friday1970

A 1980's steel bike is perfect for a 40 mile ride. An older steel frame does very well in absorbing the road buzz. You find quite a few randonnuers riding older steel framed bikes because of the comfort steel provides on longer distance rides. Your 23mm Conti Ultra Sport 2 tires are decent. I have a pair of Conti Ultra Sport 27"x32mm tires on my older 1983 Trek 620 and they roll very well.
You have all you need. If I could be picky, I would suggest finding out what is the largest tire your bike can take. 23mm tires need to be pumped to higher pressures to avoid pinch flats, which means the ride could be a bit harsh. You would be surprised how much energy your body uses to counter shocks from road bumps, and larger tires with lower pressures helps alleviate this.

livedarklions

I don't think it's unusual not to need to eat during a 41 mile ride. I'm someone who rides 100-150 mile rides at age 60, and I've never understood what the basis for "don't wait until you're hungry" advice is. As I was building up distances, I never followed that, and I've never come close to a bonk. And my endurance speed is pretty fast. I have no idea whether you'll need food because I think that's highly individual, but I don't think you should worry if you don't feel like eating and your legs are still moving well.

I also find my need for water varies a lot with the weather --hot and/or headwinds increase my need. On a cool calm day, I can go 100 miles on a single bottle of water. On hot days, I may have to make more than one convenience store stops to refill my two bottles.

Long story short, I think you'll know if you need to eat or drink, and with that many stations, don't worry if you would rather just ride past one or two of them. Myself, I would actually find stopping every 8-10 miles distracting and a little frustrating, but I'm definitely not holding myself out as the norm. I'm just saying different people do this differently, so don't panic if you find that someone's advice doesn't seem to suit you. This really isn't a high risk for exhaustion activity.

MattTheHat 

I’d go ahead and ride your ten mile route 4 times in one day as soon as possible. Take a 30 minute break after each ten mile ride. Slow your pace on the rides if you need to. Stay hydrated. Have a snack after each ten miles if you feel you need it. If you stretch, you can do that during each stop.

I think you’ll find you can ride 40 miles with no trouble…today.

For reference, my wife and I did a 25 mile ride last year. She wasn’t even riding once a week at the time and her average ride was about 12 miles. She was riding a 7 speed city bike. She’s 64. She was tired when we were done but had absolutely no problem. Oh, forgot to mention she crashed about three miles in and rashed her knee up pretty good.

livedarklions

That's really cool!
I think the key to your ability to make that jump may have been that your riding was approximately daily. TBH, I think the biggest barrier to expanding the distance is probably psychological, so this might come down to whether the OP is more comfortable doing this for the first time solo or in a group. More than anything, I think we should probably be reassuring that there's probably no wrong answer for how to prepare (other than prolonged couch sitting, maybe), and I think you've explained that nicely.

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PeteHski

It all depends how hard you are riding, either by choice or terrain (mountains etc). For a 40 mile hilly ride at tempo I would typically drink 1 lite of energy/water mix and a couple of energy bars or gels. Just nibble and sip every 15 min or so throughout the ride and you shouldn't have any issues on that front. It's better to eat/drink little and often. As you are only conditioned to do 10 mile rides, you will probably benefit from a couple of short rest stops. But I wouldn't stop for long, just enough to stretch out and take a pee if required.

Troul 

In time, if you aim for a lot more miles in one ride, you'll likely find that dedicating the time to do it will be the most challenging thing; assuming you have a full-time job, typical life duties to tend to, a hobby more than just the bicycle...

Drew Eckhardt 

As a rule of thumb, you can comfortably ride your usual weekly average all at once if you pace yourself appropriately. You're already doing that.

As a rule of thumb, you want to avoid unpleasant surprises with things like fit by not riding more than 50% farther than your longest ride to date. Rounding, it would be prudent to try a 15 mile ride than a 25 mile ride before jumping straight to 40.

Note however that you'll need to ride much less intensely. E.g. in decent shape my average heart rate might be 155 bpm for a fast hour ride, 140 for four hours, or 110 all day.

Metieval

Easy, just take your "at a crisp pace" speed, ride just under that by 1-2 mph and you'll be fine.

I was doing 20's and turned it into a century riding with that effort level in mind.

