65 years old, biked across U.S. 3X, excellent advice video. 90% mental, nutrition, rest, train to necessary level, calm confidence in ability and base miles.
Love that Mark Beaumont is asking us for advice on endurance riding. "Yes Mark, I'm just back from a 100km ride that nearly killed me - and I think I have a few things I can teach you..."
Hahaha I literally am just back from a 100km ride and since that i have only showered, eaten and been lying on my bed coz it finished me 🤣👍🏻 and my advice is that a big fat döner kebap is the best revovery meal after having had that protein shake
I think being desperately broke & hungry teaches you more that your capable of doing anything you need to do. the endurance rides like Mark went on go a long ways towards that experience but he still had support and he knew the whole time that he had support, and he could call it quits at any time he wanted and go home to a nice warm bed. when you're broke & hungry and you don't have that safety net but you still manage to get through it, it changes your mindset, and your priorities, forever. people bitching and complaining about stupid unimportant things really pisses you off, for example.
@@better.better That's why it's sport. Of course having financial or even existential problems is not the same. The idea it that in sport you can push you're boundaries so you learn how to to deal with challenging situations. I agree it's not the same, but it might help.
Extreme view point. Your TIME philosophy has nothing to do with endurance bikes. Endurance bikes are only concerned with straight line philosophy and cornering philosophy. Endurance bikes reduce the amount of sideways wobble by 50% or more.
I cycled around Taiwan in July and up to the summit of Wuling (3250m) 85km of climbing. 8 Days total, was an amazing experience in a beautiful country. Recommended!
This is a great video with lots of great tips. However I want to point out that many cyclists are stuck on the idea that have to do long rides and big miles to feel validated as a cyclist and don't realize there is a lot of value in a short ride. I used think that way too but not only was it hard to put the time in to keep up the fitness and do the bigger, longer rides but I also didn't feel fulfilled. Safety was a concern as well as a local rider was killed doing the Trans-am and I too was venturing out on high speed roads to get the distance. A couple years ago I started doing shorter rides like 5-15 miles, in or around town and involving trail. With this I started riding more often and having more fun. It just fit better and still does. Sometimes I loop but I generally like to find places where I can stop and just hang out for bit and more recently I have been doing some "mini-packing" where I bring the gear to make lunch or tea/coffee. And while sometimes my rides are party pace others involve a much more "spirited pace." Don't disregard small rides!
Wrong. Terrible video. Simple geometry. Endurance bikes reduce sideways wobble by 50% or more. Its okay to endurance ride for 10 minutes. Its just about straight line philosophy and cornering philosophy. Everything else is just mental illness. You can tune How much sideways wobble the bike does when you ride it. You can reduce the 3 mid corner change in direction features, down to just 1 corner change in direction.
Couldn't have said it better myself. If you do 3 to 5 rides a week,thats OK too. I try to ride as often as possible even if it's a 10 or 20 mile ride. It'll add up..
Endurance rides are to help me escape from the challenges life has thrown at me over the last few years. Some may say I’m running (or riding) away from the challenges, but my head is a place that I need to be when riding my bike. It’s why I’m looking forward to attempting Scotland’s North Coast 500 in 2021. An escape, a challenge, and memories IVJ
Wrong. Its just 2 simple wheels and a simple frame to tie the wheels together. Its got nothing to do with life changes. Get a grip on reality. Its just a product tuned to a different riding philosophy. Endurance bikes just reduce the amount of sideways wobble by 50% or more. Its got nothing to do with coast to coast riding.
I take my bike on a train or a bus.....sometimes 100km, sometimes 100 miles......and I have no choice but to bike back, and preferably before the sun sets. I stop for lunch....a few coffee stops, and I get home feeling like going out for dinner. Honestly, compared to waitering in a busy high end restaurant, bicycling 100km is a relaxing day. 100 miles, on the other hand.....that can be challenging for me. Still, nowhere near as difficult as a 10 hour shift as a waiter.
Cycling in an awe~inspiring place is what motivates me.... I cycle in Taiwan and always want to explore what is over the horizon and want to see the views from the mountain summits.
I connect with the emphasis on seeking a challenge in order to escape the comfort of my everyday life. When I retired I felt overwhelmed by the comfort that surrounded me. Endurance cycling and bikepacking has been my escape. However, at my age I seek out challenges but don't intentionally seek out suffering!
I think I’d differ with Mark’s comments at around 2:30 min on the video. Life is hard. It is very hard. But I think committing to hard, endurance, physical efforts allows you to realize that you can overcome mental challenges around those activities and thus survive difficult circumstances and probably endure even more than you thought you could.
