My commute - its about to get real

daddy0

Hello ladies and gents.

We are currently expecting our 2nd child and as we are going to need more space we are moving. This will make my commute 40km each way!!!

The new house is in Istead Rise, Kent, I work in Crystal Palace. So there will be a little bit of climbing each way too.

Do any of you ride a similar distance for your commutes? If so what are your top tips?

rubertoe

This will be me soon....

I have told the missus (we need more space also). That we can live anywhere she wants as long as the commute is do-able daily by bike (it is time more than distance that will be the problem).

LiveGiantly

rubertoe wrote:

This will be me soon....

I have told the missus (we need more space also). That we can live anywhere she wants as long as the commute is do-able daily by bike (it is time more than distance that will be the problem).

A wise move in the 'keep-her-happy' department....

samsbike

Daddy0 wrote:

Hello ladies and gents.

We are currently expecting our 2nd child and as we are going to need more space we are moving. This will make my commute 40km each way!!!

The new house is in Istead Rise, Kent, I work in Crystal Palace. So there will be a little bit of climbing each way too.

Do any of you ride a similar distance for your commutes? If so what are your top tips?

I dont ride 25miles each way but do around 17. I am not really fit so it takes me about 1hr 20m. If you can cover the distance in a similar time you will be OK.

I would strongly recommend a good diet otherwise you are going to struggle and have a bike you are really comfortable on.

jonny_trousers

That's a long commute! Not one to do in the rain.

We're talking about moving out in a year or two. Ideally St Albans. That too is about 25 miles, so I suspect I'll become a fair weather commuter only if it happens.

markhewitt1978

50 miles per day? That's serious milage, you going to be doing it every day?

I think like for most time will be the issue, as well as keeping on top of maintenance etc

Kieran_Burns

So if it's about to get real, was it a dream commute before?

itboffin

So where in euroland is Crystal Palace? i was under the distinct impression it was still in the UK where we measure our distances in Miles like real men :twisted:

slowbike

markhewitt1978 wrote:

as well as keeping on top of maintenance etc

N+1 ....

Was handy the other morning when I picked my bike up to take it outside ... and discovered a flat on the front ...
2 seconds to decide what to do - swapped out the front wheel with the one from my best bike, checked pressure and off I went ...

alan_sherman

Will you see your kids? My 45 minute commute makes it hard to see the little one during the week. Dare I suggest motorized two wheels as an alternate option?

daddy0

Cheers guys. Although it could be better I don't think my diet is too bad. I think I will just have to eat more, get up early enough to eat enough etc... Got any tips on diet?

Rain doesn't bother me on my current commute, the heavier the better. But yes I can understand that a 40km commute in the wet could be pretty miserable.

Distance wise I currently ride about 200-300km a week, 2 days commuting and the rest in the evenings and weekends. I have been wanting to ride more - just don't have the time. I also currently drive 2 days a week which takes up to 4 hours. I will hopefully be able to give that up. So the extra distance and time in the saddle should be a bonus and will actually afford me more time for family and other hobbies. Hopefully I will be able to leave the house at 7:40 and be home by 18:20. Well, thats the plan. Eventually I will look to move to a job nearer the new home - anyone in Gravesend need an IT guy?

As for N+1 - I have 2 bikes at the moment and I sometimes steal the wheels from the EPOs bike too. Thinking that a Brompton might be a good idea for getting the train part of the way. Also I have been needing a half decent wet weather road bike for wet club rides, so this move is a good excuse for that!

secretsam

Daddy0 wrote:

Cheers guys. Although it could be better I don't think my diet is too bad. I think I will just have to eat more, get up early enough to eat enough etc... Got any tips on diet?

Porridge for breakfast. Chicken cup a soup when you get in. Bananas.

Daddy0 wrote:

Rain doesn't bother me on my current commute, the heavier the better. But yes I can understand that a 40km commute in the wet could be pretty miserable.

