Century on a Road Bike – How Hard/How Much Time?

I’ve never done one or even close, but it’s on my to-do list this summer. I’ve got a route planned which is 110 miles with around 1800m of climbing.

I do around 100-120 miles per week of riding with 2 days at over 40 miles, so have a reasonable level of fitness…

Assuming good weather and health, what’s my likely time for this?

Depends how fast you usually ride. Take your usual average speed over similar terrain for 40 miles and multiply up. Allow a bit more for additional stops for refuelling and getting tired etc. and see what you have.

My advice is to keep eating and drinking before you are hungry and thirsty. Little and often. In my experience, the distance once past 60 miles isn’t the killer it is the climbing. If you pace yourself you’ll be fine.

6-7hrs would be pretty good.

Given that you seem to ride a bit more than me, and I did Ride London in 5:45 pretty easily, and that’s quite a ‘quick’ course, you should be able to do it about 6 hours, certainly not much more.

*Edit* ah, sorry, 110 miles. Probably nearer seven then.

I do ~100 miles during the week and either 3-4 hours mtb or 50mil road spin. I weigh 100kg.

Every year I like to do the Wicklow 200 (~125miles) with 3600m of climbing (5 big climbs in it) on generally bad condition roads. There is support at 80 and 140km and a few shops along the way and I don’t like to stop for long.

10 hours start to finish and 9hr 15mins rolling, was unable this year to take part but was hoping to drop that time by 30 minutes as I’ve switched from a flatbar Alfine hub to a proper road bike.

Hope that helps.

6 hours about right at a reasonable pace.

You’ve not given us much to go on. How hilly is your 40 miler? How quickly do you do that? Is that an easy or hard pace? Is the 110 miles going to be solo or with some mates? Are you planning on stopping or completing non-stop?

Ride London in 5:45 pretty easily, and that’s quite a ‘quick’ course, you should be able to do it about 6 hours,

I don’t think a Ride London time is any indication of how quickly you’d do it solo!

as taxi says 6-7 is a reasonable guestimate, really depends on the route and how hilly it is vs what you usually ride, plus how hard you go at it of course. Just make sure it’s an interesting route, road riding in itself is pretty boring imo, long straight roads with no scenery will kill your enthusiasm and make it drag. Rolling twisty roads and nice scenery should help.

If you do 100-120mi/wk you should be in fine shape to complete your ride.
How long it takes depends on how hard you push and how fit you are.
Somewhere between 7-8hrs would probably be the norm at a steady pace.

As mrblobby says how quick are you on the 40 mile rides ?

My 40 miles has about 2500ft of climbing and takes between 1:35 and 1:50 hours dependent upon wind etc, but I’m usually pretty damned tired at the end of it.

Did a 100 miler with 2500m of ascent earlier this year in 6hr25mins. Had one cafe stop of about 30 mins.

For your first 100 miler I’d plan in a couple of cafe stops at say 40 & 80 miles or thereabouts to make sure you get some food in to you as eating on the go might be unfamiliar territory for you. You can also get in to target fixation mode where you view keeping going to get to the hundred miles as more important than getting food in to you.

How Hard/How Much Time?

Two different questions!

It’s quite easy if you go slowly, it just takes time.
It’s quite hard if you go fast.

Also depends massively on the conditions and route too, your route is pretty flat so should be reasonably quick depending on if you stop or not and if you have any navigation issues or towns/lights to negotiate.

I do similar mileage to you (I may not be as quick) and my 100’s vary a lot, a hilly Dartmoor 100 with 10,000ft+ of climbing will see my average <14mph, but a flat 100 with a group of people could be 18mph+, and I know people in my local club who have done Ride London at an average in excess of 21mph, who would be puffing on a 17mph 50miler so I don’t think RL is much indication!

If you don’t regulary ride longer rides you might find pacing or fatigue an issue, as you may have trained yourself specifically for going hard for a couple of hours or so, but struggle with longer rides. Then again you might not!

For a first attempt at flatish 110miles Give yourself a 7.5hr target (~15mph average) and see what happens 🙂

EDIT!

My 40 miles has about 2500ft of climbing and takes between 1:35 and 1:50 hours…

So you’re quite quick then (>25mph average! still >20mph on the longer time), If so then you should be able to do 6 hrs or less.

Really hard question to answer. My advice would be to set off promptly, plan a café stop halfway and not worry too much about it.

Factors like weather, solo vs. group, punctures, gradients, length and type of climb, faff, map reading, café stops can all take their toll.

I’d say plan 8 hours including a café stop but have some contingency to be later home.

If I’m going for it I can get round the local sportive loop (107miles, 2500m) in under 5h40 but anything up to 7h is normal when I do it throughout the year under different conditions.

Try to plan to ride into the prevailing wind so that it is behind you on the way back. Headwinds when you are tired are no fun at all.

40 miles in 1:35 is pretty quick

Hard to estimate as a lot will depend on the weather, if it’s pissing rain and you’re going into a headwind then you’re average could be around 14mph, sunny day with no wind and you could be hitting high teens so anywhere between 6 and 8 hours.

Although I’m sure there will be someone along shortly to say they would do that in under 4 hours with a pie and a pint at 55 miles and a couple of fag breaks in between.

110 miles at 15mph is about 7.5 hours. I’d suggest that is your start point if you’re riding solo. Add a bit for any breaks you have planned, take some off if you think you can do it quicker.

Since you are riding 100 miles a week, with two days of 40 miles, you are fitter than you think you are. I think you should aim for seven hours – that’s total time at 16 mph average including stops – 6:52 moving time.

Remember to eat something every 40 minutes or so and drink often (I’d expect about 500 ml/hr if it is a hot day) and you will be absolutely fine.

