Century km or mile?

sigorman85

Just a quick one guys ...what do you class a century in miles or kilometres ?

May sound sad I no but would like to know

Bozman

Miles

marcusjb

160km

chris_bass

Either, as long as you do 100 of them.

Doesn't make it any further or shorter calling it a century (unfortunately)

sigorman85

Well yeah ^^^

tootsie323

Are you riding or driving?

sigorman85

Can't work out if your trying to make a joke or not

CiB

As all of our road signs are in miles, we talk in miles when describing distances to the next town etc and all the cars on the roads measure speed & distance in miles, it beats me why some poeple have a suddden urge to talk in metric just because it's bikes. A century is 100 miles. Claiming a century when being able to do only 62 miles is poor form. IMHO obv.

RDW

Describe it as a 'metric century'. If anyone calls you on it, subtly imply you have European antecedents by offering a Gallic shrug, or commenting favourably on the result of the England v Italy match.

Old_Timer

Most of our ride events here in the states have both metric and mileage centuries.

StillGoing

Miles. A metric century is just 62 ish miles. To call it otherwise is just cheating yourself.

DavidJB

miles.

drlodge

An imperial century is miles longer than a metric one. Not I used the word "miles" here not "kilometers", so there's a clue for you

markhewitt1978

CiB wrote:

As all of our road signs are in miles, we talk in miles when describing distances to the next town etc and all the cars on the roads measure speed & distance in miles, it beats me why some poeple have a suddden urge to talk in metric just because it's bikes. A century is 100 miles. Claiming a century when being able to do only 62 miles is poor form. IMHO obv.

^ This. I have friends who like to quote everything in km. Well this is road cycling, and in the UK we use miles and miles per hour on the roads. The moment the road system changes to km I'll use km, and if I was in Ireland or France or wherever I'd use km too.

To answer the question a 'century' is 100 miles. A 'metric century' is 100km. The distinction matters, I can go out on a Sunday morning and ride a metric century without thinking much of it, a proper century is a different matter entirely.

menthel

Its all milestones- complete your first metric century then move onto an imperial century, then a metric double and so on. Some of us use metric for measurement in cycling because that is what the events we take part in are measured by. Audax UK uses metric measurement so that they are in line with our continental colleagues.

darkhairedlord

For bragging it's km for distance and ft for ascent

drlodge

darkhairedlord wrote:

For bragging it's km for distance and ft for ascent

Good point about ascent...I always quote in miles covered and ft ascended. 100 miles and 10,000ft is a good target to aim for!

sbbefc

Audax its 100km. But id always call it a metric century.

A century for me would be in miles, saying that i hate the imperial system!

sigorman85

A lot of ppl I no use km so that's the reason I asked but myself I use miles I think il find 100 miles very hard to do but it's only practice

davidwilcock

markhewitt1978 wrote:

CiB wrote:

As all of our road signs are in miles, we talk in miles when describing distances to the next town etc and all the cars on the roads measure speed & distance in miles, it beats me why some poeple have a suddden urge to talk in metric just because it's bikes. A century is 100 miles. Claiming a century when being able to do only 62 miles is poor form. IMHO obv.

^ This. I have friends who like to quote everything in km. Well this is road cycling, and in the UK we use miles and miles per hour on the roads. The moment the road system changes to km I'll use km, and if I was in Ireland or France or wherever I'd use km too.

To answer the question a 'century' is 100 miles. A 'metric century' is 100km. The distinction matters, I can go out on a Sunday morning and ride a metric century without thinking much of it, a proper century is a different matter entirely.

Rule number 24 I think.

CiB

When I was adding my thoughts last night I couldn't help thinking that some muppet was bound to bring up 'the rules' as if they trump all other logic, and it's happened. Well done sir.

Spatulala

Miles for distance and metres for ascent, just to make things awkward on Strava. The number of times I've clicked the settings button...

ai_1

A century is 100 so for just about anyone outside USA or UK talking about a century ride will probably be considered to be 100km. I work in kilometers, I've done 160km rides. I don't call them centuries

I live in Ireland and we operate entirely in km now but someone earlier in the thread asked why work in kilometers for cycling when you work in miles for driving (in USA & UK). I think I'd use metric regardless of which system the government had decided to use to govern speed limits and signage. It's just a nicer system to work with. It's much easier to calculate speeds and gradients on the fly if you use metric, IMO.

However either system is fine. What's not fine under any circumstances, is mixing the two. Why on earth would you measure distance in kilometers and altitude in feet? Sorry, but that's just silly.

rolf_f

Ai_1 wrote:

However either system is fine. What's not fine under any circumstances, is mixing the two. Why on earth would you measure distance in kilometers and altitude in feet? Sorry, but that's just silly.

Already explained more than adequately.......

darkhairedlord wrote:

For bragging it's km for distance and ft for ascent

Anyway, what's wrong with mixing things? Those of us of a certain generation are naturals for it.

For me, I use miles and feet for big distances, cm and mm for small distances. Feet and metres are interchangeable. Temperature is in Celsius and I drink beer in pints.

hamish_mctavish

Rolf F wrote:

Temperature is in Celsius

I think you'll find that when talking about the weather, low temperatures should be in Celsius and high temperatures in Fahrenheit.

drlodge

Hamish McTavish wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Temperature is in Celsius

I think you'll find that when talking about the weather, low temperatures should be in Celsius and high temperatures in Fahrenheit.

-40 is the same in either scale :P

wavefront

It's all messed up anyway.

You measure bike frame sizes, bike wheel sizes, lengths of wood from B+Q, paper sizes (A4, A3, A2), room sizes, running races (100m,200m,800m) etc in metric, and TV screen dimensions, alloy wheels, heights of people, road distances in imperial.

Car tyres are the worst, using both inches and mm's to provide sizing. 245x35xR17 or something.

As for cycling distances, km's as I spent alot of last year in France and haven't swapped back. But I don't claim a 'century' unless I do 160 odd km's. If it's 100k, I just say '100k.'

davidwilcock

CiB wrote:

When I was adding my thoughts last night I couldn't help thinking that some muppet was bound to bring up 'the rules' as if they trump all other logic, and it's happened. Well done sir.

Or maybe it was just a joke and you should get over yourself 'sir'

ai_1

davidwilcock wrote:

CiB wrote:

When I was adding my thoughts last night I couldn't help thinking that some muppet was bound to bring up 'the rules' as if they trump all other logic, and it's happened. Well done sir.

Or maybe it was just a joke and you should get over yourself 'sir'

Nah, you brought the rules rules into the discussion. You're now automatically wrong by default.

rolf_f

Ai_1 wrote:

davidwilcock wrote:

CiB wrote:

When I was adding my thoughts last night I couldn't help thinking that some muppet was bound to bring up 'the rules' as if they trump all other logic, and it's happened. Well done sir.

Or maybe it was just a joke and you should get over yourself 'sir'

Nah, you brought the rules rules into the discussion. You're now automatically wrong by default.

He's right. And you commited further offence by finishing with 'I think' - as though you can almost but not quite remember all the rules off by heart and hadn't actually looked them up to check 30 seconds earlier!

rickeverett

Did a metric century yesterday which is about 63miles*?. The extra 40 miles for a ye-old-century is quite a difference imo.