I think that's heavily dependent on the individual person. My daily grind is more a psychological hard thing than a physical challenge. So I seek the physical challenge from cycling while life thought me to be mentally hard and just keep on biting when it starts to hurt.
Calm down Freddy. Do these bikes create world peace? These bikes are actually only designed to reduce the amount of sideways wobble by 50% or more. Hard work is your business. Endurance bikes just redirect wasted energy into forward motion.
Their reasons to do it don't do it for me. First of all, you do it because you enjoy it, you want to be there, you want to ride. You don't do it for some future benefit, but rather you are benefiting as soon as you start spinning. The more you ride, the more immediate reward it provides to you. Without that, it would not work for me.
Great advice. It's certainly a mental exercise. I once rode the End to End in 6 days unsupported carrying 4 panniers (this was before bike packing). I pushed myself every mile. When I finished it, the next day, I couldn't even push myself to ride 18 miles to the nearest train station. I was done for. It was only because I couldn't get a lift that I had to cycle.
This is a hard one. Especially as excuses start piling up and gaining momentum the longer you're on that ride 🤣 so you really have to have huge goals beforehand that they still exceed the ever increasing excuses.. at least that's my case
When it gets really tough in anything I do I think about the soldiers in war and how grueling it is for them and what I’m doing is not even close to what they are going thru. It puts things in perspective for me. I’ve bonked really hard a few times and kept going pushing thru the pain using this mindset.
Thanks for the tips. Fully agree. I love endurance and love to introduce my friends to it. A key point for me is to learn to read your heart’s pace. As much as possible: keep the sane rhythm so you can save energy and reach long distances.
A relay race across America would be nice! It is about 4,626 off road miles. If teams of two did 100 miles at 10 mph the entire ride could be done in just over 19 continuous days.
I'm no expert on endurance but I did manage 1500 miles down to the Alps and back this September without bonking once. My 3 tips for success: sugar, sugar, and sugar. I constantly had a hard boiled sweet in my gob. And some sugar in the water bottles.
Having got in to cycling only last year and then come across Mark and his efforts around the World, supported by Laura, I decided to give it a go in a small way and did my first multi-day ride in the summer and had a bash at doing 250miles in 36hrs. The thrill of it, with the physical push necessary and yes, the pain towards the end really made me learn about myself, ultimately in a good way. It showed me I’m capable of doing far more than I thought I ever could and that I could probably do more with a little more planning, preparation and execution.
Endurance bikes are actually only designed to reduce the amount of sideways wobble and put all the wasted energy into forward motion. Your mental illness is between you and your doctor. Simple wheels and simple frames have nothing to do with 200 mile torture exercises. Go discuss your extreme views at the appropriate video. Go over to the I WAS A FOOL to misuse my simple endurance bike, video.
I can confirm this. I used to be clean-shaven; now I have a beard and moustache and I'm a bit better at riding farther -- only a bit better, because my moustache is by no means fabulous.
I'm a big fan of a proper cooldown. I always do a zone 1 spin down of at least 5 minutes at the end of my rides. And since Dylan Johnson demonstrated in one of his videos that stretching doesn't make you faster, and since I hate stretching, I've completely removed stretching my legs from my recovery regimen: tight muscles are fast muscles! But, yeah, the easy zone 1 spin after my rides is something I never skip (can't really afford to skip it since I don't stretch). I never have cramps or sore muscles, even after super hard rides. Heavy legs, sure, but I don't get pulled muscles or cramps. I attribute that to my religiously doing a 5+ minute of zone 1 cool down (usually ten minutes or more).
I'm pretty new to road biking, I've been doing 50k every week for a few weeks then a 64k, getting a bit ahead of myself now and feel like I can 150k now ha-ha. I'm a little bit obsessed, watching this has definitely sobered me a bit and given me something to take on board.
Adaptation Training. I like that. Hope I can do the big ride next year. Vätternrundan 315 in June. Thank you for the book - have it on my nightstand already - and this video.
Outside of riding: yoga, breathwork, meditation & SLEEP. Whilst riding: eat, eat, drink, eat eat, drink, repeat and don't stop until you're off the bike is what I've learned the hard way. AND I agree with Laura, a vegetarian diet based on seeds, grains, rice, oats, greens, nuts and lots of fibre rich nutrients will make a world of difference!
