BrazAd

I started riding last July when I turned 58. I'm 6'-1" and weighed 263 then. 2,000+ miles later I'm down to 249 and having a ball.

This past weekend I did my first organized group ride, a metric century with way more hills than I'm used to here in southwest Georgia. I ended up riding 68 miles and did 2,580 feet of elevation gain. It was tough, and I learned some valuable lessons along the way.

The group leader I ride with regularly told me last week that we would take it easy and average about 17 on the straights so we would have energy left for the hills. Also, we *practiced* rotating 30-45 second pulls last week on our regular rides, in advance of Saturday.

Well, both of those went out the window when we started. At mile 10 I asked a buddy "What happened to the 17 mph pace we talked about?", as we were all riding with the A group and averaging about 20, hills included. I felt like we started out too fast and would possibly pay for it in the end... and boy, was that true! Second thing we didn't do well was rotate the pace leaders like we had planned.

We ended up in a pack of 5 by mile 15. At mile 30 we hit a huge hill and one lady rider seriously dropped. At the top of the hill I asked "Are we going to wait on Lynn?", thinking it was the right thing to do, but the other 3 riders kept on going. I circled and waited on her... and on the *next* big hill, one that I seriously struggled to get to the top of, she was nowhere in sight after I finished it. I kept on pedaling but by waiting on her, I lost being part of that group and I ended up riding solo for the last 38 miles, something I don't want to happen again.

As a organized group ride newbie, what I didn't think about was - there were plenty of riders behind Lynn who would be there for her! In trying to help her I hurt myself, ultimately.

So... NEXT ride, I am going to plan my ride and stick with my plan, whatever that is. If some want to jack rabbit with the A team for the first 10+ miles to feel good about themselves, so be it... have at it. I won't be there with you - ha!

Best part, even though I ended in "struggle mode", is that I didn't walk one time. Several of the tough hills almost got me, especially one of them, but I kept the pedals turning, even in granny gear, even averaging 8 mph or less, and pedaled the entire 68 miles. Ended up with a 15.3 average... but whatever.

Keep on riding!

Gary

Oneder

Sounds like a fun time.

I am in a similar boat as you back in July and started riding daily back in January. How much were you able to ride starting out, and how long til you got to riding 'centuries'?

BrazAd

My first recorded ride on Strava was 17.2 miles on 6/22/17.

I did 36 miles on 7/9. I did 40.9 on 7/30. I did 50.3 on 8/6 and my first metric century of 63.4 on 10/1.

In between, I did a bunch of rides at different distances. I did 5 other 50+ rides in 2017. So far this year I've done one 40+, 2 50+ and this this 68 mile ride on Saturday. I'm currently at 640 miles for 2018 with a goal of 3k+.

Last year I rode 1,502 miles from 6/22 to 12/31 while working in car sales (loooong hours). I'm out of car sales now and my rides are more frequent and the miles are starting to add up!

How are your miles doing so far?

Gary

Milton Keynes

All group rides I've been on, they may temporarily drop slower riders, but we will stop to take a break and let them catch up. Especially if they don't know the route and need to follow the rest of us, we might stop at an intersection if we're going to turn so they don't get lost. I think it's rude to just keep pushing on full steam on a group ride if there are those who are struggling to keep up. I suppose if they know the route then it probably wouldn't be as rude, but if a slower rider in the rear has a flat tire or breakdown and everyone else has pushed on ahead, then they'll be wondering "What happened to Mr. X?" But I guess I'm too used to riding in social, no-drop rides.

Unless she's in the very rear of the group.

BrazAd

This was an organized ride with people coming from all across the southeast. On our regular "no drop" rides here, 3 times or more weekly, someone would have dropped with Lynn. In this case, with hundreds of riders, that rule (evidently) didn't apply.

There were PLENTY of folks riding behind Lynn. I saw her again last night on our regular ride here, and she was laughing about the whole thing.

For me, selfishly, I ended up in no-man's land because of leaving the pack to go check on her. It cost me a lot of energy to ride the last 38 miles solo with the winds and the hills we had on Saturday.

Oh well, live and learn!

Gary

GuessWhoCycling

Do you have a ride profile for this hilly ride? I'd like to see what makes it hilly. Rolling or big isolated climbs .

