Best way to make 20 mph average for a century

[hooverone]

When preparing for a century what is the best way to make a 20 mph avageage goal should all trianing rides be at 20 mph average or is there more to it?


Jim

[Tom]

It's kinda like a marathon, in my opinion.

- Get used to being in the saddle a long time. Take long rides, don't pay attention to speed but how long you're out there.
- Get used to going hard for a long time. Don't go full distance but put some pressure into it.
- Get used to going faster than you need to make 5 hours so when you do it it's not so hard. Speed intervals. You want to feel fast - 30 mile bug eye efforts are good. Mile intervals are real good.

The biggest thing? Figure out who's fast and stick to their wheel. Worked for me.

[flydhest]

Sit on my wheel.

[gasman]

Do what I do to get faster..ride a lot but increase your milage only about 10% per week. Most importantly, ride with riders that are younger and faster than you. Worked great for me doing a double century. :D

[csb]

sit on flydhests' wheel 'cause he's sucking my wheel

[Dekonick]

Program your computer with 700c wheels, but ride 650's! :rolleyes:

Heck, I wish I could average 20 for a few hours, much less 100.

[shinomaster]

train hard and do the ride with some fast friends.

[vaxn8r]

To ride a century at 20mph you have to take into account that you really need to ride faster than that for the majority of the ride. Any stops just kill your avg. I'm not talking overall elapsed time. I'm talking stop lights, rest stops, pee stops, food stops, anything where you need to slow down and/or stop the bike.

For example. On the recent STP, most of our riding pace was 23-26mph with some stretches closer to 30 and very, very few below 20mph. Still, our average time was 21.3 mph (due to all the above factors + getting out of Seattle with thousands of other cyclists + riding through Portland).

So, unless you're going to ride 100 miles without stopping, you need to be able to crank out at least 22-25 mph ad nauseum. If you can't do it yourself, get on someone's wheel who can. Or, if you can do it for a while, find some friends of equal or better ability to paceline.

[caffeine power]

Step #1...pick a flat Century ;)
Step #2...ride faster than 20mph :D
Step #3...hope the wind & weather cooperate :banana:

[va rider]

use a small motor....

Average speed in also be proportional to the terrain. Lots of hills = slower avg speed. My .02 cents, paceline with a strong group that you can keep up with. Or, pay Fly and csb to pull you the entire century ;)

[Climb01742]

actually, step #1: find 100 miles that go down hill. start, say, from top of everest. 20 mph? no prob. :p

[jerk]

the jerk thinks that if you are capable of riding a bicycle you should be able to average 20mph for a century. 20mph is not exactly fast unless you are over 60 and/or have no aerobic conditioning or you are riding with your brakes pulled.


jerk

[weisan]

Speedwork = lactate threshold training ie. time trial, hill intervals
Endurance = below LT, long distance, long saddle time

And Jerk is right, don't let anyone tell you it takes a superhuman effort to maintain 20 for a century. It's not exactly true.

As Merckx would simply say: Ride lots.

Also, learn it from Pete Penseyres, the guy who set a record average speed for Race Across America....below quoted from Roadbikerider.

"For years, Pete Penseyres commuted 30 miles each
way to work. This was his base for winning not only the
Race Across America but a dozen U.S. road racing
championships.

Pete, in his 40s at the time, didn't just build stamina
with 60 roundtrip miles a day. He would also jam hills
for lactate threshold training and merge his commute
with local riders for twice-weekly training races and
team time trials.

With this speedwork supplementing his endurance, Pete
became the fastest rider ever across the U.S., winning
the 1986 RAAM with an average speed of 15.4 mph
(including sleep breaks) -- a record that still stands
18 years later."

Very Important Disclaimer:
On a personal note, I have never set an >20 average on a century. So, why am I or who am I to even offer any advice here? Just trying to be helpful. The abovementioned information came from a third-party verifiable source.

Jim, I applaud your determination and desire to achieve that goal.

weisan

[zap]

Gees Jerk, put a more positive spin on this matter.

Not everyone can average 20mph on a century, let alone on shorter rides.

I was desperate to pull my wife to a 20mph average on a century some years back but no go. We only averaged 18 mph. She road 4-5 times a week then but just couldn't come up with the power needed. It was the hardest damm century I've ever done.