Like their smart looking, matching outfits. Love the term "cafe rides." It’s nice to have a buddy to cycle with on long rides. Inspiring video, even if you are just a social, errand-running, cafe rider.
Fueling and long trips( time in the saddle :) 5 and 10 mile hit sessions have helped tremendously with endurance duration, thank you for fueling my obsession 👍....
Great video! Couple of weeks I went on my longest ride so far, 100km and these pointers helped a lot. I know it might not be as impressive as other have said, but it meant the world to me 🤓
Crazy human. You're way out of control. These bikes are just designed for an alternative straight line philosophy and a alternative cornering philosophy.
210 miles in around 14 hours of ride time. I was planning to attempt the gravel race across Michigan this year which would have been I think 214 miles. But of course most all organized rides went bye bye this year. I've done the ride across Indiana (RAIN) on 2 occasions (164 miles) This year I haven't really gotten myself comfortable on my saddles for some reason. So it's probably a good thing I didn't get to attempt that double century.
@@jeffpedals wow. Good stuff. Im still at 126. Maybe i need to try a long ride in the US. The island i live on is 7 miles X 21 miles. And only certain areas are good for riding. The monotony might be a hindrance in my quest for a long one.
The name is "MAD CLICK" ,the king of endurance road bike cycling in INDONESIA . He is hit a record 1945km in 4 day alone , ride a circle in java island . He is a legend .
I did my first ahead last year, having done a 60 mile event the previous yeah. Firstly I took advice and watched lots of Katie kookoborough. The best way to train for cycling is to cycle. That said. On the 160 ahead I took 2 x 1 l8tr bottles of sis go. I had a bag of jelly babies, two flapjack lots of jells. I even built in a tea and cake stop. I had set the bike up for comfort. But I also took lots of tools etc. The old mantra 2 is 1 and 1 is none sprang to mind. So spare tubes, back up charger for electronics, jackets, gloves tools etc. Phone, plastic and cash.essential in case of breakdown. Another interesting piece of advice that I didn't appreciate at the time. Gear your bike for the last 30k. I still had the 12 30 on the back, which is not bad, but the hills on the last 10 miles were killer. So I got a wolf tooth and popped an 11 40 cassette on. This smoothes the effort on the ride and means that I don't burn out on the hills. Stay away from coffee. Burns through your reserves. But have munchies in the car. I was completely blown. Munchies helped me recover enough to be safe to drive. Don't put heating on full, even if you are shivering on swarm day. It can kill you.
Everyone else in my area drives to their ride start point and back. I don’t have that option. I can’t mix cycling and transit either. I figure whatever the ride length I’m trying to participate in I need to be able to do at least double that because I need to be able to get to the start point, do the ride, and get home all on the bike. Probably normal for you but where I’m at it’s still mostly car dependent infrastructure with transit number two and cycling as number 3. It’s kind of weird, I was a sprinter in high school but that’s not an option where I’m at.
I think it would've been nice to mention carb loading a few days prior to your endurance day. I did this for my 130 mtb ride over the weekend and I felt I had much more energy. Great video! Thanks GCN
Your body does not store carbs for more than 24h. After that it's just fat. The key is to be able to use the fat as energy source and only use carbs for high intensity periods
My first all day ride (March) ended with me in emergency after a hidden angled rumble strip tossed me face first into the tarmac. Haven't been back on the bike since. Memorable yes. Forgettable I hope.
Glad to know I'm not the only one who has OCD about shifter hoods and stem/handlebar symmetry. Drives me crazy and will definitely wreck a ride if things aren't lined up properly, even to the point where I'll stop to fix it mid-ride. My riding friends don't get it....
I'm motivated by the nearest bathroom, which in these parts can be 10 miles away. But all that indigestion does pay off with hard farts that absolutely clear out the peleton. Mud flaps anyone? I blast to victory and know deep down, that ma ma's crunchy bean soup was totally worth it!
at what point does it make more sense to walk than to pedal? at what hill gradient? i know it wont be possible to judge grade accurately but maybe speed can help us decide
It's really about experimenting with what works for your body, available fuel and that particular day's ride (weather, terrain, length, etc). We're gonna have to embrace the love of science on this one, my friend.
Nice presentation and very useful for those of us working to go from recreational riding to more endurance type events. I missed the link to your book. Could you provide please?
Great video. I would like to know more details about long ride. Where do you camp or live if you can not find any inns/hotels at all in part of your trip? Or you have to schedule the route to pass a inn or hotel before you start? What if you are behind your schedule?
