Anyone ever ridden a "Dirty Century"?

[Jeff Barber]

I just read a short article in Bicycling about Dirty Centuries (100 mile mountain bike races) and I think I need to do one of these. Fortunately there are a couple to choose from in my area: The Fool’s Gold 100 in north Georgia and the Cohutta 100 in Tennessee.

My question is about training: how do I prepare for such a race? Seems like a lot of advice you hear is to put in miles on the road but it doesn’t seem like this will prepare you for the rigors of singletrack riding. Racers usually spend 8-10 hours in the saddle in a Dirty Century so perhaps progressively longer rides on the MTB would be helpful?

Fortunately the races aren’t coming up anytime soon (the Cohutta 100 is in April) so there is plenty of time to train, any advice?

[Sweetlife]

Trek7, I`ve never ridden a "dirty century" before, but I have rode a road bike century under 5 hours with 3 other riders in a paceline (yes, taking my pull at the front when it was my turn). It was brutal. At about the same time in my life I did a 36 mile MTB point to point race (longest MTB race I have ever done) and it was brutal. I can only imagine what a 100 mile MTB race would be like, at the time I was averaging 6 to 11 hrs of training per week split about 50/50 between the MTB and road bike. I found the road bike to be crucial in my performance. There is a slow death to be had on a road bike that I couldn`t achieve on my MTB. If I were to try a dirty century, I would hook up with some roadies for awhile and build a super good base, well at least that is what I would do. Good luck!
If you decide to follow through with this, I would love to hear about your experience in a future Singletracks post.

P.S. Remember, you`ll regret the things you didn`t do, more than the things you did!

[UltraRob]

I raced the Leadville 100 4 times and the Durango 100 twice. Although you need some long rides, I also think intensity workouts a very important. Do 5-6 minute intervals with about that much recovery time in between. If you can get through more than 5 or 6 of them you aren’t going hard enough.

One of the most important things is your fuel. One of the nice things most of the 100 milers to is provide aid stations with food that looks so yummy. If it’s not something you trained with, don’t eat it during the race. I wrote a post a while ago that has the race nutrition that works for me.

Even when I’m training for long mountain bike races, I probably do 80% of my training on the road. You get beat up less and can recover faster. It also does help to do group rides to force you to go harder. You need good recovery rides and these shouldn’t be done in a group because you’ll be tempted to go too hard.

[dauw]

I did the Laramie Enduro this past July. It wasn’t 100 miles, but it was just over 70 miles at over 8000 ft elevation. This was my first endurance race, and I finished about mid-pack at 8 hours. Although I meant to train a lot, mostly I just rode a few 10-15 mile rides during the week, and tried to do a longer ride on the weekend. I ended up doing a few 30 milers, and one 40 mile ride (I think). During the race I made sure I hydrated a lot, and ate a lot at the aid stations. I didn’t cramp or puke like many other racers did. Although the race was about 40-60? singletrack-doubletrack and my all mountain rig was nice, in retrospect I wish I would have built up my hardtail for a lighter ride-I was slow on the long, doubletrack uphills.

If you’re doing it for fun and to finish, just ride a lot before the race, do some longer rides, pace yourself, and have fun.

If you’re doing it to race, look for advice elsewhere. 😉

[zombi]

Hey dauw!

I’ve been looking into the Laramie Enduro. would you really suggest a hardtail? I haven’t found anyone who’s rode it so this is very interesting to me haha.

[zombi]

thanks Goose that helps a bunch.

[brianW]

Just to let you know, the SORBA-CSRA, http://www.sorbacsra.org is planning on a Sumter "Dirty" Century and a metric century on May 9th.

On there forum site it was mentioned that the metric will be a loop that will go over Modoc, Wine, Turkey and Horn Creek trails. While the full century will start at FATS and then go over the "metric".

I am planning on one of these options. Cannot wait, now I just have to do more riding to get ready.

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