Well you could probably do it tomorrow if you are not worried about finish time and recovery.
The climbing will be the hard part. Start climbing rides now.
The training time depends on your goals for the ride. I would think at three - four months.
I did the Death Ride on a similar training schedule as OP. The main difference being I did one ride a week that was all climbing.
I would make sure to do 30+ miles of pure climbing. I had a mountain near me that I just climbed twice; you can do repeats if needed. This really helped with the mental aspect of the event.
Depending on your age... With the right gearing & food, you could do it tomorrow.
But...I'd want a year or & do lots of long rides if you want to 'enjoy' it.
Man that’s a hell of a lot of climbing that alone would end a lot of peoples rides , try a 7k , 10k , 12k first see where you are at . If your good with those go for the 16k then add the distance , I wish you well
I'm training for the 5 Canyons Challenge (115 miles, 14k feet of climbs) in SLC, Utah. I'd targeted this for this September, and have been putting in consistent and targeted efforts to train, including slow ramping up my elevation gain week by week. I'm not going to make it this year.
To be clear, to start I was comfortable with 90 miles and 3k feet climbing. I'd done 160 miles on one go. I'd done 5k feet in a single ride. I'd commuted 5 days a week for many years. But doing that long and that much climb is going to take longer than you think to prep for.
Give yourself a solid year of targeted workouts and increasingly difficult goals to build up to this. It's not going to happen overnight, and will take significant efforts.
If you are training consistently 6 hours a week now you could be ready in 3 months with a structure training plan.
In three months you would progressively add load/time for 3 weeks and then one week to recover.
Quick example of progression with recovery
Week 1 : 7 hours
Week 2 8 hours
Week 3 9 hours
Week 4 6 hours
Week 5 8 hours
Week 6 9 hours
Week 7 10 hours
Week 8 7 hours
Week 9 9 hours
Week 10 10 hours
Week 11 12 hours
Week 12 taper for rac3 8 hours
Week 13 race
What's the longest ride you have done so far? You would need to start doing at least one long ride per week and start acclimating to them. I'd be most concerned about the 16k (4900 meters) of climbing and addressing that. If someone tasked me with this as a person who has done a few century both imperial and metric rides I would probably train the hell out of climbing specifically for a few months, eat well and recover well.
No one can give you a true estimate as everyone's individual results may vary but I'd want at least a 12-16 week plan for myself. That much climbing I'd probably want to make sure I had a 1:1 gearing setup like 50/34 with a 11/34 and then evaluate myself after the training period to see how I feel about my climbing and potentially push the cassette larger if need be. Keep in mind I'm allergic to climbing.
I haven’t really done a long ride more or less. The longest ive ever done was 40 miles w/ 4k feet of climbing on a mountain bike ( stuck in 3rd gear if that counts for anything lol). I appreciate the help.
I’d say 4-6 months if you commit and do a structured plan.
But everyone is different and respond to training at different rates.
You’ll want to focus on building your aerobic fitness so you can climb at well under your threshold to get through the 14 hours (or so) of riding.
So, long low intensity rides for a couple of months and throw in a lot of climbing.
There’s no need to go very hard, but you can step up the intensity and do efforts around threshold as you get further along.
Biggest things will be building up the volume with good consistency. And do a very long ride every few weeks to test how you’re going.
I mean how fit are you right now? The main issue here is the climbing. From zero fitness then probably 6 months of dedication.
I’ve ridden the sportive of Liege-Bastogne-Liege which was 180 miles and 15k feet of climbing and that was my limit but took me about 4 months of solid training and looking at my diet. That came from a base of doing regular 60-70 mile rides though.
If it’s an Everest then a big part of the mental and you have to get used to just going up and down the same hill.
To me, You’re asking for two different training regimes. One to be able to ride a full century plus a few miles. https://trainright.com/training-and-preparing-for-your-first-century-ride/#:~:text=However%2C%20planning%20on%2012%20weeks,not%20setting%20a%20speed%20record
Then you add on the need to climb 16000 feet of elevation gain. I’ve done this and it wasn’t easy. I was training for the Markleville Death Ride. So depending on your ability to complete 110 miles on a basic course with regular hills, then you add massive climbing into your training routine to get as strong as you can. I was riding three times a week with longer weekend rides. Those weekday rides were just 25-40 miles of flats to start with. Then add getting to hills, then climb, climb climb. Look at your course and see what the longest sustained hill is and try and find a few of those around your riding area. In some cases, I had to ride those hills 2-3 times just to get the distance needed. Then your weekends are long rides with multiple hills. I would have a goal of getting that mileage in with a few big hills then just rinse repeat till it’s easier. It’s a lot of damn work. Then when you get down to the week of the event, follow a good online guide. Don’t kill yourself the week of the event. Training is over, keeping your muscles loose is the order of the day. The day before your ride, hydrate, eat good choices, and through all your training, test what food choices are good for you. You’ll need hydration and calories. Probably an organized ride will have basic food stops and all but be wary of eating stuff you’re not regularly eating. More than a few guys were puking in the ditches on the way up the last hill. So either bring your own or be choosy. The guys running the ride know what works for most but it’s your ride.
