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Step two in the path to a Century Ride is completed, I made it 50 miles on Saturday morning. The final ten miles were definitely a different animal compared to the prior rides I've done, I don't think I technically "bonked" or whatever the preferred technical term is, but I was definitely on the struggle shuttle. Near the end of both rides, I start adjusting constantly. Jacket on-jacket off, different handlebar positions, saddle postures, different podcasts or audiobooks. I feel like I just can't get comfortable, which makes sense at that point, but I need to work on ignoring the discomfort and just locking in, there is no combination of things that makes riding a bike that far comfortable.
This time rather than a long ride to a destination where my wife would pick me up, I did it out-and-back, which worked much better. As I wore down on energy, the streets got more familiar rather than less familiar. Which was a good choice, I was more comfortable in the saddle despite fatigue, I knew where I was going and which streets would be safe/efficient. I'm realizing in retrospect that some of the confusion and getting lost at the end of the 50k ride was more related to fatigue than it was to the route itself. And the traffic concerns can easily be lessened by knowing the route better.
It might be too late in the season to practically shoot for the 100km ride this year. I think I have the physical capability to slug it out if I needed to, but the combination of temperature/daylight/location would work out such that I don't think I could do it in the way I want to do it, if that makes any sense. So it's sort of back in the lab for me. I need to increase my speed to hit 100 miles. I did 53 miles in four hours flat, so around a 12mph pace. That would make a 100mi ride way too long to be practical, I want to be holding around 15mph at least, and to do that I feel like I need to be able to hold 18mph for a few miles, which I really can't seem to do right now. My problem seems to be with cadence, I can't manage to move my legs fast enough for very long to sustain higher speeds. I picked up a used Peloton bike for my wife a year back, I suppose I'll use that pretty extensively this winter, they have a lot of rides built around varying cadences, so hopefully that will help. I'm not going to be able to ride my bike outside as often with the shorter daylight hours, but I'm hoping to get out to a bike trail one morning a week and hit at least ten to fifteen miles to keep the groove greased.
My target is right now to try for the 100km in early spring, and if that goes well the 100mi in late spring, or if it doesn't I'll aim to do 100mi next fall. My secondary worry being that I need to do a better job of choosing a route, that the friction is going to catch up with me over the course of a really long ride.
This is more cardio than I've done in years, and that's been good for me, no question about it.
Is it actually cadence or is sustained power the problem? Because if you just prefer to pedal slower, you could get into a higher gear. If your highest gear is to fast at 18 mph (improbable, but not impossible) this means switching bikes (or switching cassettes/chain ring if you like the bike).
I guess sustained power is the problem in that I don't actually care how I get there I just want to sustain speed. But 1) I've read that 80-90 cadence is typically the recommended sustainable endurance pace, I'm closer to 60. Even if I ultimately settle at 60, I feel like not being able to sustain 90 is probably bad for reasons too stupid to even understand; 2) I struggle on steep climbs, where I feel like downshifting and pumping at a higher cadence is probably the answer, as at a lower cadence I get bogged down.
I've tried a variety of bikes and somehow land at nearly the same speed on the same courses, so I'm the problem.
Cadence is a bit of a preference, some people just like to pedal slower with more force. Jan Ulrich was famous back then for running huge chain rings and paddling at like half the speed of Lance Armstrong. But yeah, if you keep dropping way below 90 because you can't sustain power on climbs, you just gotta downshift, accept the drop in speed and keep at it. Speed will go up with time. And like everybody in cycling loves to repeat endlessly: "It never gets any easier, you just go faster".
I've always put it when talking about rock climbing with fresh gumbies: You will always feel like you suck exactly as much as you feel like you suck now, it'll just go from feeling like you can't do anything, to feeling like you should be able to do more by now.
I don't particularly have an opinion on optimal cadence, but I know that it's bad that I can't keep a higher cadence for any length of time. Like how I might not use a certain guard or submission in BJJ a lot, but if I can't do it at all that's bad and I should work on it.
I might ultimately land on a lower cadence-higher gear preference, I'm coming into this with (by cycling standards) a fat ass and tremendous max strength and shit endurance, but I'm pretty confident that working on increasing cadence a bit will pay some dividends.
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