advice for riding a faster Ton.

Think "incremental gains". Faster rolling tyres, a more aero position, full lycra....

skin suit ordered................ ;o)

fuel it

It’s almost certainly going to be a zone 2 effort so that’s the focus for your training. Lots of steady state riding right at your ‘all day’ limit. I tried to do a century on the last weekend of each month this year.

Let’s say you did 150w for the ride. The least taxing way on your body to do it is a steady 150w for the entire ride (although optimising for speed may mean investing a touch more power where speeds are the slowest Ie uphill or headwinds).
So pacing is really important.

Practice and then execute eating and drinking the right amount. Enough to keep you going but not so much the nausea stops you eating right when you need it most.

Mental tricks help. Breaking the ride into smaller chunks or my new favourite- tell yourself you are riding a 90mile commute to a 10 mile TT.

Remind yourself that the worse that can happen if you go too slow in hour one is that you’ll have spare energy to go too fast in the finale 😉 The reverse scenario is much more soul destroying!

Aero gains may seem irrelevant but even at slow speeds- over long amounts of time they add up. Tight clothes at the very least.

Well done.

When I audaxed (grown out of it now), I reckoned that if I could do 85 miles without being knackered then I could keep going forever. So, more long rides for you, young man.

so, how do i ride one faster,

Just ride your bike a bit faster and a bit further every time you go out
....or...
draft a really fast group 😉

There are of course,easy and hard 100 routes.
Sadly,you can plan all you like ,then end up with 80 miles of headwind.
That's what kills me these days,I don't have the brute strengh to power through anymore.
Did the Snowroads Audax last year and the wind on some sections had me thinking about phoning a friend.
🙂

I’d give my right arm to able to ride a hundred miles again 🙁

Go down hill more often.

It depends how much you want to commit to training to go faster.

It’s almost certainly going to be a zone 2 effort so that’s the focus for your training.

I'm not so sure about this, but I'm not a trainer, I'm sure someone will be along to give advice.

Whilst lower intensity will be an important aspect, so will some higher intensity rides / intervals to increase your cardio vascular fitness allowing you to recover from intense efforts during a long ride, which the Jenn Ride will surely have. Strength training / running / core work will help when your cycling muscles are all tired and your body starts to recruit other muscles to help out.

Riding slow all the time makes you slower (something I am guilty of too).

You are asking about how to ride a faster ton,
Surely that is something your other half is best placed to answer

Without rehashing the Z2 thread, it is unquestionably the best place to spend the majority of your training. Doubly so for longer target events/rides.
It’s about maximally stressing your aerobic system to not just produce more power with your slow twitch fibres but also to create a home for the lactate your fast twitch fibres generate.

Your slow twitch muscles take months and years to respond, but your fast twitch icing on the cake can be honed in weeks.

It’s insanely rewarding/noticeable/applicable training too. You’ll realise you get back from 2 or 3 hour rides that used to tire you out and feel like you could repeat it. Or finish a group ride and add on another couple of hours.

Of course, in general, you need a top end as well but hard efforts on a well paced century should be nowhere near maximal so are far more about resilience and endurance than raw power in those energy systems.

Edited to add that between May 2022 and April 2023, Z2 helped me knock 41 minutes off of my local century loop.

Ton, you left your wallet in the Black Bull in Coniston and I'm about to buy everyone a round with the contents, quadruple champagnes all round!

Without actually getting fitter the easiest way to increase your speed would be with a flatter route and/or a tail wind. One way routes rather than loops can really help. Trains are great for either getting you out to a start point before riding home or the reverse.

Mate that’s awesome!
I’d just be happy to enjoy it. After pneumonia before Christmas I’ve hardly ridden do 30 miles feels like 60 used to.

My in laws are 130 miles away. A couple of times a year I ride to theirs.

Things that have helped.

Eating every hour. I set a beeper on my watch. Every time I've missed a snack, I've seriously regretted it.

Using my heart rate monitor religiously. The route is super flat, so massively easier than getting to the lakes, but paying attention to bing in zone 2/3 and anything higher has me immediately backing off.

This is always on a slick tired, lightweight carbon road bike with full lycra. If you were heading to the Jen ride, did you do it on dirt tyres, loaded with kit and an upright riding position? There is no way I'd be making 130 miles on a bike id ride the Jen ride on. Perhaps 100, but I'd want a rest week between that and the Jen ride

Riding withy roadie buddies has helped. They don't faff, they never stop for a breather, if I'm out with them, they are on training rides and stick to z2/z3 and tell me to slow down. 50-70 miles at a rolling gossip pace makes the miles fly by.

i rode there on my new tourer, which is quite rapid with 33mm touring tyres.
1 pannier with sleeping bag, air mat, tarp and a few bits. not overly hefty.
would like to add, i am still in AF, so hills can not be attacked.i have to take them slowly.

heading to Belgium touring tomorrow for a couple of weeks, then going the concentrate on doing some audax riding for the rest of the year, try to build up to 300km.