Most people bring a sleeping bag, pad, and tent and find places to camp along the way. Where you are able to camp will depend a lot on where you are cycling though.
I just did 40 miles yesterday....and I knew I probably could have gone another 10 miles...but I saved it for another day as it was my first time going this distance...Its taken me about 3 years to reach this goal...I have lost ALOT of weight in the last year and can see the improvement in my riding just off losing weight...I have long term goals of hitting 50 miles 80 and then 100 miles...and this video had the exact info I am looking for..I am working on eating right along the way drinking the right amount water...I also dislike the idea of wearing Cycling kit and cleats...is this stuff absolutely necessary for endurance riding? anyhow thanks for the Info.
Fwiw, I only use regular sneakers for my longer cycling tours. I prefer to be able to move my feet as it suits me. I am riding a MTB that I have made some adjustments to (new saddle, higher steering bar etc.). I wear cycle pants for comfort, but especially the cycling gloves with thick paddings are a must for me. A helmet is self explanatory. Usually I bike 80-140 km a day. However the resting days is something I still need to put some attention into - I recond I will need a resting day for each 3 days of riding at my current shape and riding style. Enjoy your rides :-)
Btw, refueling.... Very important topic. Set an alarm to make sure you refuel regularly, e.g. once every 30-40 minutes (water+ electrolytes+ some carbs). And remember to put fuel on before you even start, and afterwards as well.
Feel like you guys missed one point here -- maintenance skills! If you can't trust your bike, then whether or not you've got the brawn and determination to ride all day is irrelevant. Knowing how to fix a flat & adjust your derailleurs or brakes can very suddenly and unexpectedly become essential knowledge in the middle of a 200km ride. If you only have to worry about your own limits and not those of the horse you rode out on, you can quell a lot of anxieties about venturing out too far past the horizon!
What a about doing long rides on Ketones? Never really touched on, can we get something on this as People go to ketones instead of glucose for health reasons so it's important for many of us
Where are the cars? Traffic? The things that question your survival? It would be wonderful if I had the road to myself rather than fearing what's coming up behind me for the entire ride.
What's with the Half a Building in the background above Hank's left foot as he's stretching on a lawn at 14:42 ? Is it an optical illusion or some half finished Country Estate Folly?
In the video & the book, core exercises are touched upon. Between the time required for endurance rides and the rest of life, where do you make time for strengthening your core? What exercises do you prioritize?
@@aemediainc interesting that as i am no way a Fizik person but i love using spesh BG saddles like toupe, romin etc. Can ride all day on my Toupe Expert
On Mark’s early point about modern living not having much real challenge.. that’s why I try not to use the word “suffer”. Those marginalized and have low income, struggling to make ends meet. That’s real suffering
Haha - Ooops guess I did it wrong again Dad ! ... I took a 235km ride with 7ltrs water and 5 apples because I couldnt sleep ! Oh and yes my old mountain bike didnt fit any of your profiles and was stuffed with a tent, camping gear and a lot of camera and drone gear. It was fabulous and took 14hours 45 mins with photos and drone flights. So I think the message is - just get out there and do it you will be surprised what your body can do ... this ride was a hot tropical day in Guangzhou China.
I'm with you 100% on keto. I do everything fasted and on water though I am not an ultra-distance rider. Keto and some water works for at least the first 100 miles. After that some real meat, veggies, salt, hydration, and a good night sleep. I have a performance two-wheel recumbent that lets you ride 33% further for the same effort and no resulting neck, butt, or hand pain. I will probably do my first 12-hour time trial in the spring if the COVID problem has settled down enough. During the ride I will go into deep ketosis as is usual on my longer rides after the easy glycogen is gone. It will be fun if I do enough appropriate extra long hours training.
Since you asked... one of my favorite tips for surviving long rides is to mentally break it up into smaller finishes even if it's just a road sign ahead or a certain small-town you're headed for, and to celebrate the small finishes along the way to the big finish. Great Video
Torturing yourself is your business. All endurance bikes do is offer a different riding philosophy to the racing philosophy. The straight line philosophy and the cornering philosophy. You ride in a straight line, then you turn a corner. Repeat again and again. How many features do you want for riding in a straight line? How many features do you want for going around corners? Simple geometry and basic tuning.
Did the same mindtrick in Mont Ventoux and Izoard last year!! (2 famous french alpine climb) When it’s becoming really hard and the brain begin to tell you that you are not hoing to make it, it is time to occupy it by constantly focusing on small victories, each 2 meters. This mindtrick is very close to breath focus in meditation
