Possible big distance ride! What's reasonable?

This idea envolves a whole bunch of ifs…if I get the 29er…if I can do it…if I can stop listing ifs…etc… But the idea is something I just came up with after reading about a big distance ride that happened in a local thread. :slight_smile: I want to do a really long (considering my age and fitness level) ride on my hopefully new 29er that I should get in exactly 6 days! I plan on doing “laps” around my neighborhood (it’s great because it has HUGE shoulders and few cars) because it has a nice loop route and an even amount of moderate hills and straightaways. I am 70% sure that it’s about 3 miles per loop, but I’ll go that route on my bike tomorrow and see exactly how long it is. My question is how far should I go and how far would be considered “good” or “bad” for me? I have pretty strong legs, and can semi-easily do 20 miles on my Raleigh Grand Sport road bike in around 90 minutes. Also, I can run a 7:10 mile (not perfect, but hey…) and am usually 2nd or 3rd in a 1/4 mile race against my PE class of 30 or 40 Jr. High students. As for the unicycle (if it makes any difference, I don’t know…) it should be a Yuni 29er with a 2.35" Big Apple, 125 cranks, a KH seat, and Oddessy Twisted Pro pedals. Hope you guys can help; you always do!

-Tyler :smiley:

just go until you dont wanna go anymore… i odnt think youll really go until you cant possibly go anymore becuase of shear pain

Chase

If it’s only a 3 mile loop, were you would never be much more than 1.5 miles from your house, Just ride untill you drop dead. Get tired, and stop, your house would be right there.

But it depends on how tired you want to be. You could probally do 20-25 miles without being too sore. Im guessing.

Don’t jump on the mileage too soon too fast. Give yourself time to build up and get used to doing 10 mile rides before you go for 20 miles. Then get used to 20 miles before trying for 40 miles.

Going for too many miles all at once without being trained for it can lead to sore muscles and possibly damage to your joints (tendons and ligaments) and other problems. You need to be careful about that kind of joint damage while you’re growing otherwise you can end up with problems later on in life.

So ramp up the mileage gradually. Allow your body to tell you how much it can handle without getting sore. Learn how much water and extra food you need during the ride. Do you have a hydration pack of some sort so you can drink while you ride? You also need to keep fueled up while you ride and that means eating things with carbohydrates and protein as you ride. Energy bars like Cliff bars and Power Bars are one source. Good regular food is another source.

Tyler, JC speaks the gospel on this one. Don’t worry about trying for the super-long rides up front. Regardless of how good a rider you are or your freestyle level, the cadence and muscles used for distance riding are different, and you definitely want to work up to it. Example, about a year ago I did a 55 mile ride, with the only prior prep being a few 20s and a 30. Even though the entire 55 was on flat pavement, it just about killed me. Last month, after a summer of gradually increasing my distance and hills, I did a 61 followed by a 59 the next day. Both were significantly more challenging in terms of hills and terrain, but both “felt easier” and took less out of me than my flat unprepared 55 of the year before. One reason is I was in better shape and had worked up to the distance. The other reason was I had learned a lot more about how to maintain proper nutrition and hydration during a major ride.

Unicycling is partly about taking more time to get places…so I’d say set yourself some modest goals and just enjoy being out on the new 29-er.

Listen to this man.
I trained up to about 30 miles a day over a few weeks, then didn’t uni for a few weeks because of being too busy, and then did 65 in a day, and 30 the next.
That was almost two weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to ride since, because something in my knee is now messed up and it hurts when I uni or even walk, especially down stairs.

You can uni until you almost drop dead, and you’ll be amazed what you can accomplish in a day. And you’ll regret it for weeks to come.

Have you been able to identify what the knee injury is? There are several overuse injuries that can bother the knee.

I had (and still have to an extent) knee pain due to Iliotibial band friction syndrome. It causes pain on the outside side of the knee. It causes things like walking down stairs to be painful. That happens to also be the same motion as unicycling so it will make it hurt to unicycle too.