See my earlier thread "Thoroughly fed up" on cycling in the rain (and it's only 15 miles in my case)

Daddy0 wrote:

As for N+1 - I have 2 bikes at the moment and I sometimes steal the wheels from the EPOs bike too. Thinking that a Brompton might be a good idea for getting the train part of the way. Also I have been needing a half decent wet weather road bike for wet club rides, so this move is a good excuse for that!

Bromptons are utterly vile. All foldies are evil. Get a proper bike.

asprilla

I used to do 50 miles each way: Walton to GIR.

I was very tired at the weekend and I put on weight. I was always eating. Watch out for bonking on the way home on Thursday or Friday. I had to crawl into a newsagent on either NKR or at Hampton Court on several occasions. Mind that's probably because the volume of cake I was eating was pushing me towards Type 2.

daxplusplus

How much climbing and how good\bad are the roads?

Mine is a 45mile round trip with approx 2700ft climbing .. but the roads are pretty good (back lanes with little traffic and next to no stopping).

Doing it 5 days a week (more or less) .. extending it sometimes (did an extra 25miles last night) .. and also a "club" run on a Sunday with some sprints and good work outs (25 -110 miles).

Key for me has been learning what my body is capable of and knowing how to do a proper recovery ride (i.e. HR very low) .. also it's taken me a couple of years to build up to this (although your starting fitness is a lot higher then where I was at the start).

Good luck!

daddy0

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

How much climbing and how good\bad are the roads?

Looks like about 450m (or 1500ft) of climbing each way, but I've only spent a little while looking into the best route. Roads - yeah not too bad, could be better. Its country lanes for the first half, and from then on it'll be inside the M25 - but I know that part of the route well.

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Doing it 5 days a week (more or less) .. extending it sometimes (did an extra 25miles last night) .. and also a "club" run on a Sunday with some sprints and good work outs (25 -110 miles).

Pretty much what I want to do.

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Key for me has been learning what my body is capable of and knowing how to do a proper recovery ride (i.e. HR very low) .. also it's taken me a couple of years to build up to this (although your starting fitness is a lot higher then where I was at the start).

Cheers for the tips. When do you go for your recovery ride if you're commuting everyday and club riding on the weekends? I need to look into recovery rides - every time I mean to go out for one I get bored and end up going for Strava KOMs :twisted:

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Good luck!

Thanks, for the encouragement. Its good to hear that someone else does a similar commute and that I'm not crazy like all my friends and family probably think I am.

daddy0

Asprilla wrote:

I used to do 50 miles each way: Walton to GIR. .

:shock:

PBo

itboffin wrote:

So where in euroland is Crystal Palace? i was under the distinct impression it was still in the UK where we measure our distances in Miles like real men :twisted:

Rule #24
// Speeds and distances shall be referred to and measured in kilometers.

This includes while discussing cycling in the workplace with your non-cycling coworkers, serving to further mystify our sport in the web of their Neanderthalic cognitive capabilities. As the confused expression spreads across their unibrowed faces, casually mention your shaved legs. All of cycling’s monuments are measured in the metric system and as such the English system is forbidden.

so put that in your signature and smoke it

itboffin

PBo wrote:

itboffin wrote:

So where in euroland is Crystal Palace? i was under the distinct impression it was still in the UK where we measure our distances in Miles like real men :twisted:

Rule #24
// Speeds and distances shall be referred to and measured in kilometers.

This includes while discussing cycling in the workplace with your non-cycling coworkers, serving to further mystify our sport in the web of their Neanderthalic cognitive capabilities. As the confused expression spreads across their unibrowed faces, casually mention your shaved legs. All of cycling’s monuments are measured in the metric system and as such the English system is forbidden.

so put that in your signature and smoke it

Questionable

meanredspider

Good luck with it - it's a good distance but I'm sure it's doable - especially if you break yourself in gently. Can you avoid having to carry much/anything? That, for me, would make the difference. I don't mind carrying clothes and laptop on my back for the short sprint across Amsterdam but I'd have hated it on my Highland commute. Same goes for the Brompton - it's a hateful thing (mostly because it's too small) but useful for my train trips to Eindhoven High Tech Campus

asprilla

Daddy0 wrote:

Asprilla wrote:

I used to do 50 miles each way: Walton to GIR. .