DrIsotope

2,600ft in 68 miles is more like... flat-ish. The Stravistix plug-in is less generous, and just calls that FLAT. I did 68.5 miles with 2,619ft on the 2nd of the this month, and only spent 23% of the ride time climbing. So pretty flat. Not that there's anything wrong with flat.

mrodgers

I can understand that 2600 feet would be hilly to a flatlander. I don't do many long rides on the road, really only 2 that I can think of. One in Pittsburgh where a buddy took us on a tour so we had a lot of stopping to check things out. We were out 8 hours or so and only put on 25 miles. The other was local, 68 miles and 4600 feet of climbing and that was a pretty flat ride. Some nice 15% hills, but the 3 mile descent at 10% was a blast. Ascent time was 3.5 hours and descent time was 2.5 hours.

GuessWhoCycling

That was the reason I was asking for a profile. I get 1500 ft of gain in 15 miles here on a midweek local short ride. That's more than half of the hilly 58 metric. I thought maybe the OP was on a course with a couple of really big hills.

I guess everyone has their own idea of what is hilly. I did a metric years back near San Diego that had 7200 ft. That's what I would consider hilly.

It's interesting to see what others consider hilly.

ridingfool

Its all about the hill placement on the ride I do the gran fondo of ny event route about once a month they claim it to be 10.000 ft for a hundred miles not to hilly tho if not for the climb. To the top of bear mountain would be a breeze

BrazAd

Well, yeah, it was hilly to ME!

Here's the elevation...

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27023915

Sunday before the ride I did a 33 mile ride here at home (about 40 miles south, near Albany GA) and had 460 feet of elevation gain, mostly rolling terrain.

Some of the hills on Saturday's ride were made, by me at least, in the lowest granny gear I had and at my 249 lb weight I was struggling to make it to the top on 5 or 6 of those babies.

Gary

GuessWhoCycling

I do see plenty of up and downs, that can really do a number on a rider.

Around here I guess it is different because we have plenty of hills and mountains to ride. Running my cursor on your graph shows that the biggest climbs are about 4.5%. Of course most graphs don't show the peak where it may be 10% for a few yards.

Around here we have a few mountain roads that are topping out at 16-18%. Really funny because one thinks of 7% as being tough but once you finish the 16% section then return to a 7%, you look down at your Garmin and it's like "thank goodness, finally get a flat section!".

249 is a bit heavy but I see a climber in there somewhere. I did very well on climbing events at 230 pounds. 10,000 and 12,000 ft events. All about conditioning! You're on the right track!

GuessWhoCycling

I also wonder what might have happened if you didn't race off at the start with the others. I ride with a few partners here and there and being the stronger rider, I control the pace. A couple of the weaker riders keep up just fine if I slow down a fraction of a step. If I accelerate or sprint, yeah they are toast. But I make it a point to not drop others and keep it together.

One female not as strong as I did a century with us. I controlled the pace and we all finished in 6:20 which is great for her. If I had dropped her, she would not have done that time alone.

But I figured on other rides of less distance, 40 miles, I could give it my all and she would only fall a couple minutes behind at the end.I found I was wiped out and she was too but I only finished 2 minutes ahead on the last section of the ride. So I found if I backed off a fraction of a step, she would keep up and we were all happy.

On the ride, it might have lowered your average from 15.3 to 15.1 had you stayed with her from the start. I mean I don't know how important your finishing average was to you at the end of the ride but it sounds like you have a little regret about leaving her behind.

I myself found on organized rides, too many fly out of the gates like a bat our of hell. I found if I start easy, work into a pace, I pass many of those bats later in the ride and finish well.

You say next time you plan to let them fly away, good idea! I'd almost bet that if you let them go and stick to your plan, that lady would probably keep up no problem and you'd both be happy at the end of the ride.

Years ago we did a ride and there were about 4 female riders. A 50 mile ride. The female riders that ride with me were stronger than the other 2. But the 2 newbs gave it their all to keep up. I saw one fall off the back so I slowed a bit to let her get back on. I also kept it down long enough so that she could recover. Because I did that, she was able to recover enough so I could return to the speed I was carrying before she faded. Had I made her work to catch back on, she would have surely been left behind.

But they managed to hang on the back and at the end of the ride, they were ecstatic. It was the first time they had done a 50 miler at a 16.0 average. Had I not slowed down, I might have kept a 16.2, maybe a 16.1 but the look on their faces over there accomplishments was way more of a reward to me than an extra .2 of a mile.

