Yep, very Doable. look at audaxes for a good way to do big rides, and ride in a group. a few years ago I did 100km, 200km and 300km audaxes within about three months. great fun, and if you take your time not a massive ask. the 300km, with cycling to and from the start / finish came in at 240 miles, and took about 15 hours

for perspective, my mate did the Mersey roads 24hour TT and did 413 miles….

Check out Steve Abraham’s Strava…
https://www.strava.com/athletes/1419435?hl=en-GB

I’d like to have a crack at 150mi or at least 200km next year, just not sure where the time’s gonna come from.

Todays distance for for Tommy:

“Tommy Godwin rode 204 miles today in 1939 making his year total to date 67,742 miles [equivalent ride: Lincoln to Poole]”

from @yearrecord on twitter.

Long rides are ace. Rode from London to Newcastle this summer with 5 friends. 300miles, about 21 hours.

Well worth it. I’ve been doing a lot of long rides this year. Upwards of 10 hours. Takes organization and recovery but rewarding.

Things I’d suggest.

Plan a route (bikehike) have a look for towns, shops etc. so you can break down the ride into chunks and know where you can refill water and food. Cafes are great but petrol stations and supermarkets are worth considering for cheap food, quickly. On our 300 miler we were unsupported so this was essential as we ate a lot!

Also look at the climbing. When you are doing a hundred miles you can rack up some climbing and it is fun to add more. If you double the distance you can make it too hilly. For example I have a 300miler planned for next year (Newcastle-Carlisle-Edinburgh-Newcastle) and I am struggling to keep it below 5000m of climbing.

Service your bike. Make sure you kit is comfy. Buy some sachets of chamois crème so you can re apply.

Find a friend – Not sure I’d have got round some of my longer rides alone, mentally it can be tough when things go wrong and you are tired.

As distances get longer it is really just a case of managing your pace and fueling. Work out a sensible pace and stick to it don’t go hard at the start and then finish dead. Better to hold back for the first 100miles (7-8hours) and be consistent towards the end. If you realize you’ve gone too easy at the start just ride the last 50 like a TT.

This is an appealing idea, but I’d have to start a few miles west of Dublin unfortunately.

Do the Dunwich Dynamo Double in early July 🙂

Park in Dunwich on the Sat morning, nice ride in to London, couple hours rest there, spot of dinner, join the en masse night ride back to Dunwich.

Awesome fun and you solve the ‘how to get home’ conundrum that’s the only tricky bit of the ride.

I did SDW, then this, then back on a mtb for the Ridgeway Double, this year.

As mentioned it’s really rather easy to do 200 miles in a day on a roadie. CrazyLegs points out all the issues I’d raise so no point in doubling up.

I did Manchester-London with a group earlier this year, whilst planning our route wasn’t much of an issue pace was. If you are on your own don’t set off too quickly, pace back to less than you normally ride at so if normal is 28-30kph peg it back a bit to 24-26ks at least for the first couple of hours.

Then Arse Up, Head Down and hack it to your destination shouting Strava all the way.

Does that help ? 😆

Also, London-Paris in 24h via Newhaven. Or Dieppe-Paris-Dieppe. Return ferry is only £35.

You’ve clearly got the fitness and the time so why the hell not 😀

My longest is 130 miles but before that it was 50 odd. i finished the ride with loads left in the tank and feeling fresh as a daisy

The missus did a 205 miler 4 months after getting her first road bike. Averaged around 14mph over 16 hours so a nice steady speed.

Was the ‘Chase the Sun’ ride – started at sunrise and ended at sunset riding coast to coast, east to west across the south of England.

Hmm, I live on the Isle of Wight and may need to do the double road circuit next year. I’ve done the single without too much drama in the past, so the double would only be about ~130 miles.
Something to aim for…

Echoing much of the above: if you can do the SDW with more to give then 200 miles of road should be straightforward. (I’ve done way more than 200 miles on the road, but I’ve only chalked up—pun vaguely intended—one failed attempt at the SDW.)

You’ve identified the one real issue: comfort. It took me time to migrate from MTB to road position (and position is 95% of comfort on the road IME), and as I worked up past 100 miles to 200 to 300 or so I kept finding little things: something that is fine for 8 hours in the saddle will flare up after 12; you solve that and then find something that flares up after 18 hours, and so on. But 200 miles should be around 14 hours plus stopping time (I usually do 170 miles in 14 hours, including stops, and I’m not fast), and I’d say if you can do 200km in comfort you’ll be absolutely fine for 200 miles.

As crazy-legs says, fuel is the other issue. You come to learn what works for you.

Indeed.

I remember the first time I did 100 miles, over a decade ago. It was January and my bottles were Slush Puppie after 5 miles, I had cramp in every leg muscle after about 40 miles, and after about 80 miles I still had the cramp but couldn’t feel it anymore because my legs had gone numb.

“Easy” is relative.

I would also recommend going down the Audax route. You could build up to a 400 by doing some 200s, and it’ll be more fun than doing it on your own.
I also agree that comfort is one of the key things to sort out for very long distance events. I did two 400km events this year, after a couple of decades away from Audax, and discovered that the saddle that I have been riding for years and thought was OK, was actually quite uncomfortable!

We do Scorton-Scotland-Scorton (almost) every year, that’s 200. Long day but if you pace it and eat well it’s doable.

http://www.strava.com/activities/181161708

Depends how hilly it is. It the road miles are like Fred Witton (never done it but seen the statistics) I’m sure they wouldn’t be anywhere near.

But if its flat road ride on a road bike compared to a very hilly off-road ride then it might be 2:1

I tend to find that if I stop for say, more than 10 minutes I have a really hard time setting off again. Therefore I tend to try to carry as much stuff on me as I can so I don’t need to stop. Did a longish ride last year of 130 miles and made the fatal mistake of stopping for lunch. Despite being careful about what I ate, I really struggled to get going again and it made the rest of the ride fairly miserable, even though the second half was more interesting riding.

Pacing and eating I struggle with too. It’s quite hard to understand just how much you need to eat on a long ride, I never eat enough. And I always set off like a rat up a drainpipe and pay the consequences later.

Maybe long distance isn’t for me…

Wouldn’t work for me, I’m slightly knees-in so I’d rub. Which is a shame, because I’d like a food store near the top tube. I tend to fill a jersey pocket at stops and work with that. I normally have a Pipsqueak bar bag, too, but that normally has a camera/phone in it so there’s limited space for food.

It’s just getting used to it. Until a few years ago my experience was much like yours.