My century ride ( on a folding shopping bike )

Following on from this thread.
Link to STW thread

Well I’ve done it. Yesterday I cycled around lake Geneva 🙂
(anti clockwise if anyones interested)

This is my first ever 100+ mile ride and the first ride fuelled with “sports products” 8 torq bars ,3 gels and 500 grams of drink ( in 5 litres of water )

I’ve not done any training for this ride – totally blagged it and not feeling sore this morning 🙂
My only motivation was the fact that I’m 37 and wanted to do a real epic ride to remember.

Things that worked

Mavic inferno jacket and bibs – nice and warm with a perfect fit.
Pear Izumi soft shell gloves – A little too padded but warm and comfortable.
The torq products – very impressed with the taste, lack of stomach problems and the fact that this is the fist time using “sports” fuel.
Drinking chocolate milk after the ride – WIN, great tip for recovery.

Things that didn’t work.

The stupid lezyne hydration pack which decided to leak and soak my back though the vents in the jacket.
The bar mount for my iPhone – rattley junk.
Factor 30 sunscreen – I needed 50 as the only few inches of exposed skin on my face are now burt 🙁 proper pander look 🙂

If I were to do it again the only change I’d make would be to the amount of energy consumed with liquids. I spent most of the ride either peeing or looking for a sport to pee 🙂 Rhubarb and custard gels are the way forward YUM!

The majority of the ride was recorded on endomondo but The phone battery died before I made it all the way back. 18 miles should be added to this total.

I’m pretty sure I could take an hour and a half off this time if I did it again. Less pee breaks and photos etc

Brilliant stuff, well done!

You got up to 43mph on that?!?!? 😯

THRUST from eating carbs all day 🙂

Excellent! Nice story

good effort mate. Beautiful scenery. Was there any cycle paths? or all on roads?

Nice one. Cracking views.

I know that my Brompton gets a little squirrely at anything over about 35mph, so that’s outstanding! 🙂

The main reason for doing the route anticlockwise was due to French side having worse Tarmac and fewer cycle lanes.
I though it best to tackle this bit when fully fuelled as I didn’t know how my concentration would suffer after this time and distance.
Most of the Swiss side has a cycle lane on the road or a complete other lane designated for cycling.

The vineyards are being put to bed for the winter so the farmers use the compressed grapes from this years harvest as fertilizer. The whole area had a strong smell of Red 🙂 nice smell in the winter sun.

I think the 20 inch wheels may help. It was rock solid at that speed no issues at all.

I was thinking of selling the bike when I get back ………. It’s a keeper now ( a bit like Richard hammonds car in the African adventure)

good effort on little wheels.

Well done and thanks for great write up!

Well done that man.
I have a 200km ride next weekend for which my training mainly consists of sparkling ale.

So long as you are comfortable on the bike and have the right fuel I don’t think distance is an issue.
I can’t recommend the torq stuff enough based on yesterday experience.

So long as you are comfortable

that saddle and that riding position would probably get me off the bike after 300 yards 🙂

Lol to be fair the seatpost was about 3 inches too low in that pic.
The saddle is a Selle SLR Xp flow, I use them on all my bikes and find them super comfy.

A couple more pics

beautiful pics and a great ride – well done

but be careful around here saying things like “I think the 20 inch wheels may help” – only joking 😆

Very, VERY jealous!!! Nice work 🙂

You have under-sold yourself, 126 miles on a shopping bike!

Good work

I don’t want to boast or anything 🙂

When I saw the title I thought it was going to be an old ’70s shopper! Bloody great effort anyway.

I remember seeing some bloke riding an old Raleigh shopper on the Brecon Beast!

Narr not an old shopper but not far off 😉

Nice pics.

Good effort. 🙂

I saw a guy do a Polaris on a Raleigh Shopper a while back… crazy stuff.

Fair play to the OP though. Nice work 🙂