Many of us cyclist don’t go out on the bike for under an hour, at a minimum. What’s the point? It is barely a ride if it is not at least two hours on the bike. I need half an hour to convince myself maybe I do feel OK. After an hour, the first queries can go down to the engine room, is everything good down there? Some people feel better as the ride progresses, some don’t. The ones who say they really start to feel unblocked after five hours, I hate them. @GogglesPizano weighs in on hour number three.
Ride to live and live to ride, Gianni
I have always ridden bikes and as I expect is the case for most of us here I can perfectly describe every detail of every bicycle I have ever owned, starting from cruising the neigbourhood on my blue CCM Swinger in my younger years then moving on to through my Kuwahara BMX then onto some real bikes. Biking was just what I did – every day.
Things changed though roughly 25 years ago in my late teens when on one spring afternoon I hauled my Father’s blue Raleigh Record 10-speed out of the shed and hit the highway for the first time with the sole motivation to ride my bike far and ride fast. I had been running cross-country in high school so I had a pretty solid aerobic base and the start of a decent set of guns. I remember a couple of things about that ride very vividly, the first being that I felt like I wanted to go on forever the second being that all I wanted to do was eat when I got home and finally I made my mother drive the route right after to figure out how far I went (she got tired of doing that after about the 2nd time). Within a month or two I had purchased myself a stunning blue Trek1000 and began to ride more and more approaching the century distance fairly quickly. I never quite fully understood my connection to the ride during these years but I knew it was there and it was strong.
Fast-forward to the present. There is something that I have learned to love more than anything else about riding. For me I long for the 3rd hour of the ride; I can’t really describe it fully but I will try.
What is so special about this 3rd hour? On longer days for me the first hour or two is usually about settling in, letting it warm up a bit, let the breakfast and coffee dissipate and clear the head of all of the challenges of the week. Then as I enter the third hour a few things start to happen, the endorphins are starting to really kick in, I know if I am on or off for the day, the temperature is warming up, the aches are loosened up, all of the Anti-V is clear out of the way and usually I am also as far out from home as I will get on my ride. This for me is my happy place, it is where I want to be – always. The ache is slowly beginning to build in the legs, the hunger is starting but I still have lots left in the tank. Occasionally I may catch glimpses of The Man with the Hammer but the 3rd hour is not where he tends to show up, and usually at this point I still think I can outride him. Don’t get me wrong – I love the latter hours of the rides and the sensations that come along but for me I will always long for that way I feel in that 3rd hour.
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Very Nice. I think that Orson Welles would agree and, if I am not mistaken, this is a clip of The Man with the Hammer trying to get through the storm drain near the end of the Third Hour of the ride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvnjHevRceQ
I'm clearly not getting my work/ V balance right. I'm always nearly home by the third hour and even then SWMBO is giving me the look!
This time of year and with all the shit of day-to-day life all I manage is 1 hr rides.
But at least I'm riding.
Good article.
Good article. Realizing that I need all the 45min to 1hr rides to keep the 4 to 6 hour rides going. Many times I ride circles in the driveway awaiting my wife to drive up. "Kids are in the house. Back in an hour!"
Now that I think of it, we've been attacking one another in the third hour. Now it all makes perfect sense.
I have couple of loops that I regularly ride, individually each is about 2.5 hrs and together about 3.5 hrs. I've been surprised how many times I've gone out for a 2.5 hr loop and come to where they join and turned right for the extra hour vs left to come home. Somehow the extra hour seems special when it is sort of stolen time.
i manage 10 - 12 hours a week mostly commuting from the Surrey Hills into the CIty of London and back, uphill, after a day's work. Most working days, whatever the weather, hangover or not. It's an hour or so in each direction dodging all manner of fuck-wit who's sheer bloody mindedness or slow witedness is going to get you killed or just plain rolling on four wheels instead of two. I approach each ride like a time trial and to quote an old interview with David Jeffries (Isle of Man TT legend on powered wheels), " I'm gonna go as fast as I can, as safe as I can". A three hour stint in the countryside is nice work if you can get it. A daily dose of demonstrating ones powerfully smooth stroke, dropping off fools half my age after I have toyed with them whilst dodging all potential hazards is what keeps my enlarged heart pumping. Yeah, I live the countryside, it's my back yard. But who's got the time?
What I have discovered, after reaching a higher level of training, is that a two hour ride is too short most times. My guns begin to wake up at the 90 minute mark. Hitting the 3 hour point, as mentioned, is where the magic begins. Luckily, I have the time to train and I don't let weather interfere with that. Only on my recovery/easy days are my rides sub 2 hours. Most weeks, I am in the saddle for 20 hours. Now that winter is upon me, I have to properly kit-up my body and bike for the cold and dark ride home. The 3 hour training rides (Tues. through Thurs.= 270 km) during the week require lights and my Therm-ic insoles. On the weekends, when not racing, 240 km is the norm. It is on the 4 hour weekend rides that Rules 6,9 and 71 come into play. Mentally and physically, the 4 hour rides feel the best.
This is really spot on.
Now that it is getting darker earlier, my indoor trainer season has begun in earnest. The time dilation that seems to happen with the trainer versus riding outdoors is amazing. And it's also amazing how I always manage to forget how slowly time feels like it is going when I'm riding in my basement. I try to break the rides in 10 minute blocks, but each minute is still agonizingly long--you gain a much more acute sense for the passage of time.
Outdoors it's just the opposite. I'm often struck by how that 3rd hour just sneaks up on me.
2 yr ago, I would really start to crank in the third hour. Presently, on the odd occasion I ride that long, I'm suffering like a dog.
Still takes me 20 km to warm up properly though. 50, not old, but getting younger either.