per year but they tend to be retired/unemploy(able)ed/mad.
Remember that pro riders get paid to train and work to a plan. To achieve that level of cycling they have to be motivated anyway. Life/work etc does get in the way but tends to pay the bills for most of us.

That is the very point I'm making. If we didn't have to work or were indeed paid to ride the amount of miles would/could be phenominal. Do the maths.

Let's take the base as 5,000miles per rider if you had no other commitments and you did nine hours a day at sixteen miph, five days a week, forty eight weeks a year.

9x16x5x48=34,560miles please yourself if you want to add on the extra 5,000 leisure miles.

amaferanga

Frank the tank wrote:

mrushton wrote:

There are some people in audax who clock up 25000km per year but they tend to be retired/unemploy(able)ed/mad.
Remember that pro riders get paid to train and work to a plan. To achieve that level of cycling they have to be motivated anyway. Life/work etc does get in the way but tends to pay the bills for most of us.

That is the very point I'm making. If we didn't have to work or were indeed paid to ride the amount of miles would/could be phenominal. Do the maths.

Let's take the base as 5,000miles per rider if you had no other commitments and you did nine hours a day at sixteen miph, five days a week, forty eight weeks a year.

9x16x5x48=34,560miles please yourself if you want to add on the extra 5,000 leisure miles.

Just riding 9 hours a day at 16mph isn't gonna turn you into a pro cyclist, or even a fast cyclist. You'll just get very good at riding (quite) slowly for 9 hours a day.

Proper training for 500 miles each week would be completely different to pootling around on your bike all day.

APIII

A lot of those 24,000 miles will be spent racing, so that kind of changes your perspective

Stewie Griffin

The problem with being full time and paid to ride is that they will expect me to ride in the conditions that they have had in this years Giro or the pics of the Spring Classics you see. I would hide behind a bush and wait for the broom wagon to pick me up :oops:

Bobbinogs

I think the only way I could physically do 24,000 miles a year is driving the bloody broom wagon :!:

bexley5200

66 miles a day not a lot rearly in the summer.

Frank the tank

amaferanga wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

mrushton wrote:

There are some people in audax who clock up 25000km per year but they tend to be retired/unemploy(able)ed/mad.
Remember that pro riders get paid to train and work to a plan. To achieve that level of cycling they have to be motivated anyway. Life/work etc does get in the way but tends to pay the bills for most of us.

That is the very point I'm making. If we didn't have to work or were indeed paid to ride the amount of miles would/could be phenominal. Do the maths.

Let's take the base as 5,000miles per rider if you had no other commitments and you did nine hours a day at sixteen miph, five days a week, forty eight weeks a year.

9x16x5x48=34,560miles please yourself if you want to add on the extra 5,000 leisure miles. [/

Just riding 9 hours a day at 16mph isn't gonna turn you into a pro cyclist, or even a fast cyclist. You'll just get very good at riding (quite) slowly for 9 hours a day.

Proper training for 500 miles each week would be completely different to pootling around on your bike all day.

Obviously the pro's train at all kinds of intensities , I just chose those figures at random to show what could be achieved. It's not about being a pro cyclist it's a thread about how many miles could be done if working didn't get in the bl**dy way.

guilliano

It's not a HUGE amount of riding, it's just done at great intensity with a vast amount of guidance about everything involved, along with other types of training such as gym work, swimming, rest periods etc.If I didn't have to work I could happily clock up 30,000 miles a year but that wouldn't make me a good racer, just a stereotypical CTC member

nolf

Yeah remember that they do things like intervals, chaingangs, very fast group rides, hill repeats (or often mountain repeats).

At the moment I'm doing a double chaingang, and a double weekend ride, with a 2hr tempo ride on 1 of the spare days. If I had extra time I would not be able to do much more. And thats barely 250 miles. I'm not able to double that (or indeed add much more to it).

Even if I could to then get back and do a core session, followed by aggressive stretching, and then some cross training in the pool. I wouldn't last a day!

Homer J

I'd get bored, i'm happy with my 4k ish