That's great Ton. I'm seemingly getting closer to my wrists fixed one way or another so have the same goal in mind either on the Topstone or ebike as I've not been up to doing one in my new location yet.

I've done a good few in the past and I've been surprised how much just being a little more aero makes over my regular riding where it's not something I consciously think about too much. When I've done most of my longest rides I've had clip on aero bars, quite high to take pressure off my wrists mainly, but I had a 'rule' that if I could feel the wind on my face I'd either go in the drops or on the aero bars. I was always pleasantly surprised that I was a few kph faster without any extra effort, not being a fast rider it made quite a difference.

In my case dropping a few stone would also make a big speed difference, and more importantly for my heart on hills.

Ton are you riding to Belgium?

Ton are you riding to Belgium?

riding to Hull for the ferry mate. then got a nice loop planned taking in hopefully some nice locations, and bars.

Keep the chain tight and use the drops more.

As for training plan just ride your bike often and for longer especially this time of year.

Have fun on your wee tour. It sounds ace.

advice for riding a Ton

I found buying him beers and pies beforehand helps me get into his knickers

I split a 100 miler into two parts. Up to 50 miles it's nowt but a Sunday morning ride so no breaks unless I need a slash and a muchie bar at 35 miles or so. After that I am on the down hill bit so it's no breaks as I am nearly home.This means it is time for a cake and a drink about the half way mark and munchie bars on the go every 20 miles.

skin suit ordered……………. ;o)

NO pics please!!

Keep the chain tight and use the drops more.

As for training plan just ride your bike often and for longer especially this time of year.

+1

Z2 works for those with lots of time on their hands because if you're a pro you've got all day, 7 days a week, to ride. So need a training plan that works with that. Z2 all day, every day is manageable and has a benefit. Z2 once a week has far less benefit. In the real world, pick a training session that'll leave your legs tired until the next one so you get maximum benefit. e.g. rather than riding 100miles at z2, ride it with a group, that naturally makes the hills harder work, and incrementally digging in for that slightly harder interval is what knackers your legs and stimulates the muscles to adapt.

That said, if you're retired, crack on with the Z2, just ride 100 miles a day, 5 days a week every day the suns out till October. And then you'll have the base fitness that further adaptation is easy because your then able to simply train more. e.g. the classic FTP building session is 2x20min, but there's nothing stopping you doing 5x20min an getting more training benefit other than base fitness.

Simply not true. The lie about FTP is that if you make it bigger, your percentage based z2 gets bigger.
Whereas, in fact, often you just move your aerobic threshold and FTP apart from each other.

If you find Z2 ‘easy’ in training then it’s likely not your aerobic threshold anyhow- it’s a proxy for 2mmol blood lactate aka the ‘talk test’.

As I say, I put real numbers to it this winter and took my century pace from around 195w to 225w for the same (mid Z2) HR.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that if the question is "How do I train to ride 100 miles faster?" then the answer is different if you've got 5 hours or 25 hours a week to train for it. Z2 is good, if you have the time to put in to stimulate a response. If you don't have the hours to put into it, then it wont deliver the results.

Someone on here told me to drop a few gears down to what you usually would when riding up hill.

Really Helped me improve my distance riding.

If I am doing sub 50k I hammer it. If more than 50k I don't.

When I audaxed (grown out of it now),

Blimey, how old do you need to be to be too old for audax.....

I reckon the limit is lower than you think though. I reckon I’d keep things basically the same down to around 6/7hrs a week having felt what I felt this year.

If I had 6hrs a week to train for a faster century, I’d make sure I had a 2h “Z2” progression ride running one day a week where I ramped up 20w over say 8-10 weeks. Either side of that would be either off or Z1.

Then I’d have one unstructured intensity day (either group ride or zwift race) and sandwich that between an easier Z2 and recovery day and bingo- I’d be well happy with that 😀

Mon off
Tue 2h hardcore ISM Z2
Wed 30mins easy
Thur 30mins z2
Fri off
Saturday 1-1.5h unstructured intensity
Sunday 1.5-2h Easy Z2

My in laws are 130 miles away. A couple of times a year I ride to theirs.

This would slow me down.
Why do you want to go faster Tony? #smiles/hr