"Tim B" <
[email protected]> wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> I've only been riding my road bike for about a month. I ride 20-25 miles daily, all on a rail
> trail bike path. Only about 11.5 mph average but it gets the job done. There's a century ride 6
> weeks from now near me, billed as a flat-to-rolling tour with lots of support and not a race. They
> stop 5 times during the 100.
>
> It seems to me that if I can ride 25 in the morning and be ok to go to work afterwards without a
> lot of noticeable pain, I should be able to have a goal of doing 20 five times in a row with
> rest breaks in between and be fine. They have 10, 25, and 50 mile options, and I could bail from
> the 100 to the 50 midway if I wanted to. I'm 44 without any health problems I can think of other
> than being about 250 pounds and that's coming off nicely with the nice calorie expenditure from
> cycling. And thinking about the century gives me a nice, seemly unattainable goal, and that
> works for me. Within a couple of weeks I'll have appropriate shorts, shoes and shirts; the bike
> was expensive enough (Specialized Sequoia Sport, love it) that I skimped on the extras for the
> first month.
>
> Here's my questions.
>
> 1. Am I nuts for thinking I can do this? My first inclination is to get a physical and explain
> what I'm up to, and presuming there's not a big problem there, go on.
Yeah a little nuts.
>
> 2. If it seems ok, how can I train for this? My first inclination is to do a 50 every couple of
> weeks on the rail trail, not early in the morning but later on in the day, 25 miles slightly
> uphill along a river, 25 miles back slightly downhill, and if that is comfortably achievable,
> go on and do the tour. Then in the days in between, work on getting up to about 14 mph, as it
> looks like from the brochure that they figure about that, and work on rolling hills.
If the route is well supported you shoudln't have too much trouble. Take a long break at the feed
stations. Your training sounds like it will get you to the finish as long as you don't race. It will
really help you to find a group you can train with or at least ride the century with.
But one thing GET COMFORTABLE SHORTS NOW! It will be too late in a few weeks. You want to get what
works for you. In order to do that it will require some experimenting. Or you may get lucky and find
a pair of shorts you can wear for over 10 hours of riding.
enjoy the ride, Andy