Info about Iliotibial band syndrome at these sites:
itbs.info
Iliotibial band friction syndrome
Knee Injuries Symptoms
Physical Therapy Corner: The Iliotibial Band

It’s overuse injuries like Iliotibial band syndrome that you need to be careful about when going for too much distance too soon. Some can be prevented by doing proper stretching, others you just need to build up the right strength for.

I haven’t looked into it at all yet. I’ve been incredibley busy, and I don’t really think about it except when I’m walking to school and back, or on stairs. Otherwise it doesn’t bother me, and I forget about it.
Walking seems to aggrivate it just as much as unicycling, so I’ll probably go back to cycling to school again (1.5 miles)
Sometime, I’ll get around to seeing a doctor.

that’s the good thing about loops, rather than out and backs, you’re always relatively close to home. depending on how long the loop is, I guess…so I suggest just going as long as you can. wear cycling shorts, and come back when you’re done. you’ll know when you’re done.

My definition of a long ride, for my own rides is 1 mile per inch of wheel diameter. Thus, 20 miles on a 20, 36 miles on a Coker, etc.

The problem with this approach is that 36 miles on a coker is a lot harder on your muscles than 20 miles on a 20". There’s a certain amount of physical energy needed to travel a certain distance, regardless of wheel size. “long rides” on 20" unis are considered long more by time contraints than any risk of physical overexertion. You can ride a 20" uni all day long and still get less of a workout than spending an hour or two in a gym.

Trying to find something to agree with on this post; failing. Distance isn’t the issue in this case, it’s speed and number of pedal strokes. I could ride 36 miles on a 36 in less time than riding 20 miles on a 20, and with less pedal strokes. It would not be a lot harder on my muscles, rather a lot easier.

Less time, maybe. Less pedal strokes? No…

One pedal stroke will get you 56 inches on a coker, =4.7 feet, so 40,000strokes should get you 36 miles.

One pedal stroke on a 20" will get you 31.5 inches= 2.6 feet, so 40,000 pedal strokes to get you 36 miles.

If you’re going relative to wheel size, it’s always going to be the same number of strokes. Wheel size in inches * 40,000 = distance traveled in miles equal to wheel size diameter.

So, if you can pedal at a higher cadence on a much bigger wheel, than yes, you can do it faster, although the torgue difference would lead me to believe you’d go in the other direction. But if your pedal speed is the same, so is your time.

Either way, the energy expended is the same. 36 miles on a Coker will burn about 1,000 calories. 20 miles on a 2" will burn about 600 calories. That’s the physical difference, and that is what your muscles will feel the next morning. Either way, your legs have pumped up and down 20,000 times each, but every time they’ve done so on the Coker, they’ve had to expend more energy because of the higher effective ratio.
It’s basically the same as doing 20,000 reps of curls in the weightroom with 60lbs or 100lbs. Yeah, you can do it with the same number of reps, and you can do it in about the same amount of time, but one way is gonna hurt your muslces a lot more the next day or week.

I hate to disagree with Skippii, but 36 miles on a Coker is way easier than 20 on a 20". It’s largely due to factors he didn’t include, like momentum and such. Basically, you can achieve and maintain higher cadences on a large wheel than a small.

Second point of disagreement: He compares overdoing it on your Yuni with overdoing it on his geared giraffe. Different species of unicycles there, with very different riding features. I have ridden two “Centuries” (tho one was only 90 miles – ran outta time). In both cases, I had no more than 10 miles of riding a day beforehand, and in both cases, I was riding 5 miles the day after (my regular commute). That said, you DO want to be careful not to overdo it if you haven’t got much training in your legs – the muscles need to be conditioned to a certain amount of work AND to the type of riding (or uni) involved.

Good luck!

PS: Riding near your house may be a drawback – too easy to quit. I almost quit on my recent century bc I rode home for a break and almost didn’t want to leave. Just set a reasonable goal, and if you’re not dying, keep trying. The trick is to figure out what’s “reasonable.”

