I do a number of century rides through out the year that are not races or Gran Fondos. The biggest one is the Seagull Century in October and I consider it an “A” event. I need help categorizing it in Plan Builder.
The route is pancake flat. The front group averages 25mph (40kmh), the group that I am in averages 20mph (32kmh). The route has long straights with a few turns that everyone sprints out of. I can hide in the pack during the straight stretches but I need to have the punch out of the turns to stay close to the front of the pack.
For discipline type I am trying to decide between rolling road race, gran fondo, and criterium.
The route is not rolling and there are no climbs so I don’t think of it as a rolling road race or a gran fondo. At the same time 5 hours is a long Crit.
As an alternative to Century speciality, I’ve got Climbing Road Race on my calendar. Out here on the west coast the local area is pancake flat with heavy gusty headwinds. Even in an echelon there is nowhere to hide at 20-25mph, with a lot of gusts requiring very high power for 10-30 seconds at a time. Climbing Road Race develops both sustained power and explosive high-power.
The “issue” is not in choosing the plan, it is when using plan builder you have to choose a discipline for the event for it to build the plan for you. As summerson said there is no need to overthink it but I just want to make the best choice given the options.
What I’m trying to say is, figure out the demands of your event and use that to select a discipline for your A event. Counterintuitively, the power demands of a flat century might actually be more like a climbing road race.
Spring/Summer flat centuries around here require both sustained and explosive power. Here is the description of Climbing Road Race:
Setting my A event to the Gran Fondo discipline will give me the Century speciality, and that specialty will do NOTHING for the short power I need. Another option is Rolling Road Race, but that doesn’t do as much for sustained power.
Not familiar with Seagull Century but saw it was in MD and near the coast. So if you have a lot of winds in that area, you might want to consider the discipline setting I’ve chosen.
