nuke_diver

I "think" I want to do a century...for no other reason but to say that I did but I don't think I get enough time/week in. Like you I think once I retire (hope to be next year) I can ride more often (right now about 50-60 miles/week in the better weather and 0-40 in the poorer weather) such that a century won't seem as daunting. And probably would want to make the first one supported too. I did a metric century this year, my first and did it solo. I enjoyed it but I was glad to get home. I'm not sure I had another 35 miles in me

jppe

I can totally relate. Plus once you get your body trained to do certain distances, believe me, it is a lot harder to retrain yourself than keep yourself at the same level.

h2oxtc

Sound's like a pretty nice ride to me! This was my lunch during last Saturday's ride with 68 miles (metric Century). If I'd thought of it, gelato would have been nice later in the afternoon!

RideMyWheel

You know, I've only been seriously doing this since April, but the thing that astounds me about cycling is how many different levels of fitness and attention spans there are, not to mention the diversity in ages.

From everything I've read, a moderate 30 minutes three times a week is enough exercise. Anything above that is wonderful, but there's a diminishing rate of return. What we do beyond the first five miles is probably for self-gratification. The only reason to do it is because we like it. I'm almost where you are, two hours seems more than long enough to me, I have a life to live and a limited amount of time and energy to devote to all of the things I enjoy. But I do expect to complete my first 20+ ride tomorrow. It won't be a strain, either. I've been knocking on that door for weeks.

I think if you do anything long enough, your tolerance for it will vary from year to year--nothing remains constant. I know it's always been that way with me and golf. Some years I played over 100 rounds, other years I didn't play 30. I've all but quit now, but I'm sure I'll go back to it eventually.

However long we choose to ride, the fact that we enjoy it enough to spend time reading more about it on a bike forum puts us way out on the edge of the fitness bell curve.

dachshund

I have a few friends who post on FB in the wee hours during their 200K or 300K rides. I see this and think - They Are Nuts! I'm with the OP, after a certain number of hours it isn't fun any more. But - I'd gladly sign up for 100 miles if the ride has bail out options. :-)

For me the huge crowds in some of the rides are a turn off. But they can be a great way to ride some new territory.

chasm54

You're massively overstating your case, here. Yes, moderate exercise three times a week confers massive benefits over being totally sedentary. But the diminishing returns set in at much higher volumes and intensities than you claim.

Having a high VO2 max is one of the best predictors of longevity. One doesn't get (or keep) one of those by ambling along for five miles or so.

Here's a piece from the American College of Sports Medicine on "exercise and the older adult".

Salient quotes:
Over the past ten years, we have learned that older persons can adapt to a program of regular aerobic training as well as their younger counterparts. Older adults can achieve the same 10 to 30 percent increase in VO2max in response to endurance exercise training as young adults. The magnitude of these adaptations in VO2max in older adults is a function of training intensity; low intensity training elicits only marginal changes. The increase in VO2max in older adults is a result of improvements in both maximal cardiac output and a-v O2 difference. In addition, improvements in submaximal endurance capacity and the greater ability to tolerate higher levels of physical activity are important training adaptations.


For improvements in cardiovascular fitness, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends an exercise intensity of 55/65 to 90 percent of maximum heart rate (or 40/50 to 80 percent of heart rate reserve). ACSM further recommends accumulating 20-60 minutes at that level three to five days a week. The lower ranges are for unfit or even frail individuals who are about to begin an exercise program.

This is inconvenient, isn't it? Most of us old folks want to believe that a brisk walk a couple of times a week is all we need to keep us as healthy as we need to be. The trouble is, it just ain't so.

Biker395 

You bet. Self-gratification is a way of life for me.