:shock:

Doh. Typo. 50 miles a day.

bendertherobot

Mine's 40 a day. It's pretty easy to be honest. At least between February and November!

The light makes such a massive difference. It's an absolute pleasure. If I didn't commute I'd find it very hard to get mega mileage in.

daxplusplus

Daddy0 wrote:

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

When do you go for your recovery ride if you're commuting everyday and club riding on the weekends? I need to look into recovery rides - every time I mean to go out for one I get bored and end up going for Strava KOMs :twisted:

The commutes have to alternate between different purposes (for me) - you simply can't do that distance day in, day out and be going for it every single time. Took me about a year to figure that out :roll:

You might be able to get away with it if you do Monday, Wednesday, Friday but all 5 days? Pretty unlikely. The amount of fatigue that your body builds up will eventually overwhelm you .. your performance just drops and drops.

Rather than let that happen you have a choice .. take an actual rest day (so no cycling at all) or attempt to do recovery rides on the commute. TBH a complete rest day may actually be more beneficial but I'm still not decided on that because although taking a day off will help you immediately .. doing a really easy recovery ride may help your longer term fitness\adaptation (I may just be hoping for that)

In fact I'll just go and dig up a graph of what actually happened to me last Sept\Oct when I pushed on to do miles rather than have rest days (because I wanted to hit an arbitrary mileage) .. it shows what happens to your fitness if you ignore the steady build up of stress on your body.

I guess everyone is different and everyone adapts differently but it will take time. Keep at it and you will get there. I'm so glad I kept on pushing to see what I could do .. the journey has been great, taught me a lot about myself and what's possible and best of all you end up with a great engine :twisted:

Ps you don't need software\graphs etc to realise the need for rest days - your body will tell you.

daxplusplus

Here you go .. a confusing picture

It's trying to show how, over time, the number of rides effected me towards the end of last year.

The vertical lines are the rides (height indicates how tough the ride was).

The red line shows accumulated fatigue, the blue line my fitness. In this case although I was getting fitter and fitter my fatigue was outstripping it. The overall feeling was of being permanently semi-knackered.

I believe the idea is to not let the fatigue get too high (not do too much) but to continue to increase your fitness (do just enough).

This is where the rest days\recovery rides come in. You can see gaps (rest days .. usually the weekends) and rides with low stress scores (recovery ride commutes) in the graph as I rather desperately try to recover from the accumulated stress. But really I was doing too much and the red part of the graph shows this.

Again you don't really need software to tell you this - you'll feel it. And everyone is different - so what is too much stress for me might be fine for you .. in addition you may recover more quickly than me. There are also other factors in your life (lack of sleep, work stress, etc etc) that can all have an effect too.

I'm very interested in all this stuff as I want to get faster and be able to ride longer .. and it's not just a case of doing as many miles as you possibly can (as I'm slowly discovering).

I reckon the best thing for you to do is just go for it and then listen to your body - keeping pushing it but be prepared to have rest days or go slow. BTW The boredom is not such a problem if your knackered - you can just enjoy the ride, make sure you HR doesn't get too carried away and keep reminding yourself that your trying to recover .. so that on a later date you can ride fast again.

daddy0

Cheers Darrell, brilliant advice - just the sort of thing I was after.

Thanks to you other guys for your comments and encouragement. My anxiety regarding the commute has transformed into excitement!

The house buying seems to be going ahead much more quickly than I anticipated so I am planning on testing out my commute route tomorrow - from current address to new house, to work, back to new house and back to current house. Should be about 140km. Mondays commute will have to be a recovery ride!

bendertherobot

Some good points above. I use mine as thinking time. Plan the day, plan life. You're starting at the best time of the year.

