I might have written about this in the Loros recap but I intended to do a 100km ride at over 25kmh average speed shortly after the big Loros ride. Well, one thing led to another and I ended up not doing that very quickly. After the Loros ride I ended up getting a mild injury on the back of my leg (from bending down to play pool on my new-at-the-time 5ft table :3 ) and then I got ill, then went to Scotland, and then stuff happened and it was winter now.

So I set the goal to do it on Winter Solstice, sort of like I did my first ever 100 mile ride on Winter Solstice 2021. I didn't do much training for this, but I have started riding faster again after 2 years of fully zone 2 on the road. It's definitely sparked more love for the road again. I like pushing on for sure, rather than using the road as a recovery ride from MTB and such.

The goal was set, the practice runs were done, about 2 weeks before I averaged 26kmh or so around a 25km loop, and that's when I decided to do the 100 because that felt fairly easy. The Monday before the attempt on the Sunday I did 2 laps to check that the route worked and gave me the right distance, which is did (more on that later) and I averaged 27.1kmh which I really didn't expect to break this new 50km record on the day.

The Friday comes and it's been raining all week, I head out for a short loop (one lap of the Sunday track) and it's flooded. One way there's a bridge, but it makes my lap speed go from easily 26kmh down to 24.4kmh... Not good, I am worried. I'd have to do more distance here too, since I definitely couldn't go the other way around as that has no bridge (though I have been sent a video of someone riding through it, much braver than I am... And a lot wetter). I just decided I needed to do it, and hope for the best. At the very least it really should be a new PB in the 100km, as that was still from the original 100 mile ride (I've never since done 100km on my own and without significant stops for cafes)

The loop for those who know it is the A group first week of TDQ, for those that don't it's almost a figure 8 loop, heading out down the main road to the end village, sliding off to a side road, turning around at the train tracks, heading back the straight way, rejoining the main road home, then sticking out again past the golf club. The golf club route was the part that was impossibly flooded, so I had to take two laps down the main road part.

The saving grace of the route was that there's a ringroad around the town that starts the ride proper. I ride down from my house, then over a roundabout that I'd rather not cover 4 times, so doing a lap of the ringroad was always going to happen on laps 1 and 3, then home for a bottle refill, piss, and snack on lap 2, and finish on 4. The new plan was to do as many laps of the ringroad as it took to bring it up to 25km on the first lap, head home on the second and not worry too much that the distance would be 48km or so, make sure I'm on 75km before leaving the ringroad on lap 3, and then finish it all off on lap 4 with the ringroad before heading home.

The night before I ate a shitty pasta and sauce because pasta = fasta.

On the day I set off at just before dawn, having had shreddies for breakfast, and a marmalade sammich and spicy bottle (30g sugar, 3g salt, 750ml squash) on the side waiting for my return on lap 2. I headed out down to the loop at a decent pace, but trying to keep it cool. Going out at zone 4 would be killer by the time I got to lap 4, so I needed to keep it feeling easy, but it was hard. I was nervous and it was incredibly misty out.

The first lap went well, 26.3kmh. It was still foggy as fuck when I finished this lap, which I was hoping wouldn't be the case, but I took my coat off anyway as I was getting hot and I damn well knew it was a big aero drag.

The second lap was faster for the same heartrate. Some of that was now being warmed up on the bike, some of it was having taken the coat off, but it was a LOT faster. 26.8kmh doesn't do it justice, there was a stop on this lap as the mid ride piss and bottle swap happened before the 50km mark (manually lapping at 25km intervals).

Lap 3 now, I've got a fresh bottle but opted not to take the sammich. My gummy sweets in my pouch were serving me well, and it was cold enough my jaw hurt, so I didn't want to have to chew on a sandwich here. Lap 3 was a flyer though, I could feel myself getting better and knew what I could hold so ended up with 27.6kmh which surprised the hell out of me! The fog was still here, but onto lap 4 I went.

I probably started increasing the speed a bit early into lap 4, but I felt I could hold it. I'd seen the 27.6kmh for lap 3 and knew I could beat that 27.1kmh average speed for the 50km that I did in testing (I didn't hit out on that run and aimed it to be just for practice of the first two laps and keeping it normal). I got to the top of the steep hill near the half way point absolutely shattered. Legs finally screaming at this point, I pushed on down the hill and through the rollers. The 10km back to the loop was painful but what was to come was worse.

I got into the ringroad at about 95km, meaning roughly 3 laps of the ringroad. Each lap with a stiff headwind, and loving tailwind. I really ramped it up here, this was the end. My heartrate never went past zone 4.5, I was just shattered and had no sprint left in me, but that was a good thing to feel, knowing if I squoze out this last few minutes it'd be a damn impressive time.

I pushed across the 100km line at 3h40m56s

Grid of distance, time, speed, heartrate, and elevation difference for a bike ride.

The important one: 100km, 3h40m56s, 27.2km/h, 161bpm

Distance Time Speed Heart Rate Elev 5 mile 16:27 29.3 km/h 158 bpm -27m 10K 20:31 29.2 km/h 158 bpm -33m 10 mile 33:43 28.6 km/h 164 bpm -30m 20K 42:42 28.1 km/h 160 bpm 1m 154 30K 1:04:04 28.1 km/h 163 bpm -1em N+ 40K 1:26:04 27.8 km/h 163 bpm -25 m i+ 50K 1:47:53 27.8 km/h 162 bpm -6m DB 80K 2:54:51 27.5 km/h 161 bpm -15m +4 50 mile 2:55:43 27.5 km/h 161 bpm -16m N+ 90K 3:16:57 27.4 kn/h 161 bpm -30m b+ 100K, 3:40:56 27.2 km/h 161 bpm 7m

Lap Distance Elev Tine Speed Power HR 1 25.00 km 7a 57:00 26.3 kmh 156W 160 bpm 2 24.99 km 3m 55:54 26.8 kmh 181W 160 bpm 3 25.04 km 6m 54:29 27.6 kmh 176W 159 bpm 4 24.96 km 2m 53:35 28.0 kmh 177w 165 bpm 5 3.89 km 4m 10:24 22.5 kmh 120w 144 bpm

An absolutely amazing time! I celebrated, looped to the end of the ringroad and crawled home. 27.2kmh the final count

Now it's getting very late as I type this, so I'm gonna wrap up, but that was the best I've ever ridden my bike, and the hardest thing I've done in my life in a physical sense.

But here's the main takeaway from this... Stopping for 2 minutes and 38 seconds total on this ride (for the mid ride swap, at a junction, and for a second piss on lap 3) brought down the total from 27.3kmh to 27.2kmh, after nearly 4 hours, and 100km, AND that 27.3kmh includes the "lap 5" of the crawl back up the hill home, my legs aching, and I averaged 22.5kmh. With my first lap I ended it at 57 minutes flat for 26.3kmh. If you stop for 15 minutes you need to ride around 1kmh faster for 5 hours to make up that time.

This PSA is aimed directly at the people I cycle with who insist on riding harder, complaining cycling is hard, and then stopping for bloody ages at cafe stops even when we could be getting on. Making the timecut is easy if you stop less.

Anyway, I'm very proud of myself for this ride, and mildly proud of myself for actually writing this post. Hopefully more to come as in the next few days I should be out on the new (to me) Gary Fisher in the forrests of Wales hitting it on the proper downhill tracks on a full squish I can set up properly.

See you all in the dirt!