One of the first questions people ask after learning that I’m
going to ride more than 75,000 miles in one year is how? Do you have a plan or are you just going to
go out and ride 206 miles every day?
Actually, I do have a plan and it’s based on going
incrementally farther and faster as the year progresses and I have more
daylight to ride. My plan calls for
riding long six days a week and doing a century ride on the 7th day
as a rest and recovery day.
Everything in the plan is just an estimate since much will
depend on the weather and where I can start and stop each day. My goal
is to start out riding 10 hours a day the first week on my long rides and then
add 10 minutes to the time ridden each week as I get more daylight and better
weather. I plan to increase my time on
the bike to 14-15 hours during the summer and then taper it back down to about
10 hours a day by the end of 2015. My
speed goal for riding is to start out riding my long days at about 17 mph which,
for me, is actually a little slow. As
my fitness improves, my average speed will get better and by mid year I should
be riding at around 20 mph or better and should be able to hold that fitness
level for the rest of the year.
I put together a projections spreadsheet that uses these assumptions
to show how to accumulate more than 78K miles.
The spreadsheet also shows the mileage that was accumulated by the
current record holder and how far ahead of schedule I should be as I progress through
the year. The
fact that my projections are on the low side for the speed I ride and the
number of hours that I need to commit combined with the fact that these
projects give me two weeks of burn days, (days I don’t have to ride because of
weather or other emergencies), leaves me very confident that this can be done with the help and support of my family, friends and cycling community.
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