Appreciating awesomeness

knownothingbozo

Having done my first 100 mile ride yesterday, cycling round the coast of Kent from Sittingbourne to Rye, quite apart from feeling rather chuffed with myself, it has given me a real appreciation of just how incredible the pros are. Yes I know they train everyday, get the best kit etc, but hells bells! it's still a bloody long way!

Chapeau! to anyone who's ever done it!

Gizmodo

feeling rather chuffed

Chuffed or chafed? Awesome achievement, well done! I've only just got to 20 miles so I can't imagine 5 times that yet!

knownothingbozo

Definitely chuffed. Started riding in April, and best investment has been reasonably good shorts and shirts (still on a budget though).
I recommend malt loaf as a good source of food intake, did wonders for me!

MountainMonster

Ah meatloaf, such a lovely meal. as far as the century, well done! It is quiet amazing what the pros in any sport do, but in terms of sheer endurance they are over the top.

andrewlwood

As I poodle around on 40 mile rides at half the speed the pros go, as I get nervous at any speed over 35mph on a hill, as I sweat and huff my way up 60m climbs, I think about the sheer gap between me and the pros. Humbling, ain't it?

Well done on your century mate; that's my goal for the next 12 months. Respeck!

knownothingbozo

Nearly 7 hours in the saddle to achieve a 100 miles, I'd struggle to go much further, I suppose the next plan is to do it quicker, however so much depends on the weather and other variables.
I read a post earlier about losing interest in statistics, I can see now how that happens, I'm never going to be a racer until they bring in a category for middle aged lazy gits. So I guess it's just crack on and make sure I do it for the fun of it!

Now if I just had a carbon bike......

ollyridesfirst

makes it even better when you consider after 10 days of century rides they also thrown in 3 HC climbs for the next ride :shock:

mouth

My mate recently commented that 'cyclists are a bunch of cheating drug using b*******'. I gotta be honest, I can't think of how much 'help' I'd need to ride something like a grand tour.

Another mate out it quite plainly to me recently when he said 'anybody can go and ride a hundred with the right prep, but who could do it for 3 weeks?'. I'm paraphrasing slightly but when they say the Tour is the hardest 'solo' event in the world I must say I agree.

ollyridesfirst

Tell your mate to take some EPO and see how far he gets up a small Col.....

even with it, i doubt he'd get far!

Cycling has a bad rep with drugs because of the amount of tests that happen in the sport. Can you imagine football players going through 100 drugs tests every year.....wonder how many would come back positive!

CiB

Let's not get too in awe of the pros. Yes they're head & shoulders above what we can do, but they do get paid to train every day unlike most of us who fit rides, training etc in between the day job.

Anyway - the point I'd make is that it's quite feasible to do long rides on successive days. Ask anyone who's done LEJoG for a start. I did a 90 followed by a 95 last year, and this year got a pass-out from home to do a long weekend knocking up 102 on the Friday, 86 on the Saturday and 98 (most of it into a headwind) on the Sunday. The speeds wouldn't win any awards but it became v clear early on the second & third days that the previous days efforts weren't having any negative effects. Once the first five miles or so were under the wheels it was a case of on with it, again. It would have been nice to have pushed for the 100 on all three days but tbh I was getting bored with riding solo and if you're at the hotel the incentive to keep going just for the sake of some numbers that you know you can do anyway does dwindle. This from a pushing middle-age fellow who's no racing snake.

100 miles is roughly 7 hours riding at a steady pace. Leave at 9:00 after a good breakfast, stop for a lunch break and a couple of rests and it might stretch to 8 hours elapsed, which is 5pm. That's what? 16 hours recovery before setting off again. It's not hard, not physically. The point being that we can either worship these men of steel, or better think to ourselves I reckon I could do that, and then go and do it. It's not as difficult to ride a bike for a few hours as some would have us believe.

<plots next century ride...>

merak

Riding 100 miles a day at touring speed for three or four days and riding a grand tour is not even in the same ball park. Quite apart from the fact that the tour stages are generally longer than 100 miles, the average speed is around 25mph even in the cols; a full on mountain day with two or three hors category climbs will use about 10,000 calories - those guys are averaging 350 watts and climbing at 500 watts. Then they go and do it again the day after.

Anyone who has raced at any level will realise how awesome this is - 99% of us even if we had all the time in the world to train, simply don't have the genetic makeup to do this. I will never average much above 220 watts for a long ride, no matter how hard I train. Completing a one-off etape de tour at one's own pace is challenge enough.

On the other hand, most people can ride awesome distances at their own pace with decent training - as CiB says. If you look at people completing 600km audaxes in less than 30 hours, or 200km in less than 9 hours, they are all people like you and me.