Training for epic tour mileage advice?

[roubaixtuesday]

1100m in 100km isn't actually particularly hilly if unladen.

You'd do double that in a typical Peak District ride.

You'll be fine on 700km a month. More distance and more hills is even better, obviously. Much better on the bike than a trainer. Take and use prophylactically chamois cream or similar my main advice.

 

[CXRAndy]

I generally do somewhere between 40-60 km rides every other day, rather than consecutive days too often. But the climbing stats are the big difference - even the "toughest" course round here barely ticks that elevation number.

Might try shifting my routine around to do 3 days on, 1 off for a couple weeks and see what breaks.. :-)

Build up your riding duration (hours in saddle) and frequency (back to back rides) steadily to acclimatise your body.

Gear down your bikes gearing, I mean ridiculously low gearing-consider fitting a triple crankset and something like 11-40t cassette. You will not regret it being able to spin the legs at a really slow speed when feeling tired on a long mountain climb.

I geared down my bike for riding in the Alps and Tenerife, everyone chuckled at my gears, but each day I was able to steadily spin up the multi-hour mountain climbs - where some fitter younger riders had to get in the support vehicle because they had over geared and under estimated the toll of big mountain climbs takes on the legs grinding your way up

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Some excellent advice already. If the chassis needs work then I’d add in some strength work to your routine. The individual daily distance and elevation is nothing extraordinary. Where the toll comes in, is doing it day after day after day for a bit over a month. Strength work will help with that.

As far as the riding goes include a mix and short and hard and long and easy. If you haven’t done a 100km ride, or you don‘t do them that often, then do some. Make it so that 100km feels comfortable for one day. It’s not a mental barrier or something that makes you nervous. You can go out and do 100km at any time. If you’ve got hillier routes include them, if you’ve nothing long do a few loops or repeats of some hills. Once you are comfortable with 100km in a day, try doing it 3 times in a row. The challenge of multi tour days is being able to recover each evening, so that you can repeat the distance and terrain indefinitely, without your speed or condition dropping off. A 3 day tour of 100km each will give you an idea and how you do when doing it day after day.

The way I get comfortable with hills is to go out and climb the hardest steepest or longest ones near me. I cannot replicate the length of hills elsewhere so I’ll do repeats or loop round a circuit. Similar to 100km holding no fear, you get to the point no hill holds any fear as you’ve done the very steep, and you done so many repeats you know your legs can handle long efforts.

Now onto the Alps, assuming you mean the European ones. The climbs will be long and but fairly steady. A climb might be 20-30km, and thus you’ll get the climbing in 3-5 climbs or passes per day. As above get suitably low gearing and you’ll be able to settle into it, at a comfortable effort. No doubt the company will plans lunches at suitable points throughout the day, giving a break say once every couple of hours or so. Riding in the alps is great.

Sounds like a great trip.

 

[presta]

Anyone done such a trip (in mileage terms) and what did you do to prepare for it?

For my money, the big secret to keeping going for a month non-stop is to realise that the pace you can set all day every day is a lot slower than you can do for just a few days. Some of my tours came to an end because I got carried away on a day when I was in a good mood, and it all felt very easy. My longest and easiest feeling tour was the one I did after a big reduction in training for about 7 months, (and also with an undiagnosed heart arrhythmia). But then, most of my problems were caused by overtraining in the first place, which is probably why my touring performance showed relatively little correlation with training activity over the space of a decade or so:

It appears that the only slight effect is between daily tour mileage and average training speed, and even then the correlation is not that strong.

One rather interesting thing I discovered is that the correlation between mood and performance was much stronger with performance as a cause of my mood than it was with mood as a cause of performance.

 

[Tigerbiten]

For my money, the big secret to keeping going for a month non-stop is to realise that the pace you can set all day every day is a lot slower than you can do for just a few days. Some of my tours came to an end because I got carried away on a day when I was in a good mood, and it all felt very easy.

I agree. Some of the hardest days I had on my long tours was always the 2nd day after a day off. The first day after, the legs felt fresh, so it was "fun" to push to fast/hard. Always paid for it the next few days.

Alpine climbs tend to be long 6-10% slopes with the odd 10-15% kicker at the top. So you don't need ultra low gears to climb them, but they help. I'd aim for a 1st gear in the low 20" and towards a 6x gear range. Something like a 34/50 compact double with a SRAM 11-42 11 speed would work fine, 122"-21". It's always better to have one more gear down and not need it, than the other way around.

 

[Jameshow]

Some excellent advice already. If the chassis needs work then I’d add in some strength work to your routine. The individual daily distance and elevation is nothing extraordinary. Where the toll comes in, is doing it day after day after day for a bit over a month. Strength work will help with that.

As far as the riding goes include a mix and short and hard and long and easy. If you haven’t done a 100km ride, or you don‘t do them that often, then do some. Make it so that 100km feels comfortable for one day. It’s not a mental barrier or something that makes you nervous. You can go out and do 100km at any time. If you’ve got hillier routes include them, if you’ve nothing long do a few loops or repeats of some hills. Once you are comfortable with 100km in a day, try doing it 3 times in a row. The challenge of multi tour days is being able to recover each evening, so that you can repeat the distance and terrain indefinitely, without your speed or condition dropping off. A 3 day tour of 100km each will give you an idea and how you do when doing it day after day.

