I discovered that the British Heart Foundation are running a 100 mile Off road ride along the entirety of the South Downs Way. I've fancied a crack at the SDW for a good few years and this seems like the time to finally get it off the list.

My question is have any of you chaps had any experience of cycling this kind of distance and was it something that you built up to or just relied on base fitness to achieve? There's exactly 4 weeks to go from today and although I'm not in terrible shape I think that 100 miles and 13000 feet of climbing would be pretty painful for me as I am.

What do you guys think? Any advice gratefully received.

Lewis

I'm doing this! To be honest WRT was kind of my prep. As it's going to be in one day I'll be on my spearfish rather than the Fargo. I went out a week or two ago and rode as fast as I could around my local trails for 6 hours. Not very scientific but there you go....

Done it, relied on base fitness (which Is sweet FA)

It's a grand day out, hard work though

http://allthegear-noidea.blogspot.co.uk ... ories.html

I rode it in 2011, but not as part of the BHF event.

It ended up taking 16 hours, mainly due to having baggage (slow friends, who I had to pedal on without) and having taken a massive wrong turn at the end adding 13 miles on.

It's a beautiful ride. I absolutely loved every mile.

The terrain is easy-going throughout, but is very undulating and I'd say a mid/high level of fitness is needed to complete the full distance.

Good luck! ...Give it your best shot - you'll have a ball!

I rode half of it on sat the 22nd.
Have also ridden 8/10ths of it in one go.
Have never ridden all of it at once.
The chap who I was riding with this saturday was was so impressed with the route that he
wants us to ride the whole thing in about 3wks time.
I struggled with 50 miles of it!
Gotta get some more long rides in before then.
I hope to finish wthin about 13 hours...............maybe?