If you’re serious about getting into distance riding, doing a 3 mile loop doesn’t sound like the best way to do it. Handy to be near home all the time in case you want to stop, but before too long you’ll end up limited by boredom rather than fatigue. Half the fun of distance riding is that you go to places you normally wouldn’t. Laps might be okay for a while, but not long term.

What’s the public transport like around you? Could you plan a ride away from your house past various bus stops/ railway stations so that you can stop riding and get home some other way?

Maybe it’s just me, you might enjoy doing laps. Some people even enjoy running on treadmills in gyms. Nutters.

John

Your calculation looks wrong, if only on the basis that

4.7 feet x 40,000 can’t be equal to 2.6 feet x 40,000.

I’m not going to bother working out feet and miles etc so

I’ll do it like this: -

dist covered by one pedal stroke = wheel diameter x Pi/2

(halved because one pedal stroke only rotates the wheel

half way round).

multiply this by 40,000 to get dist covered in 40,000

strokes: -

Coker: dist = 36 x pi/2 x 40,0000
20"-er: dist = 20 x pi/2 x 40,0000

thus, dist covered on a Coker over 40,000 (or any

distance) will be 36/20 times further than on a 20".

This is based purely on the maths, without even taking

into account that the Coker is designed for long distance

travel over variable terrain, and the 20" isn’t.

Your calculation looks wrong, if only on the basis that 4.7 feet x 40,000 can’t be equal to 2.6 feet x 40,000.

I’m not going to bother working out feet and miles etc so I’ll do it like this: -

dist covered by one pedal stroke = wheel diameter x Pi/2 (halved because one pedal stroke only rotates the wheel half way round).

multiply this by 40,000 to get dist covered in 40,000 strokes: -

Coker: dist = 36 x pi/2 x 40,0000
20"-er: dist = 20 x pi/2 x 40,0000

thus, dist covered on a Coker over 40,000 (or any distance) will be 36/20 times further than on a 20".

This is based purely on the maths, without even taking into account that the Coker is designed for long distance travel over variable terrain, and the 20" isn’t.

Typo…20 miles on a 20", not 36. Sorry… the forumla I gave is right, though.

David Stone, I’m not really disagreeing with you in terms of what’s easier but the fact is that traveling 36 miles a day, no matter on what size wheel you are riding, is going to be more likely to harm inadequetly trained muscles than riding 20 miles per day.
Momentum doesn’t effect this because you expend much more energy to get the coker wheel in motion in the first place than the 20", so it evens out.

I should rather have said that 36 miles on ANY uni burns about 1,000 calories, and 20 miles on ANY uni burns about 600.

If you can coker 36 miles faster than you can ride 20 miles on a 20", great, your legs are in shape, and you don’t have to worry about this.
If you can do it in less pedal strokes, though, you’ve broken the laws of physics. Congratulations.

If you are not in great shape, the 20" for 20 miles will be much easier–again, by the laws of basic physics. It takes only a little more than half the energy to do that.

The idea that it’ll take you all day long to do the 20" ride will also make it seem a lot easier–you’ll probably get bored way before you get tired.

This thread has been helpful. I’ve been contemplating a new personal best: 60km on October 25, 2006, the day I turn 60. For distance I ride a 28" Sun with a KH seat. The most I’ve done is 12 miles a couple of times and that was with a stop every 2-3 miles. I average about 7 mph. Daylight Savings will still be in effect then so I should have plenty of time to complete the distance (37.28 miles). Obviously I need to train and work up to that distance gradually. I’ll have to plan a fairly flat route. I’ve never tried a Coker. Would that make my task easier or should I stick with the 28"? I also have a 20" but figured my legs would give out long before the ride did.

With very little practice, I was able to get 25 miles on a Sun 28" w/ KH seat in about 3.5 hours, not including breaks. You’ll be fine–though 7mph is a tad slow. I can sustain 8 mph easily for a full hour on the sun with 150s without breaks.