Paris-Brest-Paris 2011
- Thread starter Fiona N
- Start date
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frank9755
Cyclist
- Location
- West London
400km done yesterday - Buckingham Blinder.
A fast, flat route on a hot day with little wind. It was my fastest 400 but also my fastest 200, or audax of any distance. Also the most I've ever drunk on a bike ride!
A fast, flat route on a hot day with little wind. It was my fastest 400 but also my fastest 200, or audax of any distance. Also the most I've ever drunk on a bike ride!
Well done Frank, now just the 600 to get out of the way!
My 400 is a couple of weeks away yet. I have a choice of two; 3400m or a pan flat 1800m. Not sure which to opt for. Part of me says 'take the 1800m, no point looking for hard work, just qualify' but the 3400m is in a region I've never ridden before so interests me that bit more.
There's a fair bit of time between the 600 and PBP itself (enough time to loose form in fact!) so one could looking for more challenging training rides in that period... and just get the qualifiers out of the way with the least fuss possible.
My 400 is a couple of weeks away yet. I have a choice of two; 3400m or a pan flat 1800m. Not sure which to opt for. Part of me says 'take the 1800m, no point looking for hard work, just qualify' but the 3400m is in a region I've never ridden before so interests me that bit more.
There's a fair bit of time between the 600 and PBP itself (enough time to loose form in fact!) so one could looking for more challenging training rides in that period... and just get the qualifiers out of the way with the least fuss possible.
frank9755
Cyclist
- Location
- West London
Thanks Andrew
If you want the advice of someone who did a 400 yesterday it would be 'do the easy one!'
I'm a little bit sore today...
Ian H
Ancient randonneur
You might be best going for shorter, more intense rides as you get closer to the big event. Do you time trial?
OP
OP
Fiona N
Veteran
I'm getting my pain in early, 2000m of ascent in 200km, 2500m in 300km and 4000m in the 400km events ... PBP is going to feel flat
Time trial? Good lord no! That'd be far too much like hard work! But I have got a few 100 to 200km sportives on the calendar. Maybe they'll do the trick just as well.
Ian H
Ancient randonneur
But it need not be for long.
Depends how hard you go...
Mind you, I reckon that, once you've qualified, getting round PBP is as much mental attitude as fitness.
For real! I remind myself of that whenever it starts to feel tough when riding generally. Pushing yourself mentally is valuable practice too!
I've only ever DNF'ed once, and it was a valuable experience. It was a 200 out of Ruislip around 5 or 6 years back. I got to Thame at around the 150km mark and had talked myself in to packing because I thought I was shot. I let a couple of other riders know so they could tell the organiser and I took the train back into London. But as soon as I'd made that decision, my spirits lifted and the ride to the railway station was effortless! So I knew there was nothing wrong and it was all in the mind. Lesson learnt.
Tbh, I've not quite got the hang of training properly. I had the same issue for LEL. I'd put so many miles in by April that I was close to fed up with the bike... and I tailed off mentally I reckon. I need to learn to pace myself, both on the ride and in training. I'm trying not to make the same mistake but, at the back of my mind, I get this niggling voice that says 'gotta get the miles in, gotta get the miles in' so it's almost as if I feel that I'm slacking when I'm not riding!
I reckon training is a personal balance; you have to be physically prepared but also mentally prepared and mentally fresh. Those latter two are probably quite person specific; one persons prepared is another's over trained.
I'm getting my pain in early, 2000m of ascent in 200km, 2500m in 300km and 4000m in the 400km events ... PBP is going to feel flat
Hmm, PBP is about the same as those rides, they aren't outstandingly hilly.
~1000m climbing per 100km is 'average' on an Audax; not flat but not hilly.
To prepare for LEL'09 I did, amongst others, a 3900m 300, another 300 with 4800m climbing, another 300 with 5500m climbing and a 600 with 8300m of climbing. (All on fixed except for the 5500m climbing 300.)
This year's SR consists of an average 2000m climbing 200, a 2500m climbing 300 (with lots of flat sections and the climbing concentrated in the last 100km), and plans include a 3500m climbing 400 this weekend and a 600 with 8200m of climbing in Devon/Cornwall late May.
PBP is about 10,000m climbing over the 1200km.
Of course, you're at the mercy of what the organiser has put down for the climbing figure. Some of them are wildly pessimistic. It's best to trace out the route on something like Bikehike to get a real flavour of the climbing that'll be encountered. Bikely can massively under-report the climbing on a particular route.
DooBlood
New Member
- Location
- Warwickshire
Horrors - I have my 400k this weekend and my 600k just 2 weeks after. I need to complete both as I don't get a second chance (off to Africa for 3 weeks following 600k doing charity work - no training). Oh boy ...
PpPete
Legendary Member
- Location
- Chandler's Ford
I've a feeling (entirely unproveable) that Bikehike over-reports the amount of climbing.... not much of a smoothing algorithm in evidence if you look at the profile.
I do tend to plan routes in Bikehike - and then upload them to Bikeroutetoaster to get a smoother profile and (what I think may be) a more accurate figure for the climbing.
Oh I agree that none of them are perfect; it's just that bikely is, in my experience, by far the most inaccurate.
There's no easy way to measure climbing on a particular ride, even GPSes give wildly different readings for total climb (both by looking at the reported ascent on the unit and analysing the GPX tracklogs). I collected GPX files from a bunch of people all riding the same 200km Audax and found greater than 50% variation in the total climb figures.
The climbing figure that gets put on the Audax calendar page isn't standardised. Sometimes it's a raw GPX climbing figure, sometimes it's an under-reading bikely figure, sometimes it's based on a contour count using OS maps. Sometimes it's only for a hilly subsection of a ride, so not completely inclusive.
