Originally Posted by
big john
I remember when people started subtracting their breaks from the total ride time. WTF? Someone who I knew was slower would claim a time much faster than I had. It took a minute before I found out what they were doing. I always thought if you started @ 8:00 and finished @ 3:00 the ride took 7 hours. You don't get to say you did the ride in 6 hours just because you took 1 hour in breaks.
I used to feel the same way but, looking at my own rides, it was pretty plain to see that stopping has never done me any favors, neither in terms of overall time nor in terms of pace; I've never found a stop duration that was recuperative without making my legs feel leaden upon getting back to business. Maybe others are different but, for me, resting in the saddle, at low effort, is way better than a stop. Outside of some well-defined competition or training, moving time makes a lot of sense to me.
Originally Posted by
big john
My friend, pizza guy, who I ride with on Tuesdays, used to do a lot of the local double centuries. There is a small group of guys who "race" the doubles. Friend "won" some of them until they started working against him. They figured out he had the best kick at the end so they would work with him until late then they would try and get rid of him for the finish. One time they took off from the last rest while he was in the restroom. He was able to chase most of them down.
He finished a moderately hilly double in 8 hours 53 minutes!.
That's some pretty diesel work, whether solo or group!