Cycling 60 Miles a day for a month.

[Tigerbiten]

I find when I working up my daily mileage ....
First week at the new mileage is easy.
Weeks 2-3 are hard.
Weeks 4-6 gets easier as I cycle myself to the new level of fitness.
By around week 6 I'm ready to up my mileage more.
So a steady build up makes it easier the next day against doing a high mileage as a one off.
The worst thing I find about trying to get fit around my home base is I run out of interesting routes.
Even the best route can get a bit boring after you've done it over 10 times in a short order of time.

Luck ........

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

I find when I working up my daily mileage ....


Luck ........

Running out of routes is a problem in the 20 mile radius but beyond that expands opportunity. Unfortunately those opportunities are exhausted as well. Be glad when transporter tech is widely available. I could pop into a new ride every month!

 

[Durango Bay]

I love goals like this, it gets me out of the door when sometimes I wouldn't bother. My advice would be to get a lot of people to ride with as that will make it a lot easier, if you are not in a club then try and find one locally or else build up a network of local riders. Good luck.

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

I love goals like this, it gets me out of the door when sometimes I wouldn't bother. My advice would be to get a lot of people to ride with as that will make it a lot easier, if you are not in a club then try and find one locally or else build up a network of local riders. Good luck.

Plus and minus with clubs. If you are willing to conform to others schedules and are flexible on what route to take, etc... then fine. One thing I don't like is a group that requires volunteer work to be done when all you want is to ride. Yeah so no group membership presently. Working on finding a riding buddy.

 

[HLaB]

Back in 2013 I decided to cycle 1000 miles a month. Quickly looking at Strava October looks to be a consistent block of 1,600 miles but the vast majority of it was done in the Peterborough area which is flat and mild. I can't remember doing anything special to prepare just riding and eating as normal.

 

[jay clock]

I can't imagine 60 miles a day. I did 60 on Saturday in 4 hours. I usually crash after long rides post recovery intake. I'm working on 20 miles daily avg though. Did 169 miles last week and starting to do fasting 30 plus mile rides.

I am almost 60 and that was fully loaded! and I am taking all day, not 4 hrs!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'm in agreement. I generally want to rest after big ride days (4 hours or more) but knocking out a few casual miles is important to muscle development from what I've read.

Depends what you are trying to develop strength or endurance. Another word for endurance is fatigue resistance. Remember old school long low intensity rides? They are the rides you do where your leg muscles get fatigued not because you were really pushing it, but because of the duration you made them work. That causes muscle adaptions that means you’ll be able ride for longer without getting fatigued. High intensity doesn’t produce these adaptions to any great extent. The only way you can get there is through the long ride.

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

Depends what you are trying to develop strength or endurance. Another word for endurance is fatigue resistance. Remember old school long low intensity rides? They are the rides you do where your leg muscles get fatigued not because you were really pushing it, but because of the duration you made them work. That causes muscle adaptions that means you’ll be able ride for longer without getting fatigued. High intensity doesn’t produce these adaptions to any great extent. The only way you can get there is through the long ride.

Since I've been increasing my cadence my 32 miler has gotten easier, I'm less fatigued and faster. So maybe I disagree.

 

[Edwardoka]

Since I've been increasing my cadence my 32 miler has gotten easier, I'm less fatigued and faster. So maybe I disagree.

That's a fairly common misconception: intensity and gear aren't the same thing.

Intensity is cardiovascular output over time, not about how much power you put out in a given moment.

When honking along in a big gear, you're putting out more power per revolution, and using fast-twitch muscle fibres, which are better for sprints and short anaerobic efforts (where you go into oxygen debt and are gasping by the end), but while this tires you out more quickly, it doesn't necessarily increase your intensity.

You can get the same intensity by twiddling a smaller gear at a higher cadence, so long as you're going the same pace as you were in your big gear, because although the power per rev is down, the number of revs increases, so the total power output (and therefore the intensity) is the same.

The slow-twitch muscle fibres used in twiddling (it's a good word) can be used over much longer periods, but eventually they too will tire. This is the kind of fatigue Ming was talking about that builds endurance, training both your cardiovascular system and your slow-twitch fibres to allow you to ride for longer and longer.

Riding in a too-big-gear is much less efficient, but it's mainly being able to maintain the intensity for longer that makes you faster when spinning vs grinding.

That's not to say that you should never ride in a too-big gear, that's really good resistance training, but doing so trains strength and peak power, not intensity.

 

[classic33]

Since I've been increasing my cadence my 32 miler has gotten easier, I'm less fatigued and faster. So maybe I disagree.

Could you maintain the same speed for another 28 miles, and then the same again the next day, and the next!

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

Could you maintain the same speed for another 28 miles, and then the same again the next day, and the next!

Yes I am doing close to that currently

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Since I've been increasing my cadence my 32 miler has gotten easier, I'm less fatigued and faster. So maybe I disagree.

We have a different definition of what a long ride is. Your 32 miler is the short ride I do when I don’t have more time. Head out next weekend and ride 100 miles at same average speed and cadence as your 32 miler. If you’ve built up endurance in your legs then your legs should not feel fatigued at all at the end. Your speed should not decrease compared to perceived exertion or HR over the whole ride.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'm wondering what it's going to be like when I finally return to doing longer rides. It's nearly a year since I rode 100 miles, although I've been doing plenty of hilly shorter rides in the meantime, so I'm not in bad nick. It will be interesting to see how much "fatigue resistance" I've lost.

Mind you, I think a hell of a lot of endurance fitness resides is between the ears.

I found out a little of that when audax returned last August. My first 200km audax left me totally drained and slower than usual. I also had to eat much more and faded later on. By December I was sailing round 200km, eating no more than six short bread fingers, stopping for only 40 minutes total, and three hours quicker than August.

Since lockdown 3 the longest I’ve ridden is 87km. I’m planning 100km next week to remind the legs about the longer rides and rebuild endurance. Luckily it’s only 7 weeks or so that the long rides so the legs should do too badly.

In the summer I started riding 100km once or twice a week. That did wonders for endurance and fat burning ability.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I’m working on the assumption that audax in some form, even if only DIY and perms up to 200km, will return sometime in April. So 6-7 weeks to be ready to up the distance again.

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

We have a different definition of what a long ride is. Your 32 miler is the short ride I do when I don’t have more time. Head out next weekend and ride 100 miles at same average speed and cadence as your 32 miler. If you’ve built up endurance in your legs then your legs should not feel fatigued at all at the end. Your speed should not decrease compared to perceived exertion or HR over the whole ride.

Actually I've stated that a long ride is more than 50 miles. So seems we have very similar definitions. Right now my avg mph doesn't afford me the distance I'd like to go in 2 hours. Also the weather has been crap. But on my days off I like to ride 60 miles plus. The other factor is time with the wife. 32 miles is a good workout. It used to be a long ride for me a few months back but now it's not.