Nishiki89

*Update*

Good advice all. Yesterday I completed the ride. Strava measured it to be 42 miles. I also hit a personal best in average speed at 18.7 mph. That’s nothing for many folks here, but that was a big improvement for me.

For training, I committed to 1 to 2 long rides a week, working up to 36 miles about 10 days out from the ride. I also did some interval sessions on a spin bike that we have at home. I kept those short and hard. Outdoors, I tried to keep all rides crisp and make the most of every moment. If it was a long flat I treated it as a time trial. If it was a MUT I worked on cadence and cornering (paying attention to the safety of pedestrians of course). Also of course I worked on climbing/descending with the short rolling hills I had.

Honestly I felt I could have done a metric century if I backed off the pace a bit. I was pretty smoked by the end of the ride, but I was more the pace than the distance.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I’m super glad I asked y’all. It opened my mind to what was possible and what I was already capable of. I’m now setting marks on a metric century in October.

Random11

Excellent! Sounds like you're doing everything right. Send another update when you do that metric century.

Mista Sparkle

Hey, great news!

I gotta say, if you're pulling off a 40 mile ride at 18.7MPH solo, you are likely underestimating yourself. Go out and find a full century, or a good moderate pace group ride. The big difference between what you are doing now and a century is likely not much other than eating, so eat every 20 miles or so and have fun.

Nishiki89

Thanks for the encouraging words! I’ll have to see what’s still available this season, but I will definitely set my sights on some bigger rides!

JayKay3000

I don't think distance is a the best aim really. People talk about it a lot because it sounds cool.

Use time as your measurement because distance is more about endurance than anything so if you can ride for 6 to 8 hours in a day with breaks and enough food then you can work out your limits. You might not be able to go as far as someone else in that 6 to 8 hours, but you can work on that aspect.

Distance is also a lot about learning to pace yourself to keep energy reserve and not go all out. You can probably climb faster if you're doing distance, but you might need that reserve for later.

Also I find it's good to pick a point of interest so you have something to ride to rather than just doing the numbers.

bikehoco

Riding 40 miles shouldn’t be difficult for you. The only question is how you feel after the ride.

rwmct

For me, the limits have more to do with how long I can stand staying on the seat than how many miles the ride is. My butt gives out before my legs do.

tkamd73 

If it’s a ride and not a race, and no mountains involved, I can train for that in a bar. It’s only 40 miles, but I’m only 66 yrs old, and probably won’t average over 17mph.
Tim

sayn3ver

To the OP:

I'm 35 and like 30lbs over weight. I started riding about a month a 1/2 ago after not riding a for over a decade (did other things like erging and the gym and kayak fishing.

I started out doing a few 5-10 mile rides then once my butt was a customed to my new saddle after two to three weeks miles started getting tacked on.

My personal struggle has always been saddle discomfort. Running cross country in highschool and crew in college, the endurance part for the engine and legs has never been a struggle for me. But saddle soarness and the occasional shoulder soarness certainly can take the pep out of my peddle on longer rides. The saddle discomfort was a large factor why I stopped years ago.

Anyways, my point being I went from 10 mile rides to 30mile rides several times a week in short order.

I could do 40 miles for a single outing and I have no doubt you could as well.

That's one bottle of sports drink and one bottle of water.

It's not a race so I wouldn't worry about hammering it for 40 miles. I would mentally think of it like two 20mile rides but that kind of mental stuff is different for everyone. If you have ever done interval training it's kind of how you have to prepare mentally in the off parts of the intervals...just focusing on the small manageable bits that you tackle one at a time.

With your description I would be surprised if you couldn't go out today and with a moderate pace for yourself just go ride it.

People in my area seem to hop on their mountain bikes, hybrids, a friend of a friends bike and do the city to shore ride (philly to ac so 50-75 miles depending on your start location) without fatality. Plenty train for it but I'd say at your age 40miles is a wake up one Saturday and do it sort of distance if you aren't worried about racing/placing/personal besting/etc.

Figure the average person can comfortably walk 3-4 miles per hour. That's 10 hours of walking for 40 miles. Most people would then go "that's too long I can't do that" yet they'll walk an amusement park like disney for 12 hours or more with their kids.