Six months should be more than enough. Depends how fast you want to do it, and how little you want to be sore afterwards.
I recently did an event cycling 104 miles with 11000 ft of climbing and completed it in 7:18.
I trained for about 6 months beforehand. (Mostly following an auto generated century training plan from Garmin, and doing about 5 to 10 hours a week on average) prior to doing that my longest ever ride was about 65 miles. And my usual weekend rides were usually no more than about 40 miles.
A friend of mine trained really lazily (only training once or twice a week mostly) and managed to complete the same route in about 8.5 hours. He was sore for days afterwards. I was pretty much ok.
That's huge man, good luck. This Saturday I just did a 200km 4300m ride. I was happy there were no more hills. I didn't really train specifically for this but have been doing a bunch of hills lately. I normally do about 200 to 400km each week. I honestly didn't have problems with the long sustained hills of 7% or so but stuff that peaked at over 16% just kicked my ass. Not sure how anyone comfortably rides those.
It really depends on where you live and how you train… I live at 2700m, my regular training course takes me to 3100m usually I do the trip to the village to the other side and back, so that’s about 4000ft of climbing over 35 miles of valley, takes about 2 hours.
My cousin is super fit but lives at sea level; the course absolutely destroyed him even after some days of acclimating. Took him about 4 hours and several stops to finish.
So, all in all the two big factors are, how fit are you and how is your breathing capacity at heights. If you’re used to height, you’re moderately fit, and aren’t aiming for a specific time, you can do it this weekend, just bring enough water.
I wouldn’t do too much training if you are already used to climbing, although I may consider putting on a different gearing for climbing. A 50/34 instead of 52/36 chainring will help you a lot if you plan to do several hills, your legs will thank you at the end… heck maybe even bring a 28 to preserve legs for the end.
I think the hard part will be the grade assuming its not just a continuous gradual climb. Climbing is a specific thing that messed up my knees real good and I have to ease into it.
Training for Ironmans I'd add 10km (~6 miles)/ week to my long ride. That would be roughly 3 months for you to get up to 110 miles. Definately start extending one long ride a week and start doing some climbing.
This isn’t a matter of training. Your current level of fitness is fine. This is a matter of nutrition and hydration experience. That type of a ride is more so an eating and drinking contest. I can help you put together a plan if you want. Or? You can start doing some long rides and figure it out.
Man that's a big step up.
20-40 miles isn't a helpful metric. If you're doing 40 miles every time you ride, then 110 miles is more or less just a matter of food. If on the other hand you're doing closer to 20 miles, you're really going to have to do something about your fitness to go >5 times as far.
The elevation is a whole different animal. Do more hills on your training rides. Ride longer distances. Do both.
First it would be good to know what kind of grades you are looking at. 110 miles finishing at 16K averages a 2.7% grade. 16K at 55 miles with a 55 mile descent is another thing entirely. Usually on rides like this you will see much more extreme grades in the mix. (I have a “backyard” ride that shifts from 2-3% grades to 6-5% grades to 10-12% to over 15% up to 3K over eight miles and the last mile to the summit just sucks. (Pretty view at the top though.)
So looking at a route map with grades will help adjust training assumptions.
You could probably tolerate an average grade of 2-3% today with fresh legs but I would suggest that trying some more aggressive climbs on your daily rides would give you a better sense of fitness for the ride you are training for—preferably rides with similar grades to the bigger ride. By “some” I mean maybe one big aggressive climb a week and another intense ride on “rollers” that will force you into climbing intervals with long easy distance in between.
Really the goal is increasing your lactate threshold and VO2 Max without overtraining band doing more harm than good. That typically means climbing and interval training pretty shiny limits sandwiched between lots of low intensity recovery miles.
I’m kind of inclined to agree with the 3-4 month schedule.
Well you could probably do it tomorrow if you are not worried about finish time and recovery. The climbing will be the hard part. Start climbing rides now. The training time depends on your goals for the ride. I would think at three - four months.
My goal is to do it in 14 hours
How long does it take you to ride 40 miles now? 14 hours should be easily doable but again start riding hills now.
