long distance

Arthur Clune said:

Quoted message said:

Any advice for cycling long distances? I have tried the constant
eating and drinking. Complex carbs and energy drinks. I heard
something about megavitamin dosing? I am trying to do a 300 km day. I
find if I do 100+km then I feel fine when I finish, but dont seem to

How fast are you trying to build up to 300km? How many stops are
you taking on the way round?

Slow and steady is the way both on the ride and in the way the
distances build up over time. Too much too soon will just knacker
you.

definitely; you need to build up to longer distances slowly; my first
200km finished me, was in bottom gear on every slight incline. And I
had done lots and lots of riding before.

That RAAM TV programme really annoyed me (like most reliality shows),
they thought they could pluck a non-cyclist and train him in a very
short time to do something that is well beyond many experienced riders.
And that bloke shouting at him out of the car to go faster, I ask you.
Listen to the good advice in this thread, many of the people have been
there and done it.

MartinM wrote:

many of the people have been

Quoted message said:

there and done it.

I mean in the context of long distances, not the RAAM; but stand ready
to be corrected ;-)

Quoted message said:

If your progress seems slower than you'd expect, ask yourself:

Is my rear brake rubbing? (I finally twigged after 12 miles).

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

"Bob" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

I really like raw potato. I wonder if it would be good for this kind
of thing?

Eating what you fancy is usually a *good* idea.

Raw potatoes are heavy, pretty pannier-resistant and cheap.

Personally I prefer mine microwaved, but each to his own.

Raw potatos are a bad idea as they can contain solanine, which is the same
poison found in deadly nighshade (they are from the same family)

Tom

Tom said:

Raw potatos are a bad idea as they can contain solanine, which is the same
poison found in deadly nighshade (they are from the same family)

See Dorothy L. Sayers.

R.

"Tom" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

Raw potatos are a bad idea as they can contain solanine, which is the same
poison found in deadly nighshade (they are from the same family)

I thought that was green potatoes (raw or cooked).

I think raw potatoes may be a tad difficult to digest, but if "Bob" has
acclimatised himself to them, he may be OK.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

MartinM said:

That RAAM TV programme really annoyed me (like most reliality shows),
they thought they could pluck a non-cyclist and train him in a very
short time to do something that is well beyond many experienced riders.
And that bloke shouting at him out of the car to go faster, I ask you.
Listen to the good advice in this thread, many of the people have been
there and done it.

They could probably have trained him up to ride LEL successfully, or a
600 km. Audax. Team RAAM was a silly idea for him as it would have
required him to perform a long succession of fast 10 mile time trials,
and he couldn't even do one at evens on a flat course. He might have
been able to plod through his stints but it would have been
embarrassingly obvious that he was pulling the team backwards.

I heard on the grapevine that the bloke in the car, or team coach to
give him his alternative title, was convinced that matey had not
actually done the training that had been worked out for him and that he
claimed to have stuck to, but would have let him ride the event anyway
if he had not had serious safety concerns. He was clearly struggling on
gentle hills, and he fell off for no particular reason on at least one
ride with the team. All the riders had concerns over his bike-handling.
It would clearly have been irresponsible to have let him race on the
highway, particularly in the mountains at night, sleep-deprived and
physically exhausted. He would almost certainly have crashed at some
point. Letting him race on the long descents doesn't bear thinking
about.

Having said that, I wasn't particularly impressed with the way he was
being coached. He obviously needed lower gears for climbing, and his
position also seemed wrong. (I suspect he'd lowered his saddle himself
and no-one had said anything to him about it.) In any case, he was
totally out of place with the elite riders, and sending him out on
training runs with them, and shouting at him when he couldn't keep up,
was just sadistic.

--
Dave...

Richard <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Tom said:

Raw potatos are a bad idea as they can contain solanine, which is
the same poison found in deadly nighshade (they are from the same
family)

See Dorothy L. Sayers.

R.

Which one of the 478 000 pages that google found would you like me to see?

Tom

dkahn400 said:

MartinM said:

That RAAM TV programme really annoyed me (like most reliality shows),
they thought they could pluck a non-cyclist and train him in a very
short time to do something that is well beyond many experienced riders.
And that bloke shouting at him out of the car to go faster, I ask you.
Listen to the good advice in this thread, many of the people have been
there and done it.

They could probably have trained him up to ride LEL successfully, or a
600 km. Audax.