Hooverone, you will need to train at faster speeds in order to acheive your goal. Try doing faster efforts for 25 -35 miles mid week and longer slower rides on the weekend. Eat & drink well on the century.

[M_A_Martin]

TOSRV in Ohio follows the river from Columbus to Portsmouth. There's a few dips in the middle, but for the most part the first day is downhill on a dead grade. (Most rivers after all, flow downhill...)

The second day is uphill, same grade. Second day sucks.

:banana:

So, Next Mother's day weekend go to Columbus, find the Wolverines. Get in their paceline. They will drag your sorry self to Portsmouth if you can hang on. In past years they've had as high as a 25mph average. Of course...the wolverines aren't known as polite riders and might get themselves dis-invited from TOSRV one day.

[Climb01742]

ouch. tough love, from the good senor.

[maccpres]

The front pack in most centuries will average mid 20's and not stop. So take 4 water bottles or 2 and camelback, pee before the ride and sit in the draft of the big group. Don't pull under any circumstances. If you can't keep up at least you will have an over 20 ave when you get dropped. Then don;t press on by yourself, wait for the next group. If it's a small group and everyone is pulling through you probably should too, but if only a few are working just sit in.

Try to do some group rides to get comfortable riding in a fast group.

[jeffg]

Is there a particular reson for the 20mph goal? No century/DC I have ever done has had anyone do a 20 mph average due to the profile. Fast is fast, you'll know it when you see it. I would rather a pick a ride I really want to do rather than picking the flattest course possible, but that's just me. Also, I fail somewhat to see the accomplishment if you are sucking wheels for the century, as some have suggested. Am I missing something here?

As for training, this is my 2 cents: For any century/DC you want to be riding hard, but well under LT/AT whatever. To accomplish this you need to train your body to use fat as its primary fuel, not glycogen. If you hammer as hard as you can go all the time, you train your body to burn glycogen and you will not be efficient. Raising LT/AT is important if your current level will not allow the pace you want for a century, but just hard/recovery will not do it. You need to practice at the intensity you will be able to sustain for the ride and build until you can do a full century at this pace. Endurance training is the base, LT work key, but "tempo" is the core of any century effort, IMHO.

[Jeff N.]

Best way that I have found to do a 5 hour Century, assuming you've trained adequately beforehand:
1. Try to hook up with a fast "train"(long pace line) and, if it feels right, stick with it as long as possible, wherever possible.
2. Keep SAG breaks to an absolute minimum,(maybe one only) and as short as possible (refill H2O bottles, pee, leave!).Carry snacks. Blow SAG stops completely, as you are able.
3. Being able to climb the hills at greater than a snails pace is also a big time saver. Work on climbing. Scream on the flat stuff (see #1).
4. Eat well the night before, and hit the sack early. No alcohol. Not even one beer. There'll be plenty of time for that after the riding is done, if thats your thing(I love post-ride brewskies).
5. Clean the drive train immaculately the day before. Fill tires to their absolute max the AM of the ride. Install brand new tires and tubes to decrease the likelihood of a time-eating blow-out fix.
6. Crack that ice cold brew after the ride, and smile as you check your average speed on your computer and it reads 20+MPH! Jeff N.

[Tom]

I find I'm able to move more quickly on the flats now that I make a point to have a couple of hill days every week. It seems to help me put more pressure to the pedals. It helps on the hills, too.

[ericmurphy]

the jerk thinks that if you are capable of riding a bicycle you should be able to average 20mph for a century. 20mph is not exactly fast unless you are over 60 and/or have no aerobic conditioning or you are riding with your brakes pulled.


jerk

God, I ride 5,000 miles a year, I'm 42, reasonably fit, and there's no way I could do a 20 MPH century. I mean, we have a lot of hills out here in the Bay Area, but even on reasonably flat terrain I doubt I could average more than 18 MPH.

Should I just hang up the wheels and play shuffleboard?

[Dirtdog]

When preparing for a century what is the best way to make a 20 mph avageage goal should all trianing rides be at 20 mph average or is there more to it?
Jim

Just curious are we talking ride time here average or total time average. Most riders around here go with ride time average which will be noticably faster than total time average. They don't abuse ther stops(s) they make them usually a drink an go but there computers cut off when stopping for a drink, etc.

