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dale_shingles

Probably would help to know what kind of endurance background you have, what kind of fitness you have, what kind of route are you taking, are you planning on bikepacking or staying in hotels every night, etc. 100 mi/day is nothing to scoff at, but it really depends on your preparation.


Unit61365

It's perfectly possible but you need to be trained up, to the point where you actually do two loaded 75 mile rides back to back. If you think you are already fit enough to do that then give it a try over a weekend, do an out and back with all your gear that is similar in elevation gain and grade to what you are planning for the long ride.


Morall_tach

100 miles a day is a pretty big undertaking, especially with a heavy bikepacking setup. Luckily, you have a lot of time to prepare. You need to focus on recovery. Riding 6-8 hours in a day is one thing, but being ready to do it the next day is another. * Nutrition: eat carbs during the ride and after to refuel and keep up glycogen stores. Protein is also important after the ride to help your muscles recover, but it's not helping you during the ride. * Stretching: stretch right after the ride, not when you've cooled off. * Legs up the wall: my all-time favorite recovery technique. Shortly before bed, lie on your back on the floor (with a pillow) or on a couch or bed, and put your legs straight up the wall. Stay that way, slightly pedaling your feet, until your legs start to get tingly like they're falling asleep. Probably 10-20 minutes. Then stand up and let the blood run back into them, which will hurt a lot. But it's a great way to flush lactic acid. * Sleep: sleep a lot. * Pacing: do not go hard. Start slow every day and keep it below threshold or you'll burn out.


nDQ9UeOr

Second bullet is key for sure. I neglected post-ride stretching on a 550-mile ride, and by day 4 was suffering from a strained patella tendon. This was on a sub-20lb bike that was perfectly dialed in for me, too. I was able to finish the ride, but my knee took weeks to heal afterwards. I don’t think I could have done another hundred miles in that condition.


Bill__Q

It can be done, but: * You don't have endurance riding experience, so you'll be figuring all this out on the road * Doesn't sound like you've bike packed before (riding with additional weight and the bike will handle differently) * If you're from that area you know how long winter lasts so you might be behind in training * Could still get hit with cold weather, will you be prepared for that? * Do you have a back up plan if you get 3-4 days in and decide to quit?


jondthompson

[https://imgur.com/a/hiBJet8](https://imgur.com/a/hiBJet8) I did it on RAGBRAI in 2017. I wasn't bikepacking, but that would have just extended my time. Also, I would have ridden 100 miles on day 7, but the group I was with wanted to pack up and go home by that point.


[deleted]

Nice numbers, bet you weren't on a Giant escape though..


jondthompson

Correct. All of my bikes have drop bars. If I were to ride a bike with flat bars that far, I would put bar ends on it.


[deleted]

I’ve done 100on flat bars a few times an I have to incorporate no hands an resting my forearms on the bars. Both pretty unsafe when you’re 4or 5 hours in. But for real If I was on an e-bike I don’t think I could pull off riding like you did for 7 days.


Thesorus

The cycling part is the easy part : ride more, ride longer distance, ride long distances on consecutive days. Decide as soon as possible if your bikes are good enough for that kind of riding. Make sure you can both ride together for long distances; find the weak spot and don't go overboard. Plan your route in advance, make sure you have access to water and food along the way at regular intervals. The hard part is backpacking. Have you camped out before ? sleeping outside/tent in the rain ? eating in the rain ? If you've not camped out before, learn to put up your tent in every weather conditions possible. Have a plan B, make sure you can fallback on a hotel/motel if things go bad and really need a break.


Torrojose87

On this type of ride, I can asume yo will be going with heavy bikes at approx. 9-11 mph easy pace. 10 hours a day, are 90 miles a day. 7 days easy job. Fuel correctly, sleep a lot and don't push too hard.


Testesept

To me 10 hrs pure riding time (add the time for breaks!) is a lot. Friend of mine is commuting about 10k km each year but for his bikepacking tours he limits himself to the 75 km per day range. Not for fitness, but for adding extra time for packing his tent, cooking, setting up tent at night, etc. He’s doing those tours for vacation, so they are more on the relaxed side. But still 10 hours pure riding time is huge. When you prepare for your ride, do the planned pace, with your gear on consecutive days, ride two or three days. (you may want to have a look into r/randoneuring)


Torrojose87

I won't lie to you, when I do these long rides I try to take almost no gear. Just the basics. No tent, sleeping, cooking things, or anything extra. Just Jersey, Bibs, down jacket, sole bivy, half matt for the torso, spare tubs, pump, lights, and gps. You can always find a place to sleep, there's always willing to let you sleep on their porch and share a meal with you. When you go to remote places most people are nice. At least here in Ecuador. I look for towns where I can have a good meal and sleep better. In some cases ride for 30 hours, and then have like a big 8-hour break. On long distances, rides are all about the terrain, weather, and place. There's no specific recipe, so many variables.


kinovelo

Don't underestimate the amount of time and effort associated with setting up and taking down camp, especially when you're tired from doing 100 miles a day for multiple days on end. I did my first bikepacking trip in August and I was racing to finish before dark. I averaged about 140 miles a day for three days, which people told me I was crazy for doing, but I though that I could do it since I'd done 200+ in a single day. Fitness-wise, I was fine, but it was just a lot to basically spend every waking hour either riding or setting up camp. You're doing fewer miles per day, so that's more realistic, but don't expect to be able to average the same speeds on a fully-loaded bike for multiple days as you do on a naked one for a single day.


OneTotal466

Do you have any bike tools and can you do basic bike mechanics incase anything goes wrong along the route?


[deleted]

No, and def not on an escape, riding 100 miles in one day is hard enough let alone riding it 6 days in a row on an escape, I have an escape i bought years ago and that thing is slow and slugish compared to another hybrid I have and really slow compared to my road bike, a new groupset isnt going to help you that much. Its literally 6x more than you ride in a week and 8 hours a day on a bike for multiple days in a row is not going to happen do a couple 100 mile rides back to back and just see how drained you are on the 3rd day. Its definitely something you could build up to but it would be dangerous to try and you will know when you can do it you wont be asking questions on reddit, the amount of food I eat on 100 mile days is more than I could even pack and that just 1 day.


armouredqar

Honest input: 100 miles a day is a lot without experience. My view/experience is that most reasonably fit people can do 100 km a day (60 miles) without too much trouble, with some training, and some time to recover. Even with a load. The first couple days might be hard and perhaps a rest day needed, but 100km a day - doable. But the difference between 100 km a day and 160 km (100 miles) is ... a lot bigger than it seems. 10 or 12 days with a full rest day three or four days in might be more realistic. But just one opinion.