What power zone/HR for 7 /8 hour race?

Dirty Reiver weekend ( well 130) and i have no idea how to pace it. I guess it’s too long for threshold so tempo?

Zone 2 or 3, followed by a sprint finish.

I am not a racer.

The sprint finish is important to remember you finished well 😉 ( wink emoji, just in case it vanishes)

Sounds a great day out, hope the weather is glorious

I (suffered) 130 on my road bike over easter. I ate every hour and kept it in zone 2+3. It was flat, I’m not in great shape. I could walk with out whining after I finished so thought I’d done well.

Have you trained for it? Have you done it before? Are you used to similar amounts of climbing?

All this sort of stuff will affect it.

I did it last year and just kept it steady. I live in a very flat part of the country and didn’t find the climbs too bad. Nothing particularly steep, although some of them went on for a bit.

I made sure I ate and drank plenty and tried not to get dragged along by faster riders. Ended up doing the 130 in under 6.5 hours which I was pleased with.

When I did it lots of folk started FAST and I’m really glad I didn’t. For me, trying to think about power zones for that long would give me a melted brain. If you keep things at ‘conversation’ pace and eat eat eat you’ll be grand

top end of z2 for the first half minimum, no pushing any climbs just spin. if your feeling strong into the last half / third up the tempo a bit. youll feel a champ as you overtake all thr guys that went out too fast

Quickest time will be from hard effort up climbs, recovery on downhills and moderate effort on flat. If you’ve trained for the event and know your abilities, you will know if you can manage the climbs at z4 power/hrm. If you feel good towards the end, you might feel ok to do last climbs that will take less than ~8mins at z5.

Check what options your gps computer has and see what might help, as regards power and heart zones (which you could get from the likes of https://intervals.icu/ . For instance, my Lezyne has an alarm you could set for a high hrm figure, which could be set at the top of your recent known top of z4 (LTHR).

I race 12h TTs at the Zone 2/3 boundary (about 140bpm or 2.8W/kg when race fit).  Since there are no hard efforts (hills), this has proven a very good strategy. Off road, I’d lend more towards Zone 2 and expect excursions due to terrain.

My 12hr strategy was bottom Z3 on the flats, then just sub threshold on the climbs.  Worked for me.

I think z2 is going to be slow?

I have been doing zone 2 sessions on the turbo and trying to build up long rides but it’s not easy over the winter.

I’m not really racing, just want to finish.

If you just want to finish would a better strategy be to set a target time, work out the average speed to achieve that, and then try to keep just above that? This would allow you to take in the scenery rather than stare at your HRM all the time.

Looking back at my ride from last year (I chose the 130), I averaged 142bpm with a max of 168bpm which I think was at the top of the first proper climb near the start. I don’t have a power meter, so no idea on that side of things.

It showing as 6h11mins but I think that is moving time. I briefly stopped at the first feedstop to put my waterproof on & whack some lube on my chain. At the second feedstop, I topped up my camelbak & ate the most unchewable OTE flapjack I have ever experienced. I think the total event time was 6h28mins, which went really fast & I was quite surprised when the finish line came into view.

How many long rides have you been managing & how similar will they be in terms of climbing? I did a reasonable amount of training for it; mainly endurance stuff with longer rides on the weekend getting up to about 90km.

I would tend to err on the side of caution, particularly from the start. The terrain does start to take it out of you.
Get half to two-thirds of the way round and consider whether it’s worth upping the pace or not. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to go out too hard & then suffer towards the end. Weather will play a big role. Loads of people on the 200km route last year dropped down to the 130 as it was wet.

Other things to consider.
Give your bike a once over. Couldn’t believe the amount of people on some really expensive kit having mechanicals – some barely any distance from the start. Also, punctures galore!
Eat & drink plenty & regularly.
If the weather looks a bit rubbish, consider chucking some mud guards on. I took my mtb crud guards & they worked a treat. Anything to make the ride more pleasant is worth it I reckon, if you aren’t treating it as a race.

Set your virtual Garmin partner to a speed you want to maintain and chase him all day. I also do that for pacing. Can be dispiriting if you’ve been a bit too optimistic though. Finish strong whilst all about you are dying is a great feeling. And EAT A LOT! Long events are exercises in eating not cycling.Something every 30min. Gel-food-gel-food-gel… is my strategy. With ad libitum jelly babies/bloks for good measure.

I think z2 is going to be slow?