If this is one of your first centuries to do I think it'a unrealistic goal and would be completely not fun. I have seen many a rider have a great 90 mile ride followed by a 10 mile death march. It can get ugly, real ugly in a hurry.
It reminds me of a century I did a while back where we passed a rider at
the 65 mile mark who was going about 4 miles per hour. For the first 50 miles
the leed group including this rider had avergaed 23.5 mph total time average speed on a rolling course. We were averaging about 19.0 for the day when we passed him he looked like death warmed over pedaling that bike.

Good luck, have fun with it, that's the key

[Dekonick]

Jerk pulls no punches. I just made reservations on carnival cruise lines for a permenant cruise, and sold all of my cycling gear to pay for the tickets. :D

Heh -

Well - I dont care... Ill keep riding no matter what the Jerk says! :banana:

'tis good entertainment though!

[vaxn8r]

jeffg, there is no way to use fat as an energy source on the bike. It's all about glycogen. If and when you run out of glycogen you're done. That's all she wrote.

[jeffg]

jeffg, there is no way to use fat as an energy source on the bike. It's all about glycogen. If and when you run out of glycogen you're done. That's all she wrote.

Well, I will preface this by saying that I am not a doctor (I don't even play one on television); however, what you are saying contradicts both Carmichael and Michele Ferrari's notion of training and nutrition.

From Carmichael's site:

The more you have to call upon your anaerobic energy system for energy, the faster you burn through stored carbohydrate in your body and the faster you fatigue. Since the aerobic system burns a mixture of carbohydrate and fat (with a small amount of protein as well), relying on it for the majority of your energy enables you to maintain your power for a longer period of time.

According to Ferrari :

If you work with Soglia [around anaerobic threshold] and especially SuperSoglia [above threshold] intensities a lot, your body will get used to burn glycogen (sugar) stores rather than fats, and
your most precious 'fuel' for 320km are fats, not glycogen.

I would be interested to know why you think it is all about glycogen.

Now if I can just get some more riding in this week!

[vaxn8r]

Well, it's a nice theory but it isn't based on any science I'm aware of. Burning fat and protein is terribly inefficient and one certainly wouldn't be able to sustain any effort once his glycogen stores+free carbs from eating before and during a ride were all used up. You simply can't turn fat or protein into usable energy at a fast enough rate to exercise.

Ask anyone who's on a "real" Adkins diet. They aint exercising (at least with any intensity) unless they're cheating.

[jeffg]

Well, it's a nice theory but it isn't based on any science I'm aware of. Burning fat and protein is terribly inefficient and one certainly wouldn't be able to sustain any effort once his glycogen stores+free carbs from eating before and during a ride were all used up. You simply can't turn fat or protein into usable energy at a fast enough rate to exercise.

Ask anyone who's on a "real" Adkins diet. They aint exercising (at least with any intensity) unless they're cheating.

I guess your description doesn't seem more scientific to me than the material from nutritionists and coaches I have read on the subject. The main issue I see with your view is that if well-trained athletes can only store around 2000 calories of glycogen, and you cannot take in as many calories as you are burning on the bike, then how can athletes ride 6, 7, even 15 hours? Take a 13 hour DC. 2000 kcal glycogen max, about 3-4000 kcal intake max. Calories burned? Probably in the neighborhood of 10,000! Those other calories had to be coming from somewhere.

Here is another snippet from a nutritionist:

"While it would be nice if we all had an unlimited supply of glycogen to rely on during prolonged training bouts, the truth is that well-nourished athletes only have the capacity to store 1,500 - 2,000 calories of glycogen, which is enough to support approximately 2 - 3 hours of training.

Therefore the goal is to spare muscle glycogen and protein while soaking up the ever-so-abundant supply of energy available from fat (~100,000 calories). Training does enhance our body's ability to utilize fat as a fuel ..."

Going back to the original question, the real issue is how to structure the training. Whatever the fuel source or science, I think we can agree that trying to ride at AT/LT or above for a century is not going to work. So, the training must be different from a program geared towards a 40km TT. My suggestion is to do long tempo workouts in addition to carefully raising one's threshold. I stick with the assertion that simply really hard/really easy as a training program is not the best thing for a century.

