Doctor Morbius

I'm training for a metric half-century. Got any tips?

prathmann

How could a 1973 book have a quote giving the organization a name that didn't exist until years later? At that time the group was called the League of American Wheelmen. My recollection of that period is that there were already a series of different 'Century' events: quarter, half, metric, full, double metric, and double. AIRC, the metric was supposed to be completed in under 7 hours according to the LAW.

UniChris

Shorts, chamois cream, sun protection, hydration (at least some of it something more balanced than water), charged cell phone, take short breaks. No mater what time of day you set out, bring lights in case you spend longer than planned.

What was your longest ride so far and what felt limiting?

On my two 100km rides, each time coming up on the 50km point I felt pretty beat even though I'd previously gone much further. Got off the saddle, had something to eat and drink, got back on feeling much better and kept going.

Also having a defined goal: 50km for me is where I get on the waterfront greenway, around and up to the lighthouse, and back home again. That one does have several points where I can bail out to a subway station, which I've sometimes done when I'm only "going for a ride" and not trying to meet a goal, but making it the whole way back feels like more of an accomplishment. On longer rides, bailout options apart from using the phone can be much further between, which can be a substantial motivation to keep going.

ThermionicScott 

I recently learned a new variation.

There are two kinds of people in the world:
1) Those that can extrapolate from incomplete data
2)

canklecat

canklecat

Drink a couple of cups of coffee. It'll motivate you to finish faster. That's just enough distance to cover before breakfast, and before needing to pee after drinking coffee.

jefnvk

From the aspect the overwhelming majority of the population uses temperature for, the weather outside, F is gradiented (is that a word?) far better. 0 is pretty cold, 100 is pretty hot, most everything else falls in between in a nice linear aspect. Quite a bit more intuitive than 0 being somewhat cold, 40 being pretty hot, and spending the majority of my winter under that scale and the summers tying to figure out exactly what to wear in the 10-25 range

Marcus_Ti

"Uh, oops"-Rick Perry.

Iride01 

For quite a long while and well before the turn of the century.

texaspandj

In cycling, kilometers is used to make you sound like your doing more than you actually are. Hence " 100 kilometers/metric century". I rode 60 kilometers today, oh Wow How impressive!
We definitely have to use Miles as a distance indicator here in my "Country" of Texas. I mean who wants to say one thousand two hundred eighty seven kilometers when you can just say 800 miles.

sweeks

This ^^. Also in medicine and dentistry (healthcare in general) everything is metric.

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.

I like yours better than ^^.

32 miles? Just do it!

<wins internets>

rumrunn6

an imperial ruler ... there's a joke in there somewhere ... or maybe there isn't

TimothyH

It is called a "Metric."

It is not a "Metric Century."

ThermionicScott 

I think that's why I prefer gear-inches to meters-development, too.

Iride01 

My 1975 college edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines century as "an aggregate of a hundred; Anything consisting of a hundred in number."

The current online Merriam-Webster gives this.................." : a race over a hundred units (such as yards, miles, or meters)"

ThermionicScott 

Back to the OP:

How many times did you go out for 62 mile (no more, no less) rides before ever hearing of a "metric century"?

jefnvk

I'm curious: did an English "century" become a thing because people needed an "accomplishment" lesser than a brevet or randonee length? I mean, can't you just tell people you rode 100 miles?

Leebo

But what about imperial beer pints? Winning!

Leebo

When all the bolts on my bike used metric allen wrenches?

phughes

AndreyT

It is quite crowded up there, or so I was told

Oso Polar

Now, from the POV of the real overwhelming majority of the population (unlike USA-only majority of the population), Fahrenheit temperature scale is completely meaningless and by far the most confusing part of USA measuring system. First of all, unlike any other measure, there is simply no easy way to convert C to F by just applying one multiplication, there is a whole conversion formula involved. Second, Celsius temperature scale is extremely intuitive and practical: 0 - water freezing point. Everything below 0 means freezing cold. And in practice it makes a big difference between ice, snow, exploded water pipes, frozen food vs just rain, cold water, cold food. And at 100 degrees water is boiling which is also a common event known to everyone. It is pretty easy to extrapolate between these two points (0 & 100) by everyday life experience.

Fahrenheit is meaningless. I can tell you right away that 20 degrees C is warm, or, at the very least, not too cold, without knowing very little about C. What is 20 in F? Who knows, zero in F is a temperature of "mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride" - how often do you deal with this mixture and what practical information it gives? Never and none - and this includes US folks as well. 100 degrees, AFAIR, was a body temperature of his feverish wife. How often do you meet with Fahrenheit's wife? Above 32 will be warm range, below 32 - frozen... Why?!! Why 32??? Crazy and broken by design system, dead everywhere in the world - except US.

desconhecido 

The metric system is almost always superior to whatever it is you call the customary system (English or imperial or whatever) and yet it hangs on. In aviation, a mixed system of units is used. My favorite example is that lapse rate is sometimes given in official documentation as deg C/1000 ft.

As for the Martian probe cock up, the failure was that NASA did not publish and enforce standards. The SNAFU happened to be use of the customary units -- it could have been using something like kgf instead of N or Bar instead of Pa or g/cc instead of kg/m^3.

Iride01 

You do win with imperial beer pints. You get 95 milliliters more beer than with a standard US pint.

desconhecido 

Just curious. what pressure do you inflate your tires to, 100psi or 0.69 MPa ?