High pressure about to arrive and IF the UK is now beset by long term patterns of weather then we could be looking at a 3 month dry season......

markhewitt1978

bendertherobot wrote:

High pressure about to arrive and IF the UK is now beset by long term patterns of weather then we could be looking at a 3 month dry season......

Oh yes

daxplusplus

Please don't get my hopes up with stories of this mythical dry weather ..

Fat-Boy-Roubaix

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Here you go .. a confusing picture

It's trying to show how, over time, the number of rides effected me towards the end of last year.

The vertical lines are the rides (height indicates how tough the ride was).

The red line shows accumulated fatigue, the blue line my fitness. In this case although I was getting fitter and fitter my fatigue was outstripping it. The overall feeling was of being permanently semi-knackered.

I believe the idea is to not let the fatigue get too high (not do too much) but to continue to increase your fitness (do just enough).

This is where the rest days\recovery rides come in. You can see gaps (rest days .. usually the weekends) and rides with low stress scores (recovery ride commutes) in the graph as I rather desperately try to recover from the accumulated stress. But really I was doing too much and the red part of the graph shows this.

Again you don't really need software to tell you this - you'll feel it. And everyone is different - so what is too much stress for me might be fine for you .. in addition you may recover more quickly than me. There are also other factors in your life (lack of sleep, work stress, etc etc) that can all have an effect too.

I'm very interested in all this stuff as I want to get faster and be able to ride longer .. and it's not just a case of doing as many miles as you possibly can (as I'm slowly discovering).

I reckon the best thing for you to do is just go for it and then listen to your body - keeping pushing it but be prepared to have rest days or go slow. BTW The boredom is not such a problem if your knackered - you can just enjoy the ride, make sure you HR doesn't get too carried away and keep reminding yourself that your trying to recover .. so that on a later date you can ride fast again.

That's really interesting, I made the mistake in 2013 from the end of March through to Sept I was (for me hammering) it 5 days a week commuting 30-40 miles a day and weekend jaunts during June/July/August 700-800 miles a month with Garmin avg moving speed for the months around 17.8-18mph. I only sign I got I was over doing it was really low average HR for the whole ride and lower than normal peaks up hills. I came off in October and didn't get the all clear until Dec/Jan to ride again my average and peak are 30%+ higher than most of last summer. No other signs for me in fact I was bragging how my Friday legs had disappeared and no more stiffness (in my legs) at night.

daxplusplus

Fat-Boy-Roubaix wrote:

I only sign I got I was over doing it was really low average HR for the whole ride and lower than normal peaks up hills.

We're all different and I'm no coach so don't have any experience other than my own.

However I would hazard a guess that although you where doing many miles, it doesn't necessarily equate to over doing it. In January I did my easiest 100 miler ever .. hardly any climbing and HR in Zone 1\2 for most of it. It hardly registered on the graph\stress scores. But I wasn't hanging around .. just not stressing my body.

A low average HR for a ride is, by definition, taking it easy. As you get fitter that may well still be a fast ride but it's no longer really pushing\stressing your body. Those vertical lines in the graph is a score that directly correlates to HR .. longer in higher zones = bigger stress and, ultimately, a bigger score (there's no additional rocket science as far as I'm aware .. just a simple-ish calculation).

If your Friday legs had gone, muscle aches at night no longer a concern and a low HR on rides then it sounds like your body had adapted to your new workload fine

Apologies if I read your post the wrong way.

benleicester

I do the same distance commute, here are my tips:

1. Take it easy at the start of the week and you will feel better at the end of the week.
2. Some days you will get home and want to eat everything in the house - try not to.
3. Every weekend clean your bike and make sure everything is running as it should.
4. Become zen like on the bike - dont make every day into a battle.
5. Listen to you body and take it easy when you need to.

Good luck.

mdgutsell

good luck

I ride in from st albans 4 days a week (22 - 25 miles each way)

the 1st couple of weeks are pretty tough then you just get used to it :-) and the routes pretty good.

M