On the other hand, what is your training experience? I believe you are faster than I, so let's just try and help our forum pal get the most from his training. Best,

Jeff

[flydhest]

http://www.nismat.org/physcor/muscle.html#Energy

This website has some discussion (basically what everyone has heard or regurgitates re: aerobic metabolism of fat) and it looks like a place that passes for science. It's all I could dig up on a 5 minute google search, but maybe more later. Re: the comment about Atkins diet people not doing any excercise of any intensity . . . I think that's the point of the distinction. Doing excercise with serious intensity requires carbohydrates.

[zap]

This Atkins diet is the latest in diet nonsense. I'm being kind. The few cyclist that I know of who tried it quite within a week. No energy, nada. Back to pasta and all was well.

What a joke. The lazy ones will try anything but won't work hard and smart to lose weight.

But anyways, what I understand is that glycogen stores are used up in 2-3 hours then energy source transitions to fat and then last, protein.

[Kurt]

Well, it's a nice theory but it isn't based on any science I'm aware of. Burning fat and protein is terribly inefficient and one certainly wouldn't be able to sustain any effort once his glycogen stores+free carbs from eating before and during a ride were all used up. You simply can't turn fat or protein into usable energy at a fast enough rate to exercise.

Ask anyone who's on a "real" Adkins diet. They aint exercising (at least with any intensity) unless they're cheating.

The body stores about 1500cal, the idea of tapping in fat stores is a pipe dream - its all about glycogen.

[Dekonick]

you can become more effecient at using fat, but no way in H*ll are you gonna be able to burn it fast enough to ride the speeds we think of.

The simple fact is your body uses high energy phosphates to do work. Everything revolves around this - The most common high energy phosphate we think of is adenosine tri-phosphate. What is interesting is how your body works depends on how you have trained it, and fed it. Give it a simple sugar (doesnt matter which, any 6 carbon ring will do.) and oxygen, and you get the most effecient production of ATP. Give it a starch, and its gotta do a little more to change it to a simple six ring sugar before changing it to ATP.

Remove the oxygen, and it makes less ATP and also pumps out nasty stuff ie lactic acid.

Fat gives the most ATP per mole, but its harder to break down (and lets face it - we are all lazy at heart...and so is your body - break down sugar first, protein second, fat last.)
Ever make a campfire? the kindling works great - but you gotta keep tossing it on da fire or it goes out. You can toss on bigger stuff, and it works well - but if you really wanna burn - you gotta toss on the big stuff. It just takes alot more work, and your body feels the same way.

You cant work on glycogen all day - its a limited resource (ask any diabetic about this...) but you can replace your sugars pretty easily - after all sugar is absorbed directly in your mucus membranes, as well as elsewhere.

So the answer?

get better at using all of your resources, and try to keep a steady supply of sugar, some protein and some fat going into the engine, to keep it working and reserve the kindling as long as possible - for those special efforts.

I could be wrong, but I believe fast twitch fibers use glycogen almost exclusively - while intermediate, and slow twitch arent picky - just feed em, hopefully with oxygen and sugar...

My belief is (not that I do it, but it would probably help) that by providing a mix of fuel, you get the best energy production and use.

I gurantee you this: IF you try to ride a bike and eat nothing but non-hydrogenated veg. oil, you wont be able to ride for too long... def. not a century. Even though oil has the most stored energy, compared to others, you cant break it down fast enough to keep you going.

Try riding with peanut M&M's, and flat coke, you may have a better result...

(the peanut M&M is just my favorite bad for you protein/fat/sugar containing example - cuz I like em! :D )

Anyway, like I always say - its been 10 years since any physiology or chemistry has passed my hands, but I do believe most of the above is still correct. Anyone else please feel free to add and or correct me:)

:bike:
oh yeah - beer is good fuel too - except it makes you not think...mmm but it sure is yummy.

(I am gonna try to see what my average speed is in the hills, if I stop my putter - I leave it on all da time. mmmmm perhaps things would be higher if I used a bike computer rather than a polar 210...) ;)

[vaxn8r]

I guess your description doesn't seem more scientific to me than the material from nutritionists and coaches I have read on the subject. The main issue I see with your view is that if well-trained athletes can only store around 2000 calories of glycogen, and you cannot take in as many calories as you are burning on the bike, then how can athletes ride 6, 7, even 15 hours? Take a 13 hour DC. 2000 kcal glycogen max, about 3-4000 kcal intake max. Calories burned? Probably in the neighborhood of 10,000! Those other calories had to be coming from somewhere.

