Difference between sub 100 hour and sub 125 hour is mostly about stop time. Not about moving time. In 2017 first Brit back averaged 22 km/h moving and managed 75 hours elapsed. Longer route this year but you get the idea, keep your stops short.
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My training plan has a rest week after the 600, then 2 weeks more training, then a 2 week taper. So including this week, 4 weeks of “proper” training.
I met someone the other week who is on the 100 hour start and reckons they’re doing it in 3 days… He is a lunatic.
I think theoretically I would be fit enough to do sub-100, but it very much depends how I cope with the lack of sleep especially towards the end. So I am glad that I don’t have that added pressure - I just want to make sure I finish!
That’s my plan for the 600, ride everything as it will be for LEL. “Keep Pedalling” bikepacking shop in Manchester - super friendly and have bent over backwards to get my dynamo wheel built in a week so I can have it in time for my 600.
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In 2017 only one rider finished in under 3 days, and the route is 80km longer this time. Good luck to who ever you met. Do you know their rider number or name, so we can check after the event to see if they managed it?
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And so that I make sure i stay off their wheel when the gun goes off as they are clearly going to blow early. Or I will anyway 
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Doing that math me must have stopped for basically 10 hours over the 75… I think I will stop a tad more than that…
No, didnt get it - they were the boyfriend of an acquaintance and we had a quick chat at a party. Introduced to me in a “talk to him, he’s doing that mental ride you’re doing” way. Can’t remember his second name either to Strava stalk… He wasn’t drinking, I was. Left early, presumably so he could get up and train - clearly a more serious athlete than me!
To be fair to him it was expressed as an ambition.
The first riders back don’t sleep and the very first rider’s longest stop was 17 mins in entire event.
That’s phenomenal really… I can suffer but that is misery to another level 
He said it thought it harder for the full value riders. He only rode through two nights, setting off Sunday 5am and finishing Tuesday evening. Most 100 hour riders will ride 4 nights whilst 125 riders are going through 5 nights.
600 complete - 622km (including the ride to the start from my house), 25h 38 moving, 33.5 elapsed. Somehow was the second rider back which I wasn’t aiming for.
| Duration | NP | AP | HR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 363km | 14:27:23 | 164 | 137 | 135 |
| 259km | 11:06:10 | 149 | 121 | 119 |
Key learnings -
- Power/hr for the first day (and throughout) needs to look more like the 2nd day… NP around 150, less than 55%. Didn’t help that there was a big climb early on the first day. I felt like I could push on more towards the end of the second day, but I was riding with another guy who was suffering for a lot of it. On the first day it was very windy for a time and I was with 4 other riders, stayed with them for some shelter which meant a few more digs than I’d like.
- I need more sleep - got to the overnight control around 21:30, ate and went to bed around 10, asked them to wake me up after 4hr so got maybe 3hr broken sleep (other people arrived throughout). It was just about OK yesterday, but I won’t be able to do that for 4 nights in a row. There was one point around maybe 9am where I was really sleepy and had to stop on an inviting village bench for 15 mins.
I did start to feel surprisingly good towards the end again though, which is promising.
All in all not a bad outing for a first official audax!
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Good stuff. Not long now, just under 5 weeks till you’ll be waiting to get going in your start group.
Works out at basically averaging 30 mins stopped per control. Which is a reasonable stop time if not sleeping.
Got my final bike fettling lined up for next week. Then the final setup will get a test over a 300km outing mid July. The rule of audax, never make changes to your setup really close to the event, as it is guaranteed to cause a problem.
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Great reminder being I just had 10days or so off with COVID… I know it won’t make much difference at this stage on the grand scheme of things but it doesn’t help. Easing back into it this week and also a 300ish mid July for a last bash. Bike is pretty much in its final order. Just going to test a riser on my aero bars for additional comfort then I am done…
It takes a certain discipline to do 30 Mins at all controls
I need to sort out my bottom bracket as the creaking at the weekend was very annoying!
Previously it was not too bad and I could not tell if it was actually the BB, I thought a clean and lube might sort it… But nope, it was very loud by Sunday afternoon. Will remove and grease, if that fails just stick a new one in.
I don’t like standing around - found at the weekend even the faster guys were taking quite long stops, I start getting antsy after I have been not moving for 5 or 10 minutes. I’d prefer more regular 5 min stops to stretch than irregular 30 min stops. Even when I had to stop because I was falling asleep I only had 15 minutes… Remarkable how much better I felt afterwards though.
Just been really geeky and compared my outturn to my LEL plan and made some mods:
That slow stage in the middle there is the sleep stop. And you can see I went out too fast, was close to the opening times - need to keep it down. Overall average speed was about 18.5 km/h including stops and sleeping. I need more sleep than that though.
LEL plan:
All a bit variable really depending on when I decide to sleep, but the times seem reasonable. I think I’ll be quicker than I have estimated for on the flatter stages but better to be conservative and then be ahead. Have estimated to be substantially slower than the 600… Obviously it’s massively dependent on the wind anyway, it’s likely to be faster going North and slower going South but it’s pretty hard to plan for that.
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My feeling is I think you’ll surprise yourself and finish much sooner than the plan… you’re clearly fit and have a competitive streak and now You’ve seen the value of microsleeps…
Whatever happens we will all learn something new about ourselves…
The 30 min average stop is mostly about avoiding queues on your first day and then remaining disciplined when there are no appreciable queues. If you are taking longer than 30 mins to fill your bottles and eat if the queues are less than 5 mins, then you are faffing.
That sounds good. I just finished my 600 with an NP of 156 (IF 0.7) on day 1 and 132 (IF 0.59) on day 2. That was below what I’ve done recently but it reached 30C on both days and there was an energy-zapping headwind and I just didn’t have more in my legs. I also needed more sleep and felt pretty terrible between 4 and 7.30 am when nothing was open for a break. Glad I pushed through though, and, like you, I felt fine during the last hours.