fastest centuary
 

alright, i've never done one. only a metric. but what is the fastest time doing a centuary? also how fast do the pros do a centuary? a little confused because oln doesn't convert the km to miles.

1 mile = 1.6 km

First of all, it's century, not centuary.

Second, a metric century is 62 miles (or so).

Third, some of the fastest imperial century (100 miles) times I've heard are around 3.5 hours.

Fourth, my fastest imperial century time is about 6 hours.

sorry for the spelling error

I don't know the fastest, my guess is around 4 hours for pros and 4.5 hours for a strong non-pros riding in pace lines. Of course it depends on terrain and conditions. My personal best is 5:43, I have a goal to make 5 hours on a easy San Diego centruy in September.

Well if they ran 25 MPH average, fairly typical in a race 4 hours is not a long shot, 3.5 would be pushing it,

For me shortest 5.10 hours.

4 hours is definitely do-able by less-than-pros. The frontrunners in the Muddy Waters century in Manitoba typically did that one in just a shade over 4 hours, and they were definitely NOT pros, good cyclists, but not at the pro level.

Not a record but very impressive is when David Zabriskie won Stage 11 of the 2004 Vuelta in a solo breakaway. The stage was 102 miles long, and he rode the last 100 miles of it by himself out in front. His time was 4 hrs 5 min 31 sec, averaging over 25mph. To ride 25mph for 4 hours with no help from a teammate or the peloton just boggles my mind.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2004...lts/vuelta0411

Maybe this link solves your problem: http://www.onlineconversion.com/

can do 100 in less than 5 hours solo on DF bike.
can do 100 in less than 4.5 hours solo on highly faired recumbent.

to convert km to miles

for an easy first approximation take the number of km and multiply by 6 and move the decimal point once to the left (ie, divide by 10)

to improve this number, take the original km and multiply it by 2 and move the decimal point twice to the left (ie, divide by 100) and add it to your first approximation.

Kind of a tangent and may be old news, but I just learned the other day that Google does all kinds of conversions. Just type <"x" kilometers in miles> or vice versa in the search line and it calculates it for you.

The fastest race stage ever in the Giro d'Italia was in 1999, 191 km at 50.355 kph, or 31.1 mph. The 100-mile equivalent time would be 3 hours, 12 minutes.

That was with the aid of a peloton. There's no way a person could do that solo.

that's amazing, and to think that they do it for many days in a row as well.

my uncle completed the hotter than hell ride in 4 hours, 23 minutes at 23 mph average. a personal best for him and a respectful time for any rec rider, i think. and he's 47 years old now.

To the poster doing the San Diego century...

San Diego is full of some of the fastest hammer dogs in the country. When I lived there one of the clubs had a regular New Years day century in North County. SDBC or Cyclo-Vets, I forget which.

Anyway, the last one I road was 1997. Please don't take this as a brag, because I was just along for the ride in the huge pack, but we knocked this thing out in just over 4-hours. Amazing.

For me the wild card is how many crazy fast people there are to draft off of.

-Z

My fastest century was the Santa Fe Century.

With the aid of a strong tail wind for a 1/5th of the course, no head wind, a wicked fast paceline, four water bottles on the bike, one ~10 minute pit stop for a pee, food and rehydrate and no fear of bonking I completed it in 4:18.

I felt like ass the next day ...too many margs afterwards.

In retrospect, it wan't fun. If I ride like that again, I wanna get paid for it.

Check these guys out:

http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisi.../Sub4-2003.htm

Races aside, when you count your times, are you talking ride time (e.g. when the bike is moving) or total time (e.g. time you left the start line 'til the time you cross the finish)?

Edit: And how large is the discrepancy?

5:42 for me. I guess I won't be getting a sponsor anytime soon.

4:15 for me in a pack, and I didn't consider myself a fast rider back then. I didn't stop to refuel at the halfway point either. To this day I don't know how I did that, I can't maintain a 22mph pace for all that long anymore, but I'm 50 now, and I was under 30 then. This is total elapsed time, same as riding time, as I never stopped.

After the 100, I had to get back on the bike and do another hundred as I was in the middle of a double century (STP, Seattle to Portland). That was the hard part, I could barely move. I managed to finish in just over 10 hours, not too shabby. The next year it took over 12.

i kind of like the sound of centuary better than century. a centuary could be like a really relaxing century. i guess if you think of it like that, "fastest centuary" would be somewhat of an oxymoron.

Last year I did a 4:20 century. There was a 6 mph headwind the whole way. Terrain was mostly flattish but with a couple of notable 8% grades. I did the final 80 miles alone.

Considering that the record for an enclosed recumbant is well over 60mph, I'd say on a flat course, a 2 hours century might be possible for a human powered vehicle.

3 hours 38 minutes solo for a guy I know. He raced a full streamliner called the great white.

http://www.doitsports.com/newresults...76374_2004.txt

My best solo nonstop century was 4:13

heres a pic of the streamliner that did the 106 miles in the incredible 3:38

http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisi...at.White.1.jpg


heres some pics of some other streamliners that could probably beat the great white in a 100 mile race.

http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisi...se.start.1.jpg

http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisi...ohnSimon.1.jpg

try 81.5 mph for the speed record. The hour record is something like around 53mph.