Increaing Miles per day

Qikgixxer said:

I'm just starting out and was wondering how long it took some of you riders to get up to 40 or 50 miles a day and where you decided to stop increasing your miles per day.

One's ability to increase their mileage is going to depend on several factors, such as 1) how fit they are, 2) how old they are (or better, how quickly they recouperate), 3) how much rest they can get, 4) nutrition and 5) genetic potential.

It's hard to compare increases in daily mileage from one individual to another because so many variables are different. I tried to increase my time (I train by time rather than mileage) on my long weekly ride about 10% a week which worked up to a point (~3 hours). However, continuing at that 10% rate was too much of a % increase for me so I stayed at 3 hours for a while before working back up again in order to get accustomed to that much saddle time.

After about a month at 3 hours I was able to move on up to 3 1/2 and 4 hours without any trouble and eventually did 6 hour (80 miles) and 6 1/4 hour (century) rides last July and September respectively.

That's as far as I've personally ever cared to ride. As to your other question, other than doing a century just to see if I could do one and to have something to shoot for, I feel like 50 miles or a metric century (62 miles) is plenty to prove one's mettle.

This year I had a goal of doing a 50 miler most weekends, which as of last year took me 3 - 4 hours depending on which bike I used and how hard I was willing to push. Training was going very well until I came down with a bad case of bronchitis which trashed my Spring goals so I got kind of [censored] and frustrated as those plans went down the toilet. These days I just do GPP training and 30 - 45 minute sessions on the trainer 3 days a week. Maybe later this Summer or Fall I'll shoot for some new personal bests.

I ended up being able to do 40-50 at about the second month of riding. Time available to ride was the biggest factor for me after that. I can do a long (3+ hours) ride at least once over the weekend. During the week I end up having between 1 and 2 hours each day. It worked out better for me to train harder in those shorter rides than plodding along grinding out miles on fewer high mileage rides. Now when I do a long ride, lo and behold I can add some pace to it. Coaches can be right after all I guess. 😄