Metric Century used to be called 62 miles
 

When did a 62 mile ride start being called a metric century?

When it became a nice mile^H^H^H^H kilometerstone to accomplish. Who would have set out with the goal of riding 62.1371 miles?

That said there's a bit of a painful gap on the north side of it to the customary one.

But after that there's the double metric.

And back in initial-discovery land, there's 20 miles, "marathon" and 50 km all in a nice row...

When the countries around the world converted to metric.

When riding 100 km seemed like a challenge for cyclists to conquer.

The metric system is ok. No reason to get excited.... Said the joker to the thief....

When calling 160.9km a century sounded like a silly idea?

Please see Rule 24.

Velominati ? The Rules

It's the influence of the grand tour stages. A 100 km ride is an achievable goal for any reasonably fit cyclist to finish without stopping, without special needs for support teams or stations along the way. Especially if the route has some climbs, or adverse weather -- hot, rainy, etc.

It's relatively easier if the DIY metric century includes planned or impromptu potty breaks and stops to eat and stretch. All of my metric centuries since I resumed cycling in 2015 have included two or more rest breaks for at least 15 minutes. So far I haven't been able to ride one non-stop. I usually get neck spasms (old car wreck injury) after 40 miles. So even if I didn't need to stop to pee, refill water bottles, etc., I'm gonna stop to stretch at the very least.

Beyond roughly 50 miles or 100 km it becomes a challenge to find safe routes that don't involve lots of stop and go. In my area there are routes that on the map seem suitable for a 100 mile non-stop ride, but in reality aren't. Some rural routes are reasonably safe for cyclists, others are death traps. And when you modify a route to avoid the more dangerous rural routes, you get into stop and go city traffic.

And for all but a handful of cyclists it's difficult to ride a full 100 mile century without some form of support, if only impromptu or planned breaks at places to eat or at least a convenience store. There won't be a support team or fans handing out feed bags and freshly filled water bottles. You can carry all that stuff, but the weight becomes a factor if you want to finish in 12 hours or less. Even when I was in my 20s our club usually took the full 8-10 hours allotted for 100 mile to 200 km event rides, and those were usually supported.

There are two kinds of nations in the world. Those that use metric and those that put a man on the moon.

Indeed. Just cranking out the miles would be a lesser task than dealing with all the challenges of available routes.

There are people who have done century rides without leaving their neighborhood, or even on a track. Monotony has got to be harsh though.

Except...NASA has used metric units for decades....it is only the tool citizenry and Congress and companies that insist on using it. The USA has among its distinguished list of accomplishments...being the only country to kill a $300,000,000USD Martian orbiter probe....due to the continued corporate use of Imperial units (Lockheed used them in their firmware, and didn't tell NASA).


This of course ignores the fact that Imperial units are defined by metric units, and have been since the late 1950s by international treaty. It is why 1 "inch" equals exactly 2.54cm....as opposed to the centimeter which is actually defined by a real physical phenomenon. So, strictly speaking, the USA is and has been using metric units for decades---just with an added layer of obfuscation on top.

Like Amanda Coker doing 100K miles on a 7 mi loop?

scott s.

Meh.. that's how I feel about Imperial centuries now.

And even most companies I have worked for have gone to it. I don't deal with imperial measurements except for a few legacy spots in my previous aerospace or current automotive engineering role, although I will admit even in metric Ford deciding to measure speeds in m/s instead of KPH is a frigging PITA.

Yup. All prescription drugs are measured in milligrams. Even soda pop is sold in 2L bottles.

The irony being that the original justification for abandoning the metric switch effort...was it would be too expensive for companies--golly gee they are doing it on their own anyway.

Really easy to sell an airplane or car in America that uses metric fasteners and tools. Really hard to do the same in France or China or S Africa with SAE specs.

I was in elementary school when Canada switched and learned both as a result. Over the years I've adopted metric for everything except temperature; my brain simply thinks in F (even though I know the basics in C).
Today I was describing the weather as being about 65 degrees to a 95 year old lady I was walking and she couldn't relate - She only thinks in Celsius! I couldn't convert for her. There was something very odd about that encounter.

I would speculate it has something to do with the 100km populaire being adopted as an alternative to the imperial century maybe during the 1970s in the USA?

Century road club manual from 1898 only lists imperial centuries and there seems to be a drop off in American interest in long distance cycling until the late 60s/early 70s. I bet if someone had the time/energy they could look at major contemporary published manuals and see when the term first popped up. Glenn's Complete Bicycle Manual, 1973 is mentioned in the century ride Wiki as being a source for this quote:
So if one were really curious they could dig up that edition, see if it had a metric century as well and if not keep going forward until the term pops up.

Bikeforums own carpediem has a blog post mentioning the bloomin' metric century taking place in the early 1980s: http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...ic-and-me.html

:beer:

About as good an explanation of a Dylan song as is possible. Arguing about units.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

A trick question, huh? :)

Never. We don't use "miles" in bicycling nomenclature at all. "Miles" is something from the vocabulary of slack jawed yokels from southern USA. And they have not yet discovered bicycles, or so I heard. Bicycling nomenclature uses metric units, like kilometers, exclusively. Once you get that, you'll immediately realize that there's no such thing as "metric century". "Metric century" sounds like "oily oil" :) It is simply just century - one word. It stands for 100 km. Has always been, will always be.

I think it started when someone realized they could make a bunch of '100' stickers to sell to people to put on their cars.

I'll take a guess that the OP hasn't lived in a country with the metric system.

I vastly prefer it.

As for centuries, imperial or metric? (these terms were used in the 80's)

I did my first imperial decades ago, when I was 12 or 13?

Probably did a few metrics before that.

I don't care about speed or distance as much any more, time is the most important metric for me.