The way I get comfortable with hills is to go out and climb the hardest steepest or longest ones near me. I cannot replicate the length of hills elsewhere so I’ll do repeats or loop round a circuit. Similar to 100km holding no fear, you get to the point no hill holds any fear as you’ve done the very steep, and you done so many repeats you know your legs can handle long efforts.

Now onto the Alps, assuming you mean the European ones. The climbs will be long and but fairly steady. A climb might be 20-30km, and thus you’ll get the climbing in 3-5 climbs or passes per day. As above get suitably low gearing and you’ll be able to settle into it, at a comfortable effort. No doubt the company will plans lunches at suitable points throughout the day, giving a break say once every couple of hours or so. Riding in the alps is great.

Sounds like a great trip.

First three days will be tough after that you'll get your touring legs back!

 

[CXRAndy]

I agree. Some of the hardest days I had on my long tours was always the 2nd day after a day off. The first day after, the legs felt fresh, so it was "fun" to push to fast/hard. Always paid for it the next few days.

Alpine climbs tend to be long 6-10% slopes with the odd 10-15% kicker at the top. So you don't need ultra low gears to climb them, but they help. I'd aim for a 1st gear in the low 20" and towards a 6x gear range. Something like a 34/50 compact double with a SRAM 11-42 11 speed would work fine, 122"-21". It's always better to have one more gear down and not need it, than the other way around.

My lowest gearing was around 17 gear inches with a 26t chain ring and 40t cassette. I rarely used it only for super steep gradients. I mainly used 20 gear inch with was the 36t cassette. I was always glad to have a super low spare gear or two, where I could really dial back my effort get my heart rate down to recover but still keep going

 

[presta]

I agree. Some of the hardest days I had on my long tours was always the 2nd day after a day off. The first day after, the legs felt fresh, so it was "fun" to push to fast/hard. Always paid for it the next few days.

There are always days when you're forced into doing more than you're comfortable with, and when they came along I would always set off at a snails pace, full of anxiety, and paranoid about biting off more than I could chew. As a result of taking it carefully at the start, I would finish in fine style, bowling along effortlessly with my mood on a real high, but then having spent all evening really buzzing, a mistake I made more than once was to get up the following morning full of enthusiasm, thinking "I've got this cracked now", and end up busting a gut......yet again.

First three days will be tough after that you'll get your touring legs back!

Generally, if I misjudge my pace, there's no going back. I cocked it up cycling from Blackpool to Chester once, and knew it as soon as I got off the bike feeling green round the gills. I ploughed on for another week through Snowdonia, but no amount of being careful was any good, and I had to quit. I thought I'd done the same again on the long climb from Newcastleton to Saughtree a couple of years later, but on that occasion I did actually manage to recover. I misjudged my pace when I was overtaken by scores of racing cyclists who make you look like you're going slower than you really are, in fact I'm so slow that I have the same problem even when riding with ordinary non-racing cyclists.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

First three days will be tough after that you'll get your touring legs back!

erm perhaps direct at OP. I am not the one asking about touring 😂

 

[Jameshow]

erm perhaps direct at OP. I am not the one asking about touring 😂

I was offering general advice!

Obvs you RTT (ready to tour) at the hint of sunshine!!

 

[The Crofted Crest]

Simples! On the first day, you train for the second. On the second day, you train for the third. And so on. By the time you get back, you're fit enough for the first day.

 

[Wheelspinner]

Thank you for the input! I’ll up the frequency and variety of riding and see how that goes for a couple of months.

This tour is London to Rome, over 39 days total with 31 scheduled ride days, so there’s reasonable rest. I agree about the gearing comments - I saw their standard specification and thought it seemed a bit ambitious, given that’s the kind of ratios even professionals use in the mountains. So, will see if there’s options, or look at taking my own bike instead.

Time to get busy!

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Thank you for the input! I’ll up the frequency and variety of riding and see how that goes for a couple of months.

This tour is London to Rome, over 39 days total with 31 scheduled ride days, so there’s reasonable rest. I agree about the gearing comments - I saw their standard specification and thought it seemed a bit ambitious, given that’s the kind of ratios even professionals use in the mountains. So, will see if there’s options, or look at taking my own bike instead.

Time to get busy!

The gear ratio should be fine for a supported ride on a road bike.

French roads, even the very highest, are very well graded, almost never above 10%. Nothing like as steep as many uk climbs.

 

[CXRAndy]

We don't know the weight of the OP. If he's a lightweight, a reasonably low gear probably will suffice for alpine mountains. Being a Clydesdale myself, I always preferred to have a few extra gears to reduce my effort, so much so I could drop back into Z2 on a climb and plod away without stopping. sometimes stopping can be worse than just slowing down.

In the end, I'm sure he will sort his fitness levels and bike setup to achieve his aims

 

[Webbo2]

The gear ratio should be fine for a supported ride on a road bike.

French roads, even the very highest, are very well graded, almost never above 10%. Nothing like as steep as many uk climbs.

So the first Col I look at the Joux plan is 11.6k long with average gradient of 8.6% with a max of 12.8%. So never above 10%🤔