seypat

If you feel you must solicit advice from the board, you would be better off asking your question in this forum. It would be more helpful to your specific goals.

https://www.bikeforums.net/long-dist...rance-cycling/

MoAlpha

Whew! Good luck.

cjenrick

there is no reason to haul ass unless you are getting paid for it or you are on a huge ego trip due to low self esteem or you suffer from narcissistic disorder.

or unless you are a masochist like me.

livedarklions

TBH, the number of people who have experience with a 24 hr 300 mi ride is going to be so small that it's going to be hard to find them on anything but the endurance forum and, I have to think, this is such an outlier activity that people probably have to come up with individual strategies that wouldn't likely apply to anyone else. I've done a lot of 150+ mile rides in a day, and I don't think there's any way I could have done that without a couple of sit down meals along the way. I'm pretty sure most people would get sick eating the large quantities and types of food I would eat, so the only tip I have is to try a few strategies on somewhat shorter but still long rides and see what works.

Good luck! I ride several dozen solo centuries a year, and even so, that distance/duration sounds nuts, but I admire a bit of crazy. I won't be joining you but, then again, I wasn't invited. I think we're both good in that regard.

In my own case, I would think the sleep deprivation in a 24 hour ride would be the bigger risk--I don't make good decisions when I start to get punchy. I used to think I could ride on very little sleep, but then I got hit by a car doing something I couldn't remember or explain afterwards. I strongly suspect I actually fell asleep for a second or two while pedaling, something I didn't think was possible. I don't do the 5 a.m. ride starts any more.

livedarklions

More curiosity--solo or group? Have you picked a route yet? Are you just doing "laps" or do you have a destination in mind?

Tomm Willians

I’m going solo on this on a 25 mile loop with the wife parked at a designated location with supplies. I’ve found a route I believe will be near ideal.

LarrySellerz

I would imagine that you have to do a pretty strict diet to be able to switch from burning glycogen to ketosis without suffering a major power loss. Is it even possible? Do people try doing this? It seems like it would make you "bonk proof" and be a great fat burner...

livedarklions

Yes, it seems like everyone who does some version of this does a lap system, usually fairly tight loops around their home to facilitate pit stops. Do you have a camper or a tent for your wife? That's an awfully long time to stay "parked."


12 laps in 24 hours, at least the math will be easy.
In your neck of the woods, I imagine there's some really nice places for her to hang out overnight, but still, she must love you a lot!

Tomm Willians

🤣🤣🤣 yes I suppose she does ! I have a 4 door truck with a very roomy back seat area so she’s going to stretch out in a sleeping bag and snooze. She will be very close to 24hr gas stations and such for coffee or goodies. I probably won’t even need to wake her as I can put supplies in the bed area.

KerryIrons

Then you must have been riding at a VERY slow pace. There is no way you have enough food in your gut plus stored glycogen to go 100 miles at a decent pace. You have, at most, 2000 calories available beyond fat burning. For 100 miles, that is only 20 calories per mile. The rest must come from fat burning, which most sources say is around 200 calories per hour. Being generous on your fat burn rate and using reliable estimators for calorie burn (analyticcycling.com) we can see that 13-14 mph would be your average speed on flat roads with no wind.

livedarklions

Uh, ok, I had no idea what I was doing was impossible. Generally, the non-stop 100 mile ride under those conditions was about 6 to 6.5 hours, not lightning fast, but that was with hills, some city riding, bad roads and stop signs, etc. that bring the average speed way down On the flats with no wind, I generally ride in the 20-24 mph range at the beginning, middle and end of the ride. Guess I should have checked with you first?

I love it when people extrapolate from the little knowledge they have and come up with stuff so obviously wrong. I have no idea what I'm burning when, I just know your "must" statements are ridiculous. 13-14 mph on the flats with no wind, my butt.

Yeah, yeah, I know you'll claim I'm lying, but seriously if I was going to make something up, don't you think it'd be a bit sexier than I can ride this fast while fasting?

seypat

I run a fall marathon or 2 each year. During training, the run lengths will increase until the distance/time gets into the bonking zone. The training runs finish where they start. You can go until you bonk and you will be close to the finish. The bonk comes and you find out where you need to start the refueling for that year's race. Easy enough to figure out.

unterhausen

There is some evidence that chronically riding without eating can lead to muscle wasting. Not a particularly great idea. I might try to find the reference later.