Quoted message said:

Having said that, I wasn't particularly impressed with the way he was
being coached. He obviously needed lower gears for climbing, and his
position also seemed wrong. (I suspect he'd lowered his saddle himself
and no-one had said anything to him about it.) In any case, he was
totally out of place with the elite riders, and sending him out on
training runs with them, and shouting at him when he couldn't keep up,
was just sadistic.

yebbut great TV supposedly, I can't see them doing one for LEL.

back to the OP; is it a growing trend for cyclists to go for more and
more extreme challenges or has it always been like that?; LEJOG being
one example; and now it seems L'Etape is often considered as the next
stage up from doing L2B. And I expect there will be a fair number of
PBP entries from first time randonneurs next year.

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

I thought that was green potatoes (raw or cooked).

I think raw potatoes may be a tad difficult to digest, but if "Bob"
has acclimatised himself to them, he may be OK.

I believe (not that I'm necessarily right) that potatoes don't have to be
green, just close to sprouting. Whether a person can become acclimatised or
not I wouldn't know.

Tom

MartinM said:

.................... And I expect there will be a fair number of
PBP entries from first time randonneurs next year.

Yebbut as you know by the time the qualify they will at least have
completed 4 randonees. I think the qualifiers will let some folk know
they are actually not up to it.

Mark Thompson pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com said:

Quoted message said:

If your progress seems slower than you'd expect, ask yourself:

Quoted message said:

Is my rear brake rubbing? (I finally twigged after 12 miles).

Am I on an old railway line? (trip in Belgium - we only realised we had
been going uphill slowly after we came back the same way and were suddenly
flying. The reason we came back btw was because the station we headed for
didn't exist anymore. The two things may have been related :-)

Roos

Yikes, I've been eating raw potato for over 30 years. That might
explain a few things.

See:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine#Symptoms

Looks like we should all stick to chips:-

"Deep-frying potatoes at 170° C (306° F) will effectively lower
glycoalkaloid levels, but microwaving is only somewhat effective and
boiling is not."

Bob.

Quoted message said:

Any advice for cycling long distances? I have tried the constant
eating and drinking. Complex carbs and energy drinks. I heard
something about megavitamin dosing? I am trying to do a 300 km day. I
find if I do 100+km then I feel fine when I finish, but dont seem to
recover and just want to sleep a few hours later. How do those Ride
across america dudes do it?

Keep shovelling in food and drink that digests easily and has a mixture
of quick and slow-burn carbs. Flapjacks and diluted fruit juice work
for me.

Bob said:

I really like raw potato. I wonder if it would be good for this kind of
thing?

Ugh. When I was younger I tried every vegetable I could find raw, and
potatoes and leeks were the two I'd never touch again. Turnip is
surprisingly nice - a bit like a big mild radish :-)

Quoted message said:

i did 120 km last saturday
(quite steady, not going too fast) without a break

Just done a double take on reading this again - 120k is a /long/ way to
go without a break, especially when that is the extreme limit of your
endurance. You should include a couple of decent rest stops in that kind
of distance, eg at 40k intervals, and have at least one proper lunch
stop where you eat a decent meal.

d.

Yes turnip is good, but I would put potato top of the list followed by
the solid stem of a white cabbage.

MartinM said:

And I expect there will be a fair number of
PBP entries from first time randonneurs next year.

I can't see many L2Bers doing the qualifying rides.

d.

"Bob" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

Yikes, I've been eating raw potato for over 30 years. That might
explain a few things.

Quoted message said:

See:-

Quoted message said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine#Symptoms

Quoted message said:

Looks like we should all stick to chips:-

Quoted message said:

"Deep-frying potatoes at 170° C (306° F) will effectively lower
glycoalkaloid levels, but microwaving is only somewhat effective and
boiling is not."

Quoted message said:

Bob.

I don't eat chips, seldom boil me spuds and microwave them cos it's easiest.

I've not been poisoned yet.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

Zog The Undeniable said:

Bob said:

I really like raw potato. I wonder if it would be good for this kind of
thing?

Ugh. When I was younger I tried every vegetable I could find raw, and
potatoes and leeks were the two I'd never touch again. Turnip is
surprisingly nice - a bit like a big mild radish :-)

Really? Wish I'd read that two hours ago, before turning the whole
of three turnips into soup. What about other root veg? I know
carrot is nice, and I can believe it of parsnip, but ... well,
a swede would be bloody hard work, wouldn't it?

Did you also eat raw those pulses you're supposed to soak overnight
then boil for an hour? (another ingredient of the turnip soup was
chickpeas:-)

--
Nick Kew