Cycling UK Forum

HI THERE-1ST TIME ON A FORUM SO BEAR WITH ME-HAVE BEEN CYCLING 3 YEARS NOW DOING MAINLY SPORTIVES UP TO 90 MILES-WOULD LIKE NEXT YEAR TO DO A 24 HOUR CYLCE-THERE WOULD BE 4 OF US DOING IT AND WE ARE ALL AT THE SAME LEVEL OF FITNESS (MORE OR LESS)-ANY ADVICE ON TRAINING OR ANY ASPECT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED-MANY THANKS

Translation by Graham :

Hi there - first time on the forum so bear with me . . . . .

I have been cycling for three years now, doing mainly sportives of up to 90 miles.

Next year I would like to try to do a 24-hour ride. There would be four of us doing this ride and we are all at approximately the same level of fitness.

Any thoughts upon training or any other aspects of such a ride would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks.

Make sure that no-one has to drive at the end of the ride as it's unlikely that any of you will be fit enough to drive afterwards.

As for training there's a decent book called the Long Distance Cyclist's Handbook which has training schedules in it. It was written by Simon Doughty who was a coach for British Cycling.

It's a big leap from a 90 mile sportive to a 24 hr ride and the the demands on your body will be very different.

Where do you live?
Agree, read the Long distance Cyclist.
Start to build uup your miles, I do quite a few 'audaxes', longer distance challenge rides.
200km is 'the main' distance. This should take approx 12 hours.
When I ride the 400km distance it takes me approx 23hours.
This should give you a guide of the sort of distances you can expect to cover in the time.
Best time todo such a ride would be high summer when you have more daylight and less riding in the dark. This give you time to build up your miles.
Pick a route where the parts done in the dark are easy to follow, it is surprising how difficult negotiating lots of small lanes with lots of junctions can be in the dark. It will slow your progress quite a bit.
Even in summer it can be cold over night so have some spare clothes with you.
Good lights are essential as are back up batteries and reflective clothing.
Make sure you have some stop points throughout the ride, every 2-3 hours, unless you intend to do it non-stop? But in that case you will need back up support.
Research your route and plan to have an all night cafe for the middle of the night if possible, remember there can be back routes, open to cyclists, into motorway service stations and these are open all night.

As there will be 4 of you, do not underestimate the value of support you give each other and the inane banter that will get you through the low points, you will have low points during a ride like this but you will not necessarily all have a low point at the same time, and keeping up each others moral is important.

You don't make it clear whether you wish to ride as an independent group of four following your own route or in an organised event, eg an AUK audax or a CTT 24 hour time trial. If the latter, it is better to start with the AUK events - more basic and self reliant than sportives, but a lot cheaper - working up from 200k to 600k via 300k and 400k events. If you can do a 600k in less than 30 hours you should be able to a 400 mile plus ride in a 24 hour time trial, provided you regard it as a race and not a tour, feeding/drinking on the go and keeping stops to a bare minimum. You may, however, need some support although some riders such as Steve Abraham go without and do credible distances. The 24 Hour Fellowship is a good source of advice on 24 hour time trials and the Mersey Road Club event in late July is the one remaining annual 24 hour time trial.

Get plenty of miles in and include some speed work, eg evening 10's etc, and you should be ok.

I'm doing a self organised 280 mile London to Paris cycle ride in 24 hours in July in a team of 4, which includes 3 hours of dead time on the Dover Calais ferry leg. So based on that 300 miles should be do-able.

However I'm not sure I would want to cycle for 24 hours if I didn't have the goal of cycling to Paris to aim for!

I'd recommend starting in the evening, to get the night riding out of the way whilst you are still fresh, and have the final part of the ride at a time when you'd normally be wide awake.
Try in to get an afternoon nap in beforehand is a lot better than not trying, even if it doesn't seem like you sleep much.

p_ferris wrote:Translation by Graham :

Using mixed case, with proper sentences, punctuation and line breaks/paragraphs, makes a post easier to read. If a post is hard to read, fewer people will bother to reply.
The worst I've seem was a post of about 15-20 lines, entirely in lower case, with no newlines or punctuation of any sort. I gave up trying to work out what he was trying to say after about 5 minutes.

If your around the London area or you can get there then the FNRttC are a good intro to night riding.
If you cycle home then its easy to clock in 150-200 mile.

Luck ..........

Many years ago my ex rode the Mersey Roads 24 hr time trial. The intended long training rides never materialised, he rode one 10 mile time trial as preparation and he borrowed my racing bike for the occasion. He covered 60 miles in the first 3 hours then anounced he could go no further. Eventually he got back on his bike and continued riding in fast bursts with long rests for the rest of the event. This is a textbook example of how not to do it but at the end of the event he had covered 342 miles and I, as his support crew, was far more knackered than he was!