Yep, we're nuts. But the way we look at it, if 4 hours of something is good, 24 of that thing is just that much better, right? lol

browngw 

A couple of years ago, a friend and I decided to ride north on our trail system to the city of Brantford. We had a great day and when I got on my home street the GPS showed 98.8 km. I had not realized that I was that close to a milestone ride so I circled the block until I had bested the 100 km. Now I don't care how far I ride in a day as long as I'm having fun. "The journey is the destination"

dachshund

I guess so... different strokes and all that!

az_cyclist

I ordered my Triple Crown jersey in August

John_V 

I average around 200-250 miles a week (weather providing) and that's good enough for me. I ride with two other guys and we normally do at least one 66 mile ride on the weekends (except during the summer). I have done centuries but I still have one century that's on my bucket list that I've been cheated out of for the last four years. That will not be the case on the next MS 150.

camelopardalis

I just can't consider 100 miles as a major accomplishment. For somebody who is relatively fit and healthy, it's not a big deal. A marathon is a much bigger accomplishment. The grand tour riders ride over a 100 miles a day average for three weeks with two break days. You're not gonna find too many people doing the same number of marathons.

And how about those Ironmen? I bow to them.

mrodgers

Have to respond to this as absolutely I do enjoy it tremendously. I ride rail trails out in the middle of the woods along the river. I ride roller coaster hills out by my house. I ride a trail in town by work where I can pace off intervals every road crossing since I cross a road every mile. I've recently jumped off that trail onto the roads rather than crossing them and discovered some beautiful riding through farmland that can get me a bit of everything from roller coaster, to rolling hills, to coming back on the flat trail.

You don't have to ride 35 hours a day to enjoy cycling. I really enjoy traveling around western PA and riding the various rail to trails in their entirety which most are in the 15-25 mile range out and back. That 36 mile ride was such a trail (18 miles one way) and boy, the middle 6 miles deep in the woods, I felt like the only person left on the planet. So peaceful.

A few days ago I did something new. The longest and steepest I had ridden to date, both down and up. Now today I did 2 new things. Again beat the steepest (though just for a short distance) and I had yet to ride through the city. I rode the residential streets with not much traffic, but riding through city streets along with some traffic is new to me. It was pretty neat, though all the stop signs aren't for me. I'll still take my country living any day of the week.

So, yeah, I have kids at home waiting for me to get home, and I only ride about 2.5 hours, 3 at the most, but I am enjoying every minute of it.

Yeah I can see that happening, of course. I went out earlier this year intending for my typical 12 mile ride on the river trail to the tunnel where I turn around at mile 6. It doesn't take me an hour, so I thought I may as well ride a full hour and kept going. At the point to turn around and go back to make it an hour, I thought may as well go to the camps which is 9 miles. When I reached the camps, may as well go to the next barrier and turn around. At the barrier, I'm almost at 10 miles. At 10 miles, it's only 2 more miles to the 2nd tunnels (I really love the tunnels.) After the 2nd tunnel, I wanted to see if I could find where the supposed waterfall was. Didn't find the tunnel, but up ahead I see the trail is blocked and it directs you up onto the gravel roads. May as well see what's up there. Before I knew it, my 12 mile round trip had turned into 15 miles out and I figured I'd better turn around now and get back home to the kids. That put me at the time at my longest to date of 30 miles.

I still don't think I'll ever do a century though.

Cyril 

Centuries?
Make mine a double.

NOS88

I have several friends who are runners. One of them is a world class athlete in another sport. She said to me some years ago, "I don't run for others; I run for me. You want to do marathons, be my guest. I'm not interested in this as a goal. Does this make me less than you?" Given her status, I'd say she had a point. Ride the distance that works for you regardless of what others set as goals.

chasm54

Best post in the thread. One of the great joys of being out on the bike, for me, is just going where the fancy takes, me, making it up as I go along, enjoying being out there. I've had some epic days like this on tour, ending up visiting places I would never have heard of but for a conversation with some stranger, or a symbol on a map that sparked my curiosity, or whatever.

de gustibus non est disputandum. ​It's all a matter of taste.

sknhgy 

I'm totally with the OP. For me, riding is for fun. It's not an endurance thing. I like a metric now and then, but most days 30 miles is just fine.

RISKDR1

If it isn't fun there is no point. They are not paying you so do what you really WANT to do.

Dudelsack 

Yep. The dark side of endurance riding is that if you push yourself to your limits, sometimes you will fail. Sitting in the back of the SAG wagon is not a fate worse than death, but I didn't enjoy it last weekend when I ran out of gas on a beastly hot day.

It left me demoralized enough that I don't know if or when I'll try another century. And my legs felt like crap on my 20 miler today.