KerryIrons

I'm just going on the published literature for caloric expenditure, stored glycogen, and fat burning. Your average speed of 15+ mph suggests a calorie burn of around 350 calories per hour, but your reported speed of 20 mph suggests around 650 calories per hour. And to be clear you are saying you took in zero calories during these 100 mile rides, right? Unless you are WAY outside the range of normal human exercise physiology, the numbers do not add up.

ThermionicScott 

My mind went to Gilbert and Sullivan.

MoAlpha

The web site cited has a bad cert, so not going there. However, the missing piece here may be gluconeogenesis, which scavenges amino acids from protein, glycerol from fat, and lactate from anaerobic metabolism, and coverts them to glucose. This is in addition to ketogenesis from fat and does, in fact, cannibalize structural proteins in anyone who rides a lot (my arms are exhibit A). Without this mechanism, we would all collapse with seizures and brain damage from hypoglycemia as soon as the glycogen ran out. All of these mechanisms are highly inducible by endurance training, so data from "normal" individuals don't count for much.

In any case, the 13-14 mph thing for fasted riders is contrary to common experience, even though one does go faster on long rides with a ready source of carbs.

LarrySellerz

i would imagine doing a strict keto diet atleast part time would reduce muscle loss when you have to use the alternative pathways. Like more ketogenesis instead of gluconeogenesis. I've watched a joe rogan podcast where the guy was talking about "hacking his body" with his diet to be able to burn fat and carbs very efficiently. Like he would do x days keto, 48-72 hour fast, then x days high carb low fat. Idk his actual regiment but it seems something cyclists could benefit from.

Of course just slamming carbs so you don't run out of glycogen is probably more efficient/faster. That's what all the pros do

MoAlpha

As far as I know, you can't train up the ketogenesis pathway without simultaneously upregulating gluconeogenesis, since carb starvation is the stimulus for both. The brain has an absolute floor requirement of about 30% glucose in its energy mix.

PeteHski

I believe there was a recent study of elite athletes who attempted something similar to this i.e. keto training regime and then slamming in the carbs on event day. From what I recall it didn't work out too well. They just ended up being less efficient at using the carbs and went slower. But I could be wrong as I didn't read it in any detail.

MoAlpha

I was far from elite, but carbo loading was big when I was running and cycling competitively. Never seemed to help much.

ThermionicScott 

Was he a bodybuilder? That sounds sort of like some diets used for "cutting."

PeteHski

This wasn't really traditional carb loading. It was more about training exclusively without carbs and then only using them on race events. The idea being that they would get more efficient fat burning + the benefit of carbs during events. But it didn't work in practice.

MoAlpha

I'm pretty sure carbo loading, even back then, was supposed to be done after a few weeks of carb deprivation. That was the part no one liked, so it wasn't talked about that much.

livedarklions

Well, for starters, average speed doesn't actually suggest much about calories per hour unless you know the conditions of those miles. 10 mph uphill burns a lot more calories than 10 mph on the flat, so your average calorie estimates are worthless. Where I live is a bit of flat in the middle of a bunch of hilly, when I ride any more than 25 miles, I will very quickly encounter a fair amount of hills, and in some directions, that 25 mile figure is way too high. Secondly, as MoAlpha notes, people who train for endurance do get better at other forms of metabolism. I am fairly extreme in this regard, riding 250 miles per week for 9 months of the year and doing 3 hour high resistance sessions on the elliptical twice a week and 3 1-hour sessions during the other three months will do that for you. I'm sure that pulls me out of the average figures you're citing, but again, MoAlpha notes that your statements that this is impossible are contrary to things a fair number of people do.

I only was doing the fasting centuries last year because I really don't like the kind of food I can pack on the bike while I'm riding. I'd much rather stop for a real meal, brought to me by a waiter or waitress.

livedarklions

I think the idea that metabolism is so well-understood and uniform from person-to-person that you can estimate where the tank is going to hit E in terms of miles or hours or whatever is pretty hilarious. The understanding that lactate is actually a fuel and not a semi-toxic byproduct is really fairly recent, for example.

I've always thought that hypertrophy is probably related to enhancing glycogen storage, is there anything to that?