Like I said, Z2/3 boundary not bottom of Z2! At the beginning it ALWAYS feels odd spinning along at 140-145bpm up the inclines in a low gear, when you know you can go so much harder. At the end, you’ll be glad of that measured start.

Longest rider this year has been 50 miles which is a bit concerning but that was in the Lakes so it was more like MTBing and took all day. I live on the edge of The Peak, so all rides have plenty of hills.

Mudguards are on.

I’m concerned that long gradual climbs will be tough mentally.

If you can ride 50 miles you can ride 130.  Do as we;ve suggested,  Top end of z2, if you feel good push harder in the final half or third of the distance.  Do not push hard before you hit half way or you will likely cramp out and be in lots of pain for the rest of the ride.

You don’t sound like an experienced racer at these distances so just keep it simple.

Don’t get drawn into racing anyone if it means you HR is getting too high just let them go, same with climbs.

I’ve had my fair share of dragging myself through a final few hours of a race after cramping in both legs.  Certainly character building.

and eat alot as others have said, you also need to train your stomach to use those sugary gels, they make me very ill after 2 or 3, so I tend towards high calorie solid food I know I can eat and enjoy.  Like 6 melton pork pies.  yum.

Longest rider this year has been 50 miles which is a bit concerning but that was in the Lakes so it was more like MTBing and took all day.

I’d take heart from that, it’s 2/3rds of the distance, 130km is only another 30 odd miles, and if it was a bit rougher it’s always going to beat you up more and burn matches faster.

As others have noted If you manage yourself to ~Z2/Z3, spin climbs as much as possible and remember to eat little and often, say every 30-45mins you’ll probably be fine.

And eat half mini-pork pies every few hours. Thank me later. Everyone needs savoury. I run on liquidised sticky rice and tuna with Worcester sauce! In freezer bags.

I’m not experienced in any kind of racing. This will be the longest ride I have ever done.

No plans to race anyone, hoping to draft as much as possible.

I will see what speed I get at top end of Z2 (131bpm). If I average less than 10mph I will go higher because I don’t want to be out over 8 hours!

And just read Joe Friel:” Novices will find it incredibly difficult to maintain zone 3 for long periods of time. They will often fade and fail to finish events of such durations if they attempt to hold zone 3″

Reading with interest as I’m doing a 100km etape at the end of the month. Rather less than you OP but I have no experience and it’s closed roads with a cut off time.

Looking forward to it more now that I know I can eat pork pies rather than gels!

z2 will feel very slow, actual mph is irrelevant, its what your body can maintain.  I don’t even have speed on my garmin when in ‘race’ mode.

I just looked up my last 100miler with decent climbing, I averaged a hr of 144, z2/z3 border is around 148.  with regards to power it will really depend on how fit you are, I’m now pretty unfit, so the power I can maintain for a given HR is much less, but my HR zones are pretty much the same.  So I find for distance its easier to ride to HR.

Honestly avoid those gels unless you know you can consume alot of them, if you are lucky you will just be sick in the evening, if your unlucky it will kick in before you finish, not nice.

I use a mix of jelly babies, pork pies, mini cornish pasties and mint imperials to keep me going.  Occassional caffeine gel if I feel really bad and need a pick up

I’ve not done the Reiver, but on Audaxes I like to vary the pace in blocks to break it up a bit.

First 1/5th – brisk, it’s nice to keep up with the faster groups

2/5- settle down into a comfortable group, have a chat, fuel up.

3/5 – pick up the pace slightly, sit on the front of the group and do the work to feel like you’ve had a good day out.

4/5 – everyone’s knackered, chill out, wait for the slowest in your group up hills. Unless you’re in the front group the winners have probably already finished by now anyway.

5/5 – solo to the finish leaving the group for dust and winning your own personal race.

I was just thinking about that. If I’m zone 2ing, I can pop into z3 for 30mins or so to get up a hill can’t I?

Maybe even go to FTP pace for the last hour (listen to that optimism! 🙂 )?

Yeah, you’ll inevitably go up into higher zones as you are unlikely to have the gears to get up the hills in Z2.
I don’t remember any of the climbs being particularly long, it’s just you seem to always be going up a hill or back down a hill, to start going up another hill.

I do love the optimism of just popping into FTP pace for final hour 😆
If you can genuinely do that, then I think you probably will have gone out too slowly.

You can cover decent ground on the descents. I found it frustrating as I kept catching people going quite slowly down the hills, but it can be quite nerve wracking to cross out of the natural ruts into the deeper gravel to overtake – it can get very sketchy.