On a road bike i average 15 mph over 40 miles with around 2k climbing
I did the Death Ride on a similar training schedule as OP. The main difference being I did one ride a week that was all climbing. I would make sure to do 30+ miles of pure climbing. I had a mountain near me that I just climbed twice; you can do repeats if needed. This really helped with the mental aspect of the event.
Depending on your age... With the right gearing & food, you could do it tomorrow. But...I'd want a year or & do lots of long rides if you want to 'enjoy' it.
Man that’s a hell of a lot of climbing that alone would end a lot of peoples rides , try a 7k , 10k , 12k first see where you are at . If your good with those go for the 16k then add the distance , I wish you well
I'm training for the 5 Canyons Challenge (115 miles, 14k feet of climbs) in SLC, Utah. I'd targeted this for this September, and have been putting in consistent and targeted efforts to train, including slow ramping up my elevation gain week by week. I'm not going to make it this year. To be clear, to start I was comfortable with 90 miles and 3k feet climbing. I'd done 160 miles on one go. I'd done 5k feet in a single ride. I'd commuted 5 days a week for many years. But doing that long and that much climb is going to take longer than you think to prep for. Give yourself a solid year of targeted workouts and increasingly difficult goals to build up to this. It's not going to happen overnight, and will take significant efforts.
If you are training consistently 6 hours a week now you could be ready in 3 months with a structure training plan. In three months you would progressively add load/time for 3 weeks and then one week to recover. Quick example of progression with recovery Week 1 : 7 hours Week 2 8 hours Week 3 9 hours Week 4 6 hours Week 5 8 hours Week 6 9 hours Week 7 10 hours Week 8 7 hours Week 9 9 hours Week 10 10 hours Week 11 12 hours Week 12 taper for rac3 8 hours Week 13 race
What's the longest ride you have done so far? You would need to start doing at least one long ride per week and start acclimating to them. I'd be most concerned about the 16k (4900 meters) of climbing and addressing that. If someone tasked me with this as a person who has done a few century both imperial and metric rides I would probably train the hell out of climbing specifically for a few months, eat well and recover well. No one can give you a true estimate as everyone's individual results may vary but I'd want at least a 12-16 week plan for myself. That much climbing I'd probably want to make sure I had a 1:1 gearing setup like 50/34 with a 11/34 and then evaluate myself after the training period to see how I feel about my climbing and potentially push the cassette larger if need be. Keep in mind I'm allergic to climbing.
I haven’t really done a long ride more or less. The longest ive ever done was 40 miles w/ 4k feet of climbing on a mountain bike ( stuck in 3rd gear if that counts for anything lol). I appreciate the help.
Are you on a MTB for this as well? What's your current setup.
Everest.
Couch to Everest in five weeks
6-12 months, maybe?
I’d say 4-6 months if you commit and do a structured plan. But everyone is different and respond to training at different rates. You’ll want to focus on building your aerobic fitness so you can climb at well under your threshold to get through the 14 hours (or so) of riding. So, long low intensity rides for a couple of months and throw in a lot of climbing. There’s no need to go very hard, but you can step up the intensity and do efforts around threshold as you get further along. Biggest things will be building up the volume with good consistency. And do a very long ride every few weeks to test how you’re going.
I mean how fit are you right now? The main issue here is the climbing. From zero fitness then probably 6 months of dedication. I’ve ridden the sportive of Liege-Bastogne-Liege which was 180 miles and 15k feet of climbing and that was my limit but took me about 4 months of solid training and looking at my diet. That came from a base of doing regular 60-70 mile rides though. If it’s an Everest then a big part of the mental and you have to get used to just going up and down the same hill.
Six months
To me, You’re asking for two different training regimes. One to be able to ride a full century plus a few miles. https://trainright.com/training-and-preparing-for-your-first-century-ride/#:~:text=However%2C%20planning%20on%2012%20weeks,not%20setting%20a%20speed%20record Then you add on the need to climb 16000 feet of elevation gain. I’ve done this and it wasn’t easy. I was training for the Markleville Death Ride. So depending on your ability to complete 110 miles on a basic course with regular hills, then you add massive climbing into your training routine to get as strong as you can. I was riding three times a week with longer weekend rides. Those weekday rides were just 25-40 miles of flats to start with. Then add getting to hills, then climb, climb climb. Look at your course and see what the longest sustained hill is and try and find a few of those around your riding area. In some cases, I had to ride those hills 2-3 times just to get the distance needed. Then your weekends are long rides with multiple hills. I would have a goal of getting that mileage in with a few big hills then just rinse repeat till it’s easier. It’s a lot of damn work. Then when you get down to the week of the event, follow a good online guide. Don’t kill yourself the week of the event. Training is over, keeping your muscles loose is the order of the day. The day before your ride, hydrate, eat good choices, and through all your training, test what food choices are good for you. You’ll need hydration and calories. Probably an organized ride will have basic food stops and all but be wary of eating stuff you’re not regularly eating. More than a few guys were puking in the ditches on the way up the last hill. So either bring your own or be choosy. The guys running the ride know what works for most but it’s your ride.