BrazAd

GuessWho,

It's people like you who make cycling so awesome! As a relative newbie, encouragement from stronger riders means a lot. I've become one of the stronger riders in our "B" group in our 3x weekly rides, but we don't have major hills here in Albany GA like we faced last weekend.

You hit the nail on the head - we started out too fast, at least too fast for me. It's a "marathon", not a sprint, and who cares if you impress someone in the first 10 miles? Big deal!

My biggest regret was leaving the other 3 riders I was with to "help" Lynn. In retrospect, I wasn't any help to her at all as she fell further back on the 2nd big climb - and she was okay with that, I know now. By "helping" her I cut myself off from being in a small pace line which would have helped me immeasurably over the last 38 miles of the 68 mile ride.

It's all good, though! I posted here in the hope that it might help someone else, that's all.

Someone told me tonight that they were surprised I haven't started riding with the 'A' group here. We passed them twice tonight on our 26 mile ride, in fact. Every time I see those guys they look constipated and are too busy trying to out-macho one another, it appears from the outside.

Our 'B' group still rides fairly fast - we usually average 17-18 mph on most rides. BUT... the biggest part that I love are the relationships, the encouragement from riders like you, and helping each other stay healthy and happy!

Gary

GuessWhoCycling

Ha ha ha yeah thanks! I do like to ride together with people. It really makes a difference in the cycling experience.

I know riders at times like to press it to test themselves and that is OK but really, I get a kick out of the camaraderie one gets from cycling. I guess I have done my share of trying to impress myself so now it's actually more fun to help others meet their goals.

It cool you did your thing but you will feel awesome when Lynn keeps up with you on an event!

rutan74

Interesting that the Dirty Dozen in Pittsburgh rides the 13 steepest streets in the Steel City and the elevation gain is only around 4,000 ft at 50 some odd miles and I would hardly call that flat. Mt Washington and Canton Ave I would not call flat nor any of the other 20%+ climbs. No, I have not ridden it. Yes, I was born and raised in Western Pa and know plenty about the hilly nature of the landscape.

4600 ft in 65 miles is hilly. That is no cake walk and I am not a flat lander nor am I a mountain goat either. 2500 ft over 65 file miles is still a bit hilly and it can be quite challenging depending upon the type of hills. I've done flat and extreme to the top of Mt Mitchell in NC 5 times and that is a beast.

Now for flat, I did the Savannah Century and the elevation gain was a whopping 700 ft over 102 miles! Now that is flat. Elevation gain for the Assault on Mt Mitchell is 11,000 ft over 102 miles. So, it all depends. One mans flats are another mans hills.

john

rutan74

So you learned that those group rides are a funny thing. One thing for sure, if you cannot maintain 20+ mph, don't kid yourself in trying to ride in the A group. As you found out, you will get dusted. From my experiences, the A Groups are usually testosterone packed young, fit, guys. Being a clyde usually prohibits one from riding with the A list. Not only are you slower, but being a Clyde, we do not look the part and the A guys do not want to be seen with Clydes.

Secondly, find a partner that rides at your level/pace. I know the feeling of being stuck in no mans land too. It is no fun. If you have a friend that you can ride with, if you get dropped, at least you can carry on with a partner.

FWIW, those guys that just rode off are pretty typical of the A riders I have encountered. The B group is usually filled with more folks that are willing to ride at a moderate pace and if someone has a problem they will lend a hand. The A group folks are dog eat dog usually. Again, many are trying to drop you since you do not fit the profile of what they think a serious rider looks like.

Just like running, you are fit and full of energy at the start. You were wise to realize that you were going to pay later in the day. Too many go out to fast and then they are popped at 20 miles with 45 to go and then they have to noodle it the rest of the day. Keep to the plan. Remember you only have so many matches and burning them to soon leaves you none at the end. I usually count mine at 6. I keep track of my HR and when it goes above 145, that is one match burnt. I keep a mental note to try and keep my HR below 145 even on moderate climbs. Now, I am 62 so my max HR is much lower than younger folks, but knowing that I can only go in my 90% range so many times before the elastic breaks keeps me on the ball and helps me finish without the need of the SAG wagon.

For me, speed is immaterial, I pay attention to HR mostly as that is the true indicator for survival at mile 55-65 and not feeling like you are going to die.

So, try and find a partner and NEVER listen to other riders when they tell you the pace is X or that hill is just a small uptick in the road. Don't trust them.

john