Much respect
 

Lacking the requisite endurance/slow twitch muscle fibers to cycle more than 25 miles before dropping from quad exhaustion I have gotta give you distance dudes much respect. I saw a cyclist today sweatin' his a@# off knowing he'd been pumping for at 30 miles+ and could only stare w/ envy. I can go w/ (0) warm-up whatsoever from 0 - wide open in less than 5 secs but can only sustain the pace for about 10mins. I'm a classic spinter which has taken me over 30yrs to realize. I think this is much ignored aspect of cycling.

"Quad exhaustion" could mean that your bikes have never been set up right to ride more than a few miles. Fit issues sometimes take a long distance to make themselves apparent.

Sorry, but your assumptions are wrong.

LD riding as far as I know doesn't exclude/include body or muscle biopsy types , put in required the Seat Time and Voila: Long Distance just happens.

-Bandera

I agree with your high regard for the distance cyclists but you need to raise the bar some. 30 miles is a short ride, even for someone like me who isn't an endurance cyclist. And I don't think that "sprinter type" has much to do with it.

Agree with the above. First, get a bike fit. Then just ride your bike. My recipe is to ride away from home until you're tired. Then ride back. Endurance doesn't start until you start to endure. Everyone used to be an endurance human. Fiber type doesn't matter at all. You put the deer on your shoulders and walk the 10 miles home. TdF sprinters first have to be near the front of the pack after 200k to even get a chance to sprint. And ride hills. "See hill, ride up it." I used to ride with a group where if I could see a hill in the distance, I knew we'd be riding up it. That really helped in the long run though it hurt in the short run.

All that said, bike fit first. And maybe a decent road bike to go with that bike fit. Go shopping.

30 miles is a short ride except at the end of a 1000k, where it seems like forever. I misread the cue sheet and thought I was almost to the end of my ride Sunday morning. Then I realized I had somehow missed the 8 miles between turns. I was prepared to be upset, but I had plenty of time and it was nice out.

I remember once when I had been studying too much and stopped riding. I went out and rode 5 miles and it was a big effort. Ride whatever is comfortable to you and then try a little more. But yes, get at least a rudimentary fitting. Sounds like your saddle is too low.

As others have said, get your bike fit sorted first, and then work on upping your distance. 30 miles is my daily round trip commute to work. When I started commuting to work by bike 3 and a bit years ago, I only lived 6 miles from work. That first day, I thought I was going to die half way in. By the end of the first week, I was making it to work without stopping. By the end of the second week, I could make it all the way up the hill into work and my time was starting to get faster. I then moved a bit further away from work (15 miles), so I went for a couple of longer rides, and made sure I was comfortable, then started commuting 2-3 days/week. Soon after I got a road bike, and joined a club. I was a bit worried about whether or not I would make a 40 mile ride, I did. Within 2 months of getting a road bike, I rode my first metric century, in less than a year my first imperial century. Last year I did 150, and I just completed my first double century over the weekend. And 150 miles in, everything hurt. But I didn't get there without work. If you're struggling past 30 miles and it isn't a bike fit issue, maybe you're going too fast out of the gate. Slow your pace down. Ride with others to push yourself further. While training for my double century, I did hard efforts on my commute into work, pushed myself by going out with faster groups on club runs, and did a couple of long rides a month on top of that. My final build up ride for my double was only 120 miles in the end, but it had nearly 10,000 feet of climbing (which was more than the climbing on the double). Distance doesn't just come, you have to put in the work to get there.

Here you go, 60 seconds and you're done:
I've never known quite what to think of your idea. I've known plenty of people that were faster than me, and a lot of those people never rode over 100k or so, either. But I've always sort of assumed that if they'd just slow down some, they could ride a lot longer, too. I know I COULD go hammer all out for 10 miles and be spent, so I assume that if other people took it easy, they could just ride all day, too.

you can say 'ass'.

I'm a natural sprinter too, which makes it funny that I ride long distance. For me, it's one sprint/recovery/sprint/repeat for a couple of hundred miles.