spen666 wrote:Just to pick up on the training point.
For a variety of reasons, I have not done any decent distaqnce bike rides now for several months.
Today we went out and rode 42 miles, and I was amazed at how good I felt at the end. Why? Because we took it very steady. Remember tht if you ride at an average speed of 10mph, you can do 100 miles in June or July in daylight hours, even allowing for plenty of stops. At 10mph you can go on for hours without feeling shattered.
I would echo Ellie's remarks though that doing training makes the whole experience easier.
It is doable for anyone who can ride a bike. Don't let fear put you off. If a fat codger like me can do it, then so can you.
While I agree that LEJOG is certainly doable for anybody who can ride a bike, I think you are making some sweeping assumptions. Like others here, my overall average for long rides always seems to work out at about 10mph. However, on our 14 day LEJOG ride, although our moving average was generally around 10mph, our overall average for each day, including stops, was much lower. Some days it was just 6 or 7 mph. Sometimes this was because we took an extra long lunch or as the result of a mechanical. But it was also in a large part because my brother found the going very hard and was in a lot of pain, which meant he tired very easily - particularly on hills. So we ended stopping far more than I would have liked. Even at those low speeds, by the third day he was shattered, so on many of the days we also had a late start and as a result there were occasions where we didn't reach our destination til after 7pm. Our daily distances were generally between 65 and 75 miles.
As I said upthread, my brother did quite a bit of training for the ride, but it clearly wasn't enough for him to do the ride even remotely close to comfortably. So just because one person can do a long ride with ease after not having done one for a while, doesn't mean that everybody else will be able to.
I certainly wouldn't want to put anyone off doing the ride and I agree there’s no need to fear it. And it may be true that many riders could breeze it with the minimum of training. However, I think its fair to say that most people who undertake the ride would benefit from a significant amount of preparation – in order to complete the ride with the minimum of discomfort if nothing else. I would hate to suggest that people 'just do it' and they ended up having an awful time due to lack of preparation.
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