Cycling a double century:
On the 6th August, a friend and I decided to cycle a double century. Here's some info about our cycle that might help anyone else planning something similar.
Contents:
1 - The Route2 - Equipment
3 - Nutrition/Hydration
4 - The Ride
1 - The Route
To plan the route, I used the excellent BikeRouteToaster.com website. This site allows you to draw a course using Google Maps as a reference. It also has a unique feature of auto-routing between points, minimising the hassle of clicking thousands of times to follow roads.
The route that I planned was a long loop (around Cambridge, UK) starting and finishing in Saffron Walden. It starts by heading west towards Biggleswade, then north towards Huntingdon, thenall the way northeast to King's Lynn, then east a bit, then back southwest to Saffron Walden - a long way. Click on the map for a larger version.
The route is all on quite minor roads and despite cycling during both rush-hours, it was relatively traffic-free. There are a few places where you need to cross a major road, but not many.
In the main, the route is flat, although the area around Saffron Walden is rolling hills, making the beginning and end of the cycle a bit slower.
Once I had drawn the route using bikeroutetoaster, I exported it as a Garmin .tcx file and imported into Training Center. There I cut down on the number of course points (turn indicators etc.) to make it fit on the device (the Garmin Forerunner 305 can only store 100 points). I then uploaded it to my device.
Here is the route for download (in both GPX and TCX formats):GPX file
TCX file
One word of warning - there are two or three slightly odd sections of auto-routing in the files (very short i.e less than 1km). They can be seen if you check the course carefully on Google Maps, and may need ironing out.
2 - Equipment
- Bike (obviously)
- GPS with home-made bracket and battery pack (see here)
- Saddle pack
- Allen wrenches/multitool
- Puncture repair kit
- Tyre levers
- Spare inner tube
- Pump
- Spoke key
- Two bottle cages
- Two 1L bottles
- Standard cycle computer (Shimano Flightdeck)
Basically - nothing special. Make sure your saddle fits you well, or it could be a painful cycle. Same goes for shoes and general bike setup. Also, make sure you have your wheels checked or you could end up with problems... (see below)
3 - Nutrition/Hydration
During a 200mile cycle, you'll probably spend around 12hrs cycling, which equates to about 10,000 calories (kcal). Therefore it's essential to eat during the cycle. My aim was to get through at least 300kcal per hour by eating energy bars and drinking sport-drink.
You may have realised that that's a lot of energy bars and sports drink... I started off with 20 bars/gels in my jersey and 2L of Lucozade. This is not enough though and you'll need to make regular stocks to refill you pockets/bottles. It's also a good idea to have something salty every so often (e.g. a pack of crisps) to avoid losing salts and getting cramp.
The most important thing is to make sure that you do take on adequate food and drink, even if you don't feel hungry/thirsty. If you get dehydrated then it will be very difficult to rehydrate properly.
4 - The Ride
Our day started at about 5am. We had as big a breakfast as we could handle (or thought that our stomachs could) and got ourselves ready for the cycle. At 5:42am we left the house and started our journey...
At the start we made sure to moderate our pace over the hilly terrain so as not to blow up half way. We settled to an average pace of about 16.2mph. After 3 hours or so, the hills gave way to fenland and the cycling got easier (averaging about 17mph) with only a slight crosswind to contend with.
At a bit over 3hrs gone, we made the first stop to restock with food + drink. We then set off again and barring a few navigational errors (oops) we cycled continuously until we reached the 100mile mark - someway along "10 mile bank" (in just under 6hrs). We sat down for a bit and stretched off, then carried on our way. A short while later we stopped to refill
After about 30 more miles (with the legs starting to feel empty) I had one of my rear spokes break. With no other options, I loosened my rear brake slightly and started off again. The speed dropped a bit over the next 20 miles as we both got a bit tired. We made another stop to refill and then started at a good speed for the next 20 miles or so, putting in a bit of a push.
At about 30 miles to go, things started to get quite tough, we made another stop (or was it two?) for food/drink but we were both very tired now. This tiredness wasn't helped by the return of hilly terrain as we headed SW.
We reached 190miles, and things were looking good to make ourway safely home when another of my spokes broke. My back wheel now had significant wobble and we had to loosen the rear brake completely to avoid it rubbing the rims. As a result, we didn't go as fast downill, fearing that another spoke could go any minute. Another spoke did go, but (shown by the fact that I didn't notice) the bike was still rideable.
Finally, after 13.5hrs, we clocked 200miles finishing at about 7:15. We sat in a driveway for about 30min before finishing off the last bit back home very slowly.
Stats:
Total time (approx): 13hrs 30min
Cycling time (exact): 12hrs 6min 31.2secs
Calories burned (approx): 10,000kcal