150KM solo charity1 day cycle- advice sought

vektarman

I'm hoping to do a 150km one day cycle for charity in a few months time, I'd consider myself reasonably fit and cycle about 15km's a day, can anyone advise on a distance/fitness regime to build up my mileage for the big day. I'm in my mid-forties and haven't cycled that distance in one day since my teens so I'm a bit doubtful if I can do it but I'd still like to give it a try, thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

ba

i'm building up to this kind of distance similar to you. to help i commute everyday by bike, twice on the weekday i cycle 35km, and on saturday i cycle 100km with a club.

before i cycled 100km on weekends with a club, i cycled 35km 3 times a week alone for a few months.

and i'm getting on reasonably well i think.

peterk19

ba wrote:

i'm building up to this kind of distance similar to you. to help i commute everyday by bike, twice on the weekday i cycle 35km, and on saturday i cycle 100km with a club.

before i cycled 100km on weekends with a club, i cycled 35km 3 times a week alone for a few months.

and i'm getting on reasonably well i think.

ba i see ur from Clontarf, im from Donaghmede and looking for a club, just wondering what club are you in im resonably new to cycling well road cycling and im looking for a club to cycle with for a bit of friendly competition,

Capt'n Midnight

main thing to do is to "get miles into your legs"

Gradually up the 15Km a day by trying new routes or cycling on a bit to see what's round the corner

[edit] actually getting the bike setup right - saddle height and stuff like that is also important, things you can live with on short rides can be really irritating on longer ones

Hearvee

I'm not really a regular cyclist but I did the Bordertrek a couple of years ago (approx 200 miles over 2 days) and they have a sample training schedule on their website.

http://www.cooperationireland.org/files/BT-TrainingSchedule.pdf

Maybe you could use/modify that one a bit?

vektarman

Thanks to all for the advice,I appreciate it.:)

Chips Lovell

If you're already in reasonably good shape and cycle every day you're off to a flying start and I wouldn't be afraid of it. As the others have said, gradually building up the mileage is the way to go. I've found doing one long ride in a week along with a few shorter ones works well, so try get out every week on a weekend morning. Maybe start at 50 and build up from there.

The one thing you should pay attention to is food. On a 150km ride, you'll need to keep well fuelled to avoid bonking (i.e. running out of energy). That means eating a good breakfast before you go out and nibbling away while you ride. I usually have nutrigrain bars. Easy to get and you can stash a few in your pockets.

What kind of terrain is your charity cycle being run over? If there's any hills involved, then you'll definitely need to incorporate that into your training.

RobAMerc

If you look at the www.ringofkerry.org and www.lapthelough.org web sites they both have regimes to get you going.

I started training for the ROK in about April ish from a base of 10 yrs sitting on couch smoking fags sippin porter- I finished the ROK in 8hrs (total) and last sunday did the lap the lough in 4hrs 55 (ride time). So compared to me you sound as if you'll ramp up quite easily.

Best of luck -

Anyoine know if theres a " Nice n' Easy " club anywhere in dublin !

RobAMerc

sorry double post

Hungrycol

Anybody want to start a thread on "Friendly Cycling Clubs" that welcome newbies and don't drop them if they're falling behind? We all want to join but I feel most of us are too scared. I wanted to join the one around where I live but when I phoned up was told it's racing season and try again later in the year. What kind of arse reply is that! That elitist crap bugs the Sh1t out of me.

E@gle.

Hungrycol wrote:

Anybody want to start a thread on "Friendly Cycling Clubs" that welcome newbies and don't drop them if they're falling behind? We all want to join but I feel most of us are too scared. I wanted to join the one around where I live but when I phoned up was told it's racing season and try again later in the year. What kind of arse reply is that! That elitist crap bugs the Sh1t out of me.

Where do you live?

Ger the man

Got the same treatment myself, it was more like who had the most expensive bike and gear. The gas thing is that i once did a charity ride to galway and some people had bikes worth 3\4k and had nothing but problems on the way... punctures, broken chains etc.