Hacker News Reader

Comment by iechoz6H | Hacker News Reader

Disclaimer: I have not read the article.

I have ridden 230 (hilly) km in a day (10.5 hours from start to finish, 9 hours actual pedalling time). So I'm going to guess that the conclusions are similar to mine, which are that it was tough and one simply can not eat enough salty potatoes.

View on HN

Potatoes! In 1988 I rode from Portland PDX up to Astoria and down to N. LA in 17 days, with maybe 30lbs of gear. Camped every night. I was very poor. Lost my wallet the first day, noticed 50 miles out. I returned to where I thought I lost it, nope, had to spend the night in a homeless shelter in Vancouver across the river before I could get a wire the next day. (I learned a lot about life talking with the "homeless" people in that shelter. They took me in, as I was just another variant of "hobo" to them) The next day I retraced my previous day's path, so add on another 100 miles, maybe 1400 in all.

After about 5 days, I could no longer afford the required volumes of regular food. So eg. half gallon of chocolate milk and a lb of sharp cheddar cheese for dinner. I always thought I'd get bored eating that much cheese but I never did :-). I treated myself to regular food for lunch. I also lost 15 lbs on that trip.

One of the best experiences of my life. I do remember being bored with chewing though.

To be clear, I'm not bragging here about an "accomplishment". It wasn't. RAAM, or PBP, those are accomplishments. The fellow who did the Tour de France route this year unsupported is a monster.

The article is even more insane. He was trying to do that on rice cakes. Eventually the calorie deficit got to be too much and he had to switch to brownies.

I didn't read it as if they switched away from rice cakes but that they used brownies in another event. Rice cakes in general are pretty great as on-bike nutrition and used by world tour teams.

EF-Nippo's recipe for example: https://www.efprocycling.com/team-recipe-on-the-bike-rice-ca...

Rice cakes can be calorie dense. You use cream cheese and add molasses/honey as well when you're making them.

Well, probably not cream cheese since the rider is vegan, but sure.

That's extremely impressive, and super fast, to be able to maintain an average like that. Was that a circle or a one-way? (because of wind)

Circular (single circuit in South Wales), I was 45 at the time.

That's really quite the feat. I wrote in another comment about a trip I did but that took considerably more time.

I was in a group ride which makes quite the difference speed wise.

Ah yes, that really helps, you can keep each other out of the wind and rotate the leader. That would certainly help your average speed. Still, quite a trip.

The difference between 100km and 200+ is significant, most people could probably do 100 km trips if they tried, my mom did these until she was well into her 70's, but around 150 or it changes and 200+ is really a different game. I'm not sure what the cause of that is, it's definitely not a linear increase.

I don't think there is a real barrier between 100km and 200+. It's more a conditioning problem. I have seen many people who don't look especially fit successfully complete 100 mile rides here ("centuries"). A big part of the conditioning is teaching your body to burn both resident fat and the easy to eat things you get on the ride, either from the sag stops or from what you carry (or buy). I taught my body to do this every year, for many years, by going on a long ride in the spring and deliberately provoking a bonk. After that, I was good to go for the rest of the 8 month season.

Now, for not necessarily thin people, this requires mostly flat terrain, but in the Eastern US that's not uncommon.

If the route has a lot of vertical gain, well, you need to be fairly thin. Then it is pacing, staging your eating, and mindfulness.

If you examine the times posted in every Tour de Tucson, for example you'll see many excellent times by people into their 70s and beyond. I am very admiring of your mom, BTW.

There is, probably everybody knows, a community that embraces the contradiction of your observation with a tremendous gusto that is its very reason for existing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randonneuring

From that article:

"and receive equal recognition regardless of their finishing order"

I really like that. Much nicer than the behavior you get when the finishing order matters, especially when on public roads, and I don't see how you could do trips that long without doing them on public roads and still have something interesting.

But the riding on public roads is what all of us ever did. Not "especially". For 45 years I have been a member of the cyclists who just ride on public roads.

Since COVID I have not done a century but I feel an overwhelming need to do several now, on public roads.

The amount of time it takes to complete whatever distance it is is immaterial.

Cycling tracks are boring as hell. I've tried that a couple of times but it really isn't for me. The upsides (no other traffic, safety) do not begin to offset the downsides. The same goes for digital solutions.

But what I probably should have written better, is that on public roads means 'open to the public' as well, and the way groups that are on racing bikes tend to upset traffic even though the roads are open can be quite irritating. I've seen groups of guys on fancy bikes block traffic, make the bike paths very unsafe for oncoming traffic and cycle on the main roads as though other traffic did not exist. That's fine on a closed course but not when the roads are open.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com