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I’m planning to ride Bristol to Holyhead following the Lon las Cymru route, in 2021, I wanted to do it this year but of course...
To make it a challenge worthy of raising some charity cash, I’m thinking of riding it over two days.
The route is 260miles and approx 18,000’ of climbing. So two big days on the road bike.
Any tips for training ? It’s not the distance I’m worried about, it’s the climbing.
At the moment I’m just an average mtb’er/roadie, rode 3000miles this year.
Just the obvious stuff, really; practice riding when already tired from a hard, earlier ride.
And on the actual days, slow down. You cannot finish the ride in the first few hours. But you can finish yourself..
Have you often gone beyond 100 miles in a day before? That sort of event distance is as much about mind as it is about body.
I don’t know the hills involved but I’d probably just start spending longer and longer in the saddle...back to back days if possible, certainly nearer the time will give you an idea how best to recover and start day 2 as fresh as you can.
Since they’re big days I imagine you’ll be climbing steady so they should take care of themselves, but as I said I don’t know the specifics.
A bit of strength work won’t go amiss either way, squats etc.
Sounds like a great challenge!
Only carry what you absolutely need. Weight is the enemy here. Are you self supported or do you have someone following?
Keep eating. You need to keep energy coming in.
Pacing. Find a pace that you can stick to. If your legs start burning at the start of a climb, you're going to hard and won't make it up.
Gears. I have an 11-32 (11-34 if I know it's going to be particularly brutal!) and 50/34 for Wales. Don't let ego or peer pressure stop you running the right gears.
And if it's a super steep climb, walking may not be any slower, but it'll give your cycling muscles a rest!
It's reasonable to assume you're going to be riding 8-10 hours each day, so they're relatively long days, plus you'll be stopping 2-3 times so 12hrs+ days. Seriously be realistic about your gearing - it's far easier to sit and spin a tiny gear when you're tired than to grind one that's too big. Do some back-to-back training days e.g. Saturday & Sunday rides to get yourself used to riding consecutive days - 2 x 4hr rides rather than 1 x 8hr ride. Get to know your nutrition needs / likes / dislikes - use them in training rather than trying to something first on the ride to find it upsets you. Whilst some gym work will help in the week in terms of core strength and stretching use it to supplement rather than supplant time on the bike.
Build up time doing reps of the virtual mountains in Zwift etc. and when you deem it safe, reps on your local hills/mountains.
Biggest climb looks to be ~390m heading north from Machynlleth, going on the first route link I found for Lon las Cymru.
https://www.strava.com/routes/16674847?hl=en-GB
For indoor rides on the likes of Zwift, it might be worth entering a more real world weight for your planned challenge...
I'd imagine many Zwift virtual bikes are sub 9Kg as far as far as the physics is concerned
It won't have any weight penalty for water, perhaps 1.6Kg+ depending on your plans
Weight for food and gizmos you will be carrying
Weight for your kit and shoes
etc.
Could easily add 4-5Kg without even considering a more realistic virtual wheelset.
How much do you weigh? Speaking as 90kg rider, being heavy obviously has a negative effect climbing, but this is much more significant on ultra endurance days. Pushing hard on the bike, going into the red, or going over your lactate threshold - whatever you call it - has a big negative impact on your endurance. You can only spend so much time in that zone.
On a 3/4 hour ride I know I have enough time available in that red zone to get me up plenty of big hills, but on an ultra endurance ride I need to stay below the red zone as much as possible. The problem is that because I weigh a lot (for a cyclist) if I want to climb below the red zone then I have to go really slowly and it takes bloody ages.
On a hilly endurance ride this for me would be even more magnified. So if you are heavy (or perhaps even if you are not!) focus as much as possible on losing weight!
Also, fit a GRX chainset! And probably a shorter/higher stem, road bikes aren't usually fun places to sit after 5-6 hours IME.
Pacing - stay at a pace where you could hold a conversation, if that means get off and walk then get off and walk.
Make pace notes (not related to the above): basically a list/table of resupply points with opening and closing times along with distances between them, height gain and expected time it would take to get there. Let's say you are at A at 1700 and you have this:
B garage 0800- 2000 - 50km - 450m - 3h20
Unless you really push it then you aren't going to make it so you might as well restock where you are. If however the closing time was 2200 then you have plenty of time in hand.
Limit stopped time - that doesn't mean rushing and forgetting things, it means being efficient: if the café say it will be ten minutes for your order to come, use that time to nip next door and stock up on trail food, nip to the loo and apply bum cream, etc.
Great tips, thanks !
Was planning to ride it on my Croix de fer but fit a carbon fork to it, so would weigh about 9.5kg, gearings not an issue, 50/34 up front, 11-40 on the back 😉
Will be using a B&B/bunkhouse for the night, so will pack light.
It's just more the type of training, is two sessions of intervals a week and then one long hilly ride per week enough initially ?
Both my parents used to be keen cyclists in their younger days. I remember a cycling book they had, written in the 1930s with tips on touring. One phrase I always remember, and the older I get the more it resonates:
"One hill walked in the morning equals two hills ridden in the afternoon". In other words, take it easy to start with.