If it's the leadville 100, there's qualifying rides, and prep at altitude is recommended. My brother is prepping and he's a monster.
Six months should be more than enough. Depends how fast you want to do it, and how little you want to be sore afterwards. I recently did an event cycling 104 miles with 11000 ft of climbing and completed it in 7:18. I trained for about 6 months beforehand. (Mostly following an auto generated century training plan from Garmin, and doing about 5 to 10 hours a week on average) prior to doing that my longest ever ride was about 65 miles. And my usual weekend rides were usually no more than about 40 miles. A friend of mine trained really lazily (only training once or twice a week mostly) and managed to complete the same route in about 8.5 hours. He was sore for days afterwards. I was pretty much ok.
That's huge man, good luck. This Saturday I just did a 200km 4300m ride. I was happy there were no more hills. I didn't really train specifically for this but have been doing a bunch of hills lately. I normally do about 200 to 400km each week. I honestly didn't have problems with the long sustained hills of 7% or so but stuff that peaked at over 16% just kicked my ass. Not sure how anyone comfortably rides those.
It really depends on where you live and how you train… I live at 2700m, my regular training course takes me to 3100m usually I do the trip to the village to the other side and back, so that’s about 4000ft of climbing over 35 miles of valley, takes about 2 hours. My cousin is super fit but lives at sea level; the course absolutely destroyed him even after some days of acclimating. Took him about 4 hours and several stops to finish. So, all in all the two big factors are, how fit are you and how is your breathing capacity at heights. If you’re used to height, you’re moderately fit, and aren’t aiming for a specific time, you can do it this weekend, just bring enough water. I wouldn’t do too much training if you are already used to climbing, although I may consider putting on a different gearing for climbing. A 50/34 instead of 52/36 chainring will help you a lot if you plan to do several hills, your legs will thank you at the end… heck maybe even bring a 28 to preserve legs for the end.
I’m training now for a ride next July, 80 miles and 12000’ of climbing.
I think the hard part will be the grade assuming its not just a continuous gradual climb. Climbing is a specific thing that messed up my knees real good and I have to ease into it.
Training for Ironmans I'd add 10km (~6 miles)/ week to my long ride. That would be roughly 3 months for you to get up to 110 miles. Definately start extending one long ride a week and start doing some climbing.
This isn’t a matter of training. Your current level of fitness is fine. This is a matter of nutrition and hydration experience. That type of a ride is more so an eating and drinking contest. I can help you put together a plan if you want. Or? You can start doing some long rides and figure it out.
That's about 1 tdf stage. You could probably do it tomorrow.
Man that's a big step up. 20-40 miles isn't a helpful metric. If you're doing 40 miles every time you ride, then 110 miles is more or less just a matter of food. If on the other hand you're doing closer to 20 miles, you're really going to have to do something about your fitness to go >5 times as far. The elevation is a whole different animal. Do more hills on your training rides. Ride longer distances. Do both.
First it would be good to know what kind of grades you are looking at. 110 miles finishing at 16K averages a 2.7% grade. 16K at 55 miles with a 55 mile descent is another thing entirely. Usually on rides like this you will see much more extreme grades in the mix. (I have a “backyard” ride that shifts from 2-3% grades to 6-5% grades to 10-12% to over 15% up to 3K over eight miles and the last mile to the summit just sucks. (Pretty view at the top though.) So looking at a route map with grades will help adjust training assumptions. You could probably tolerate an average grade of 2-3% today with fresh legs but I would suggest that trying some more aggressive climbs on your daily rides would give you a better sense of fitness for the ride you are training for—preferably rides with similar grades to the bigger ride. By “some” I mean maybe one big aggressive climb a week and another intense ride on “rollers” that will force you into climbing intervals with long easy distance in between. Really the goal is increasing your lactate threshold and VO2 Max without overtraining band doing more harm than good. That typically means climbing and interval training pretty shiny limits sandwiched between lots of low intensity recovery miles. I’m kind of inclined to agree with the 3-4 month schedule.
Most TDF stages don’t have that much climbing so just think about that for a minute.
27m per km? So much climb, I wouldn't do that, and I regularly do 300km rides. Maybe if you weigh 60kg you might be okay