Unless you are already used to staying up all night and concentrating (eg shift worker rather than party-goer) I'd say don't underestimate the effect of a shortage of sleep. Normally, if this was just a matter of picking your own start time, I'd suggest starting just before first light 4am ish. That way you could go to bed early, get a good kip and you would then only be staying up for the first part of the second night. In other words, it would be as near as possible to a normal sleep pattern, but with an early night followed by a late one. In some ways, midnight to midnight might be better, but on the basis that you can probably cover the greatest mileage when you are still fresh, no point in wasting that fresheness riding more slowly in the dark at the start of the ride.

Having said all that, if you have a choice of ferry time, I'd consider working around that to get in a bit of kip because even twenty or thirty winks instead of the full forty can be a great refresher.

Apart from that, it's what I always post about distance cycling - coping with what goes on in your head is at least as important asyour legs. A shortage of sleep can make the bonce even more dodgy. Get as much mileage in as you can, preferably together, with plenty of night riding. A well-motivated group riding together should eat something like this, but one whinger or show off could be very disruptive. A group can also waste a lot of time if everybody wants to mess about individually with stops etc. It's staing the obvious but any number of riders taking a five minute break together loses five minutes. Four riders each calling their own 5 minute time out is 20 golden minutes gone forever. It's much easier to lose time than to make it up so this needs firm discipline.

I think the distance should be do-able by a group of reasonably fit riders. One small tip which I know from experience - try to avoid paying too much attention to French road signs with distances measured in kilometres. Not very easy when they are at every turn. I have found that immediately converting all distances into miles helps. "Only sixty miles to go" is a lot more encouragingt than, "Oh heck - it's still another 100K."

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PS I suppose a lot also depends on your reception at the destination. If you are going to visit friends / family etc., it should be no problem but if not, it's something needing some thought. I once arrived in Avignon in the small hours and much earlier than expected with nowhere to go but a bench. It was bad enough arriving by train, rather than by bike, but after a very long journey, it's something to avoid.

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PPS Although some of my longest cycle rides as an idiotic teenager were spur-of-the-moment affairs, I think a bit of planning is likely to improve the chances of success and an enjoyable ride.

I think you need to think about how you will deal with contingencies, including "showstoppers" (in the current lingo.) If somebody becomes ill or gets a serious mechanical, will everybody stop, one person stop while the others continue or what? Although any decision would have to depend on circumstances, agreement in advance may stop hours being lost having a discussion from first principles. Obviously, a lot depends on priorities. eg is a good ride more important than doing it in under 24 hours?

I think then it's important to know from experience what you can expect as your group's cruising speed. By this I mean how fast the group can travel for hours on end without expending too much energy but making decent speed. For ease of calculating, I'll take 15mph. That would mean just short of 19 hours riding time for 280 miles. If you are allowing 24 hours start to finish, your three hours crossing the Channel leaves 21 hours. So, with a cruising speed of 15 mph you have a margin of two hours for stops. Now, if you allow 5 mins stoppage per hour, that's just over an our and a half. That leaves "only" 30 mins for a longer stop. Of course, there's no reason to stop for 5 mins every hour, but working it out like this gives a better idea of what's involved than dividing distance by time and saying that's the average. Knowing your realistic cruising speed also helps if you have to alter your plans and you are planning a realistic étape. (Calculations are e&oe, of course )

As with all long rides, don't make the mistake of starting too fast when the adrenaline of starting the big event would allow racing speeds. Save some energy for the last 50 or so miles.

Humans typically work to cycles. Lots of people seem to hit a low point just before dawn then perk up. But tiredness can be stealthy. Also your faculties don't degrade evenly.

thirdcrank wrote:Having said all that, if you have a choice of ferry time ... try to avoid paying too much attention to French road signs.

Where does ferries & France come from?

if you are replying to a threadjacker, it's a good idea to quote at least some of the post you are replying to. The OP (p_ferris) might get confused otherwise.

Thanks for the advice, although certainly wasn't trying to be a "threadjacker"!

andrew_s wrote:

thirdcrank wrote:Having said all that, if you have a choice of ferry time ... try to avoid paying too much attention to French road signs.

Where does ferries & France come from?....

I suspect you know the answer to your question. In fact, it's a double error on my part, because this was one of those threads where I had decided not to post till the OP came back with a bit of clarification.

lucaltmann - I hope you have a good trip. I also hope that my typically rather long posts have given you some ideas, at least, of what to think about. ([One of those occasions where I think of the George Burns song I wish I was eighteen again.)