600k brevet - go straight through, or sleep?
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If I didn't feel like eating at Loudeac was such a waste of time, I would have ridden through to Brest. The night start really redoodles the math about this for me. Of course, being well rested at the start is key.
I think you can get by with 20 minutes sleep
I think you can get by with 20 minutes sleep
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Charly Miller riders get by with that little sleep, but they ride through 2 nights. It has to be awfully tough to ride through 4 nights with a total of 20 minutes of sleep.
I have done a straight-through 600k, but I need to sleep long enough for 3 REM cycles each night to feel fresh on a 1200k.
I have done a straight-through 600k, but I need to sleep long enough for 3 REM cycles each night to feel fresh on a 1200k.
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Some people handle sleep deprivation well, some don't. I don't, so I can't do a straight-through 600k. Unless I'm fast enough to do it in 24h... but I'm not.
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Charly Miller riders get by with that little sleep, but they ride through 2 nights. It has to be awfully tough to ride through 4 nights with a total of 20 minutes of sleep.
I have done a straight-through 600k, but I need to sleep long enough for 3 REM cycles each night to feel fresh on a 1200k.
I have done a straight-through 600k, but I need to sleep long enough for 3 REM cycles each night to feel fresh on a 1200k.
Does sleeping 20 minutes on a 600k constitute riding through? I don't think so, and it's a lot wiser than trying to go without sleep. I am pretty sure most people will make that up, and probably will make up a lot more sleep than that.
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@mattm is still around. Now that we're at it, I am curious as to the rest of the story.
I ended up being way slower than planned, had time for ~45 mins of sleep at the 400k checkpoint, and then DNFd the next day after getting a flat and having my pump break.
I still remember dozing off WHILE RIDING(!!) a few times just before the flat happened.. that thing where you nod off but then pop back awake instantly, so I didn't crash or anything.
Fwiw I did go on to finish a few other 600k's. Makes for some good stories, that's fore sure.
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#32
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Rest of the story can be found here.
I ended up being way slower than planned, had time for ~45 mins of sleep at the 400k checkpoint, and then DNFd the next day after getting a flat and having my pump break.
I still remember dozing off WHILE RIDING(!!) a few times just before the flat happened.. that thing where you nod off but then pop back awake instantly, so I didn't crash or anything.
Fwiw I did go on to finish a few other 600k's. Makes for some good stories, that's fore sure.
I ended up being way slower than planned, had time for ~45 mins of sleep at the 400k checkpoint, and then DNFd the next day after getting a flat and having my pump break.
I still remember dozing off WHILE RIDING(!!) a few times just before the flat happened.. that thing where you nod off but then pop back awake instantly, so I didn't crash or anything.
Fwiw I did go on to finish a few other 600k's. Makes for some good stories, that's fore sure.
Too bad on the broken pump. I've had two pumps fail on brevets, one was still usable; it was a lezyne of some sort with a gauge that had plastic threads for the hose that melted at higher pressures as the pump got hot, but I finished pumping up the tire. The other pump was a topeak that had a threaded end-cap that came off at some point during the ride and I only found out when I went to use it... thankfully another rider was behind me and they had a pump I could borrow... I'd end up needing it again less than 20km down the road. I'm at the point with pumps I might start carrying CO2 with me, the canisters are completely recyclable 'cos they are just steel; but there are plenty of people that have problems with inflators too.
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I used to mention that my topeak road morph G failed me on the Endless Mountains 1200k at every opportunity. Thread about pumps? I would post my experience. Heh. Fortunately, a volunteer had a spare pump.
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I was going to give 50/50 odds that yours would fail. I liked mine right up until it stranded me and I had to walk a couple of miles, and then I gave up and rode on the flat tire. Supposedly you can take it apart and check the bolt that comes loose, but I never did figure out how to do that and put it in metal recycling.
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I experienced my first pump failure shortly after buying my first road bike, just a few km away from home. Thanks to that experience, I've learnt to always check my primary pump before any long ride and to carry a spare on a multi-day brevet (well... technically three pumps, since my primary is a hybrid hand pump and CO2 inflator).
But anyways, there are a lot of modern pumps which are very small and pocketable... sometimes too small to consider as a main, but worth keeping as a backup. Or even just carry a CO2 inflator, those things are tiny.
But anyways, there are a lot of modern pumps which are very small and pocketable... sometimes too small to consider as a main, but worth keeping as a backup. Or even just carry a CO2 inflator, those things are tiny.
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On my travel bike, I have a modified Lezyne. I had to take it apart to put a spring in it for frame mounting. Some people really hate them, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to come apart the way the Topeak did.
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I had a rough time in the middle of the night on a 600k, and just couldn’t understand why I suddenly started making sharp turns in the middle of the road every few minutes. Finally, I realized that I simply was falling asleep on my bike, and that I was just awake enough to turn sharply to avoid falling over when I stopped turning the pedals and slowed down. The sudden turning woke me up, and after a few minutes it all happened again.
45 minutes of sleep at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere fixed the problem.
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I had a similar thing going on one morning of the 1000k I rode in June. I would be riding along and then I would notice my rear wheels was skidding. Good thing the bike knows how to stay up. I kept trying to find a place to stop where people wouldn't continually wake me up, and failed. I stopped for some ice cream and invented my new method of staying awake -- counting to one over and over again. I was really close to the overnight, it was extremely annoying that I couldn't stay awake for a half hour
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