Kingfish said:
Gents -
I would agree to a Wh/mi limit. I like the idea, and it moves the focus back to slipstream, mechanics, and electronics. The one intangible is hills verse flats, and weather. Come up with a circuit/a loop, a pinnacle of triumph, and I shall enter my tiny steed. Fingers-crossed in hopes that I can get there
I’m OK with regional challenges. Be the best that you can be. Appreciate your competition. It’s how we learn.
With honor,
KF
How about the
Race Around Ireland, billed "the toughest bike race in Europe"?
It's about 1,300 miles, and the cut-off time for a solo rider is 130 hours. Too easy? That's 130 hours total time, not 130 hours riding time. Last year 12 entered and only five finished.
Ultramarathon cycling is limited by two factors - how much you can digest (8,000 calories per day) and how little you can sleep (90 minutes total per day). Not fun.
Not fun at all.
Riding an ebike takes a load off your digestion and requires you to stop and rest for a decent amount of time. If you were riding the RAI with a 20 watt hour/mile limit you would need to travel at least 240 miles a day to finish. That means even with a 2kw charger you are going to get at least three hours of rest a day.
Let's say four hours (which is what many non-racing long-distance cyclists take in practice).
To finish you would need to travel at an average of 12 miles an hour. To beat the fastest rider you would need 15 mph average. That certainly looks possible on 240 watts or 300 watts average assistance. Alternatively, you could rest for eight hours a day, use a 40 watt hour/mile limit and have 480 watts or 600 watts average assistance to maintain 15 or 19 mph. The drawback is that you need at least 1-2 kwh of battery for each hour of continuous sleep.
So an averagely fit ebiker with a fast charger and a talent for catnaps could out-distance the best ultra-marathon cyclist, and possibly even have some fun on the way (and not need the recommended four support vehicles and ten support crew).
There's a name for this kind of cycling. It's called 'randonneuring' or
Audax:
It's a bike ride run under the auspices of Audax UK (AUK) (Ok or a foreign/international audax/randonneur organisation)
The idea is that it is non-competitive, so no times are published, no official placings are given. However there are time limits: the idea is not to ride too slow or too fast. There are maximum as well as minimum speeds and to keep you within these you check into controls around the route. On a 100 or 200 km audax you'd probably get 3 or 4 controls on the route.
Some controls are cafe or village hall stops with food and a controller to stamp your card; sometimes they are petrol stations and you grab a till receipt as proof of passage. Sometimes you use an ATM. There's a range of luxury, from fully-catered with beds (on an overnight event) to totally shoestring where you are pretty-much on your own. They're all different.
You tend to get out of them what you put in: it's usually possible to find a group going at about your pace to go around with, if you choose, but there's a very strong self-sufficiency ethos. if you puncture they'll check you can cope and most likely leave you to it. If it's a more serious mechanical you'll get lots of help.
Unless you know the riders before hand and/or have agreed to ride together they may not slow down if you get dropped - it's not unfriendliness, it is a recognition that people chose to ride at their own pace and often deliberately drop out of a group if they fancy a slight rest. People have variable paces over a long day: sometimes you'll be flying off the front, other times hanging on the back. You'll all meet up down the road.
And those time limits?
There is some regional variation in these, but the following list is typical:
200 km - 13.5 hours (14 hours in the UK, as in the original events.)
300 km - 20 hours
400 km - 27 hours
600 km - 40 hours
1000 km - 75 hours
1200 km - 90 hours (or 80 or 84 hours by choice)
1400 km - 116:40 hours (optionally 105:16 or 93:20 hours)
Yes, you read that right. Most people only ever ride 100k or 200k events but the Daddy of them all, Paris-Brest-Paris, is 1200k, and other events are even longer. And yes, those times do include all stops. Yet, although a challenge, they can be done by 'normal' people without assistance. To put it in perspective, if riding the RAI is equivalent to running a marathon in 2 hours 20, then riding it at minimum Audax pace is like running one in just under four hours. This is where you can really learn about riding long, and there is a great deal of information on the YACF forum that I linked to above. It's nice to find a sport in which tea and cake play such a pivotal role! 8)
Even those I'm quite unfit and don't get the chance to ride much I can ride a 200k on my ebike well within the time, and I'm looking forward to the chance to try the longer distances, if I can find suitable late-night charging stops!
