Sportive

loudanfast

I have been using my road bike for 10 weeks,i ride to work every day only 7 miles and i go spinning 3 times a week. I did a 50 miler for charity at the weekend in 2hrs.52mins not record breaking i know but im chuffed as I used to be a 21 stone couch potato and now weigh 14st.5. Ive been bitten by the bug and im now looking for my next challenge and as i live in Stoke on Trent im looking at doing the local Tour of Britian 140k sportive in september. I did the 50miler and felt fresh and could have carried on further. Do you think that I am setting my goal to high or is this acheivable for a ralatively novice but fit rider?

andy

Bobbinogs

Great achievement loudanfast, particularly on the weight loss. You have plenty of time to hit that ride in September. Just do the basics of a decent ride each week in addition to your commute/spinning and up the mileage gradually (10% ish), not forgetting to take time off or miss the odd week if you feel you need it.

I haven't seen that tour route profile but if it is lumpy then you might want to get some hill training built in to your routine (or just throw in the odd lumpy route for fun ).

Best of luck.

Monty Dog

Welcome to the forum - might be worth considering some intermediate goals too to help you build towards your objective. Going from 80k to 140k in 4 months is perfectly reasonable on the basis of increasing the length of your longest ride by no more than 20% every 4 weeks i.e. June 95k, July 110k and August 125k

springtide9

Sounds like it's all going well. A decent time for 50 miles also.

I have found that once you basically go over around 4 hrs on the bike... the extra mileage makes little difference... as long as you are prepared to back off the pace a little for the extra distance.

So the bottom line is that you'll finish it without any issues... but it will be whether you finish it in what you think is a reasonable time.

I have a 12 hr (offroad) race in 2 weeks time. My longest ride will be 5 hrs max (on the MTB) as I have kid/family commitments. There is no way I can get near this distance ever (can't regularly disappear for 12 hrs on weekends); but I am very confident that I'll be OK. I did the same race as an 8 hr last year.. and again similar.. 4-5 hrs were my max rides.

It is all about pace.

loudanfast

Thanks for your advise, my plan if i do it would be more hill training. I have looked at the route myself and its got some big climbs "gun hill" being one. so thats where i think i should be concentrating my training.
Finish time wise its not that imprortant its more the taking part and finishing is my goal. I plan to ride sections of the ride over the coming months adding onto the distance each time and then building from there on.

andy

jgsi

Depends on how you felt after the 50 miler... but essentially from what you wrote, the tour ride is not going to an ask too much for you... especially if you riding around on the roads hereabouts.