Of course, if I'd lay off the 24|7 chess crap...

Garfield Cat

Couple of years ago, I went to the Las Vegas Interbike and afterwards Las Vegas has this "Viva Las Vegas" ride. Short, medium, and long ride choices. It was in September and was hot. Coming from So Calif, it was a shocker. Now that was an endurance thing. The 100 miler long ride went through Red Rock Canyon for that 13 mile loop. I did the 70 miler (medium ride) and I could tell the riders feeling the effects of the heat around the 40 mile mark. All of the sudden there is complete silence. No more chatting. By the time the riders rested at Hoover Dam, many were wasted. Got the cramps but somehow recovered, somewhat.

bruised

Ignoring the enjoyment aspect and focusing on the purely physical/exercise aspect is bound to lead to less and less riding, imho. It needs to be enjoyable.

However, part of the enjoyment can come from setting challenges and milestones which depend as much on mental strength as they do on physical. I took a lot of gratification from completing my first Century ride and I feel motivated to set myself new challenges which will tax me physically, but even more so mentally.

As Chasm54 quoted above, there are physical benefits to be had from endurance riding, versus lesser benefits from less strenuous activity. But lets not forget the mental aspect, which is also very important as we age. There's a natural tendency to begin to 'run down the play clock' as we get older. We brush aside new challenges with 'been there done that' and pretty quickly we settle into less demanding routines. I think that's wrong. Keeping the mind active, having new challenges which involve mental and physical endurance etc, is bound to lead to a longer and more active life - I think.

Rejecting the more demanding physical exercise and discarding it as unnecessary, is missing part of the point, me finks.

Gerryattrick

I did my first century since returning to cycling last year at the age of 66. It was on an mtb and covered both on and off-road, unplanned, as I only decided to do it a day or two before, and a lot slower than yours, but like you I did feel a sense of achievement.

I have realised since then that I have no real desire to do another, but get a great deal of pleasure from 40-50 mile rides. I can get plenty of challenges from those e.g. speed, amount of climbing, totally off-road rides, or a week or two of 50 mile a day touring, but don't see increasing distances as a challenge that interests me. I would never discard more demanding physical exercise as unnecessary, and I can see how 100/200 miles and even longer appeal to a lot of riders.

Having said all that I will never say never, and could be tempted into another century ride if it was done in the company of a few friends.

Biker395 

You know, I think there is a lot of truth to all that. As George Bernard Shaw once quipped: "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." For some of us, playing is a 10 mile cruise with a soft drink on the handlebars, and for others ...

chasm54

Yes, this is it.

There are lots of ways to get a lot out of riding a bike. I've done a lot of centuries in the past decade, but these days the organised rides don't interest me, just riding a given distance for the sake of it no longer floats my boat. I took up racing, not because I was especially bothered about winning (good thing, given my mediocrity!) but because I was curious about where I stood with regard to fitness and skills, and wanted something to motivate me to train harder - effectively I raced to train, rather than trained to race. I'm now going to focus on time-trialling for a while, just to see how much under the hour an overweight 60 year-old can go for a 40k. If I stop challenging myself I'm going to start to curl up - the pipe and slippers routine just isn't good for us.

But through all this more-or-less strenuous activity, I have continued to enjoy just pottering about on the bike. Touring - some long tours, some short, at moderate speeds. Bimbling about in the countryside at recovery pace, just for the pleasure of being out there.

We don't have to pigeonhole ourselves into being one sort of cyclist or another. I'm lots of different cyclists on different days. It's all good.

bruised

Hi Gerryattrick,

I just re-read my earlier post in this thread and realized it may have sounded as if somehow I was minimizing the efforts required to ride 40-50 milers, and minimizing their benefits. I certainly didn't intend it to read that way. The bulk of my riding will be shorter in distance than the 40 miles that you're comfortable with. So my comment about pushing the limits was more of a generalization, and we all need to insert our own distances/loads/routines into whatever formula we're comfortable with.

I also need to remind myself that this is the Fifty+ forum and I still barely qualify Reading about some of the folks in their late 60's through 70's, 80's and beyond, riding distances I couldn't have managed in my 30's, is part of what's inspiring my own efforts to keep going.

Cheers!

Bruised