How long are you comfortable cycling for on a regular basis?

[a.twiddler]

The averages are meaningless unless you are talking just about the average of a self-selecting cohort of people who like cycling for hours as recreation/exercise and are on cycling forums.
I doubt that average/most cyclists cycle for anything like these times or distances.

Probably the readers of this post, or forum, are self selecting anyway. A minority of a minority. I tried Audaxes 45 years or so ago and didn't take to them. I used to ride longish distances but I preferred my own schedule. Then in between, life got in the way. Only recently have the longer rides returned, and being ancient, I tailor them to my abilities.

 

[presta]

The averages are meaningless unless you are talking just about the average of a self-selecting cohort of people who like cycling for hours as recreation/exercise and are on cycling forums.
I doubt that average/most cyclists cycle for anything like these times or distances.

It isn't just about who's answering the question either, it's also about exactly what question they're answering. If I'm going out for a full day's ride it'll be 6-8-10 hours or so, but not all rides are full day rides, and not all days are riding days. Then are we talking about the time spent with the bike moving, or the total time from departure to arrival? Then there's how often you're doing it: the distance you can cover in a day is different if it's just one day to what you can manage if it's every day. And lastly, the distance you can manage on a regular basis will be very different if you eat and drink regularly to what it'll be if you try to ride on starvation rations. What applies to distance also applies to speed, the harder you flog yourself the sooner you'll tire.

And that's before you get into ride conditions like weather & terrain......

 

[presta]

Velocio's Rules:

1. Keep your rest short and infrequent to maintain your rhythm.
2. Eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty.
3. Never ride to the point of exhaustion where you can't eat or sleep.
4. Cover up before you are cold, peel off before you are hot.
5. Don't drink, smoke, or eat meat on tour.
6. Never force the pace, especially during the first hours.
7. Never ride just for the sake of riding.

 

[Pblakeney]

Velocio's Rules:

1. Keep your rest short and infrequent to maintain your rhythm.
2. Eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty.
3. Never ride to the point of exhaustion where you can't eat or sleep.
4. Cover up before you are cold, peel off before you are hot.
5. Don't drink, smoke, or eat meat on tour.
6. Never force the pace, especially during the first hours.
7. Never ride just for the sake of riding.

#3 is really weird when you experience it.
#5 & #7 are utter horlicks!

 

[derrick]

In the UK a couple of hours, in Spain all day. so next week i will be doing lots of cycling.

 

[All uphill]

Velocio's Rules:

1. Keep your rest short and infrequent to maintain your rhythm.
2. Eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty.
3. Never ride to the point of exhaustion where you can't eat or sleep.
4. Cover up before you are cold, peel off before you are hot.
5. Don't drink, smoke, or eat meat on tour.
6. Never force the pace, especially during the first hours.
7. Never ride just for the sake of riding.

I've done all of those! Do I get a prize??

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Anyway about 7 hours these days. But that's definitely not without food!

I don’t think the question meant without any food. Entirely different question to ride fasted.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

My comfortable duration anytime of year is the hours between sunrise and sunset. I can ride that back to back days, being good to go again each morning.

That doesn’t mean that is what I choose to do with my time on a bike every week. If your riding is monotone long duration only, then so your fitness will be. You’ll be slower than you would be with more variety in your riding. I have short high intensity rides, long low intensity rides, and ones in between each week.

I am an active audaxer, and thus our comfortable durations are somewhat to the right on the scale. In terms of actual physical comfort, no duration limit really, as I ride a recumbent and if I’ve eaten and drunk properly I’ll feel nearly as fresh as when I started a long ride.

Today was this week’s long ride; a comfortable 6.5 hours with a cafe stop for lunch.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I'm so lazy sometimes.

I know that the latex tubes in my 50mm wheels lose air over a few hours.

I'm really sensitive to saddle position, even with my Selle SMP Extra, needs ~11mm drop between rear and front peak.

So why after using turbo almost daily since November, am I not either inflating the tubes before each session, or swapping to a wheel with a butyl tube?

Some rides this past ~7 days have been agony after ~25mins, while when setup properly, I can do ~90mins!