Jeff

Others said it better, thanks Dek, but if I didn't make myself clear enough. You can use (1)glycogen stores and (2)sugar that you eat. That's all you can do. Once those reserves are gone you can not ride your bike/exercise. We've all been there. It's called bonking. When you bonk you're done. It's not like you can pull a switch and now burn some protein or fat. If you could then it would then make sense that fat people could outlast thin people on distance rides. We all know that can't be true. Now while you work out and even afterwards, yes, your body will dip into fat stores if you don't put too much fuel (of any kind) into your body after the ride. But it takes waaaay too long to produce energy from burning fat to actually use it on the bike. Sorry I can't provide the biochemistry behind it, well, I could but I don't have the energy to do so :) Anyway, biochemistry/physiology...it's a bit of a haze but I remember a few concepts now and then.

[Tom]

The guy that wrote it is (was) an ultramarathoner and exercise physiologist and it has extensive footnoting of his sources so I'm thinking it's reasonably accurate.

There's a long chapter 'Energy Metabolism During Exercise'. To summarize:

Carbohydrates are stored as muscle and liver glycogen. Used first.
Fat: Stored, well, we know where. Used second, as glycogen starts to go. The fatty acid components of the triglyceride molecule are freed from the glycerol molecule by hormone-sensitive lipase.
Protein: Used last, generally when you're in complete starvation or in prolonged exercise in carbohydrate depletion. Noakes cites a source that indicates protein metabolism only reaches 10% of total under extreme conditions.

Several things are notable about fat metabolism, according to Noakes:

It's got to go through gyrations. The glycerol and free fatty acids enter the bloodstream, much of the FFAs get bound to albumin but some remain unbound and are taken up by the muscle tissue where they're either metabolized or reformed into muscle triglycerides, which are then metabolized themselves. He cites a 1986 study that indicates that these muscle triglycerides are an important source of energy during prolonged exercise and that a major effect of training is to increase the amount of the muscle triglycerides used during prolonged exercise.

The gyrations mean it's slow. One thing that is true is that carbohydrates ingested during exercise spare the muscle and liver glycogen from being used and the hormone-sensitive lipase doesn't get going as much. It also is true that at higher exercise intensity, you're going to run through your glycogen too fast to get much out of your fat. Noakes points out that fat metabolism works best at levels below one's lactate turnpoint, which is the knee in the curve of blood lactate levels. The point where that knee sits is a function of one's oxygen transport ability, I believe.

I used to run and I know that after about an hour or so at a cruising pace, I'd notice a transition. I'd start breathing a little more, I'd feel a dead patch for a while, but then everything would settle right out and I could cruise for hours more. Similarly, I can ride for hours on the bike drinking nothing but water but I can't open it up. If I try, my legs simply hurt and there's no power. If I am drinking sugar throughout, I have power when I want it.

I'm a believer in Berndt Heinrich's empirical biology. He wrote a great book, I have it under the title 'Racing The Antelope', but it's since been re-released under another title that I am not sure of. Heinrich's another ultramarathoner and a professor of biology at UVM. He has a great chapter on why humans sweat and other species don't. (We had to run around in the daytime while all the big predators slept, and we spent the night hiding.) It makes one think: way back when, we didn't have Gatorade or Exceed to keep us going when we were on the search for food or running away from problems.

Ah, well, what the hell do I know? But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Dekonick]

That all sounds about right -

First to go is sugar in blood circulation, then glucagon is released causing the liver to release stored glycogen - that is in turn changed to glucose

second is fat

third is protein.

I had fat and protein out of order.

-I still maintain that you can live on fat, but you cant run on it.
you can become more effecient and use a little more fat, etc... but you still mostly run on sugars that are stored, or that you eat. Think of it like a hybrid car - it uses gas to run, and gets a little help from other sources (braking, for example) - but it still needs gas! Your mileage may go up, but it wont go if the tank is on E.

[andy mac]

maybe 20's not so bad for someone with a day job...



2005 Guinness World Records

Fastest Avg Speed in the Tour de France

1999 Lance avg. of 25.026 mp/h