You do 40 miles in 1:35 to 1:50? Er that’s over 25mph and 21mph at worst. You are the pie and pint guy 🙂

I’d expect you to do it in 4-5hrs

My 40 miles has about 2500ft of climbing and takes between 1:35 and 1:50 hours dependent upon wind etc, but I’m usually pretty damned tired at the end of it.

40 miles in a little over an hour and a half? Solo? With 2.5k ft of climbing? That’s pretty bloody impressive even as part of a strong chain gang.

Sub 5hrs easily then!

Jeez…i’ve yet to do any solo road ride which breaks 20mph average! It’d have to be 40 miles of downhill to average 25mph for me 🙂

Sounds like you have the fitness already, so just pacing it right, eating and drinking often, and navigation to worry about. As someone much slower than you, I managed to do the Marmotte route (sans alpe d’huez at the end) with much less weekly mileage, so you’ll be fine with a normal century (or 110).

My 40 miles has about 2500ft of climbing and takes between 1:35 and 1:50 hours

yeah….don’t go at it at that sort of pace.

I’ve just checked my Garmin. The route I do is 39.6m (2793ft of climb) and my average over the last 18 times I’ve done it is 36.1kph. There’s a few junctions (maybe 5-10 dependent upon traffic), but nothing major. Since I know the route well, it’s quite easy to go for it if I’m feeling okay.

I won’t know this route at all, so that’ll knock it down.

900m of climbing over 40 miles at 22mph average is seriously fast… I think you’ll cope.

As near as makes no difference your solo average average is 22.5mph then, which is mighty impressive, so even backing off to an ‘easy’ 18mph average for you should see it done in a smidge over 6hrs.

It should be easy for you, even if you’ve never done the mileage before it’s only a bit more than doing your normal ride twice back to back.

Is this a wind up? 🙂

At a steady pace you should be able to easily do sub 5hrs.

You really should have been riding that thing in france a couple of weeks ago.

I follow a few pros on strava and they’re not hitting that sort of pace on solo rides.

Is this a wind up?

A subtle variation on the humble-brag, I believe 🙂

Daffy you’ll be fine, those sort of speeds put you in the top few percent of non professional cyclists. Just knock of a couple of MPH and cruise around in 5.30 !!

mrblobby – Member
Is this a wind up?

Honestly, it isn’t. The longest distance I’ve ever covered on a bike is 55 miles and sprinting my 40 miler (in my mind) is quite different to the 110 I’m about to try.

I guess what I was asking for was a pacing speed average which I should aim for.

On my 40 miles, I’m trying to maintain a speed above 35kph, but maintaining that speed has me pretty much in agony for the last 10-15% of it. I was thinking of aiming for 25kph and speed up toward the end if I felt okay…

If this really isn’t just a humble brag…

If you’ve never really done anything close to 100 miles things and only smash out short rides and only average about 100 a week, you might struggle with pacing for the distance and bonk a bit (just nibble away at food from the start). And you might get a bit sore around the contact areas.

Ah your pace it would be reasonable and challenging to target sub 5hrs.

Edit…

On my 40 miles, I’m trying to maintain a speed above 35kph, but maintaining that speed has me pretty much in agony for the last 10-15% of it.

I assumed that was more a training pace (z2/z3). If that pace has you on your limit then you might be better off aiming a fair bit lower. As you say ~3025kph.

A subtle variation on the humble-brag, I believe

🙁 Unfair, I didn’t put anything about speed up until asked and not really being a road biker, I have absolutely no idea what’s good or bad. I watch the Tour, which puts things in perspective really.

I didn’t put anything about speed up until asked

That’s the subtle variation 😀 (and my smiley indicates it was a tongue-in-cheek comment anyway!)

You should race, 25mph averages will see you away in a lot of winning breaks…

Unfair, I didn’t put anything about speed up until asked and not really being a road biker, I have absolutely no idea what’s good or bad

Ok. Well given benefit of the doubt… you are pretty good 🙂

FWIW most of my training rides (around z2/z3 with maybe a bit of interval/tempo work) come out at around 21mph for 40-60 miles (~2.5k ft of climbing). But that’s a sustainable training pace and not beasting myself. I’m a decent level club rider and occasionally podium at open time trials. Depends on the route, but if I was looking for a bit of a challenge I’d go for sub 5hrs for 100 (road bike, rolling route, good weather.) You sound like you’re at a pretty similar level (though annoyingly off of a fair bit less training time 😉 )

Unfair, I didn’t put anything about speed up until asked and not really being a road biker, I have absolutely no idea what’s good or bad. I watch the Tour, which puts things in perspective really.

That’s the way humblebrags work, drop a hint, wait for the questions, boom. I find it hard to believe that you don’t know that 22-25mph is good or bad.

Daffy, you will be fine. The only caveat is watch out for cramp and tightness around the knees. A slightly off cleat position can reveal itself during longer rides which remains masked in short ones.

I replaced some very worn Look cleats the night before Ride London and it was only after about three hours that I noticed one was very very slightly off. Nothing serious, and since corrected.

Yes, it’s definitely those little niggles that can become big problems on a long ride. A mild case of numb nuts or a bit of a stiff shoulder after a 40 miler can be debilitating after 80 miles.

Gary_M – Member
t, wait for the questions, boom. I find it hard to believe that you don’t know that 22-25mph is good or bad.

In my own defence, people on this forum were saying that 15mph average, over an hour, on a 26″ MTB with nobbly tyres was an easy feat last week, so 22mph average on a road bike didn’t seem like a big deal.

Would I be worth investing in chamois cream?

Apologies for bringing my ass into this conversation.