Ultra Rider: In Search of the Ultimate Long Ride

Ultra Rider?

Someone asked me today why I call myself Ultra Rider.

Actually, I don’t.

“Ultra Rider” is what I do.

For a lot of sports, there are two modes. Normal. Like the marathon for instance. And ultra. As in “ultramarathon”.

An ultramarathon is just like a marathon - a foot race - but the distances involved are quite extraordinary. In running, any race longer than a marathon qualifies as an ultramarathon.

For instance, if you finish a marathon, and then run around the block without stopping, you could probably start calling yourself an “ultrarunner”.

In my case, I cycle. In cycling, the rough equivalent of a marathon is either the century or double-century. (A century is a 100 mile bike ride in one day, a double-century or “double” is simply 200 miles in one day) I say “either” because everyone that I know that cycles says that a century is roughly equivalent to a marathon, but none of them run marathons as far as I know and I see a lot more cyclists doing centuries than see runners doing full marathons.

I’d even go so far to say that the double probably isn’t quite up to par with a marathon.

In any event, my point is that ultracycling is much less defined than ultrarunning. The UMCA, Wikipedia and any Google search I’ve done will confirm this. So, I’ve chosen to view it as simply being any ride in which extraordinary distances are involved.

So what qualifies me as an ultra rider?

Well, I do have to say that I’m a novice ultra rider. I’ve done more centuries than I can count (in the past year, most of my long training rides have been 125+ miles), a handful of doubles, one off-road metric century (100km on a mountain bike in the sandy forests of Ganaraska Park - still the hardest thing I’ve done on a bike), several multi-day back-to-back centuries (two, three and four days in a row), and finally, crossing Canada in just 19 days. My longest single session ride is 349 kilometres.

All of this pales in comparison to what hardcore ultra riders accomplish - 600, 1200 mile non-stop trips are quite common. The crown jewel, the RAAM, is a relentless race across the entire US. Being competitive means finishing in less than 10 days. Being a contender means finishing in less than 9. In the entire history of the race (going back to 1982), the longest a RAAM winner has taken to complete the journey was 10 days, 16 hours and 29 minutes - an average speed of 12.4 miles per hour.

My most relevant qualification won’t be found in amongst the list of rides I’ve completed. My biggest asset is my headspace. Why I ride.

I ride to find out where the boundary is - what my limit is. Not in terms of raw speed, but in terms of personal capability. How many more times can I turn the pedals over before I quit? Can I travel further today than I did yesterday? Do I have what it takes to finish the ride before I talk myself into quitting?

Someone once said that the definition of a long ride is relative to the distance of your last ride. The long rides are always just a bit longer than the longest distance you’ve already rode. To an absolute beginner, riding 50k is a big feat. To that same cyclist six months later, 100km seems almost insurmountable, but still achievable.

I’m a 200 mile rider right now. For me, 500 miles seems almost insurmountable - but achievable. And that’s why I’ve chosen the cross-provincial as The Next Big Ride.

So yeah, “Ultra Rider” is the name of the blog and while it might be *slightly* presumptuous of me to adopt the name as a label for what I do, it feels pretty comfortable. Hopefully, this blog will be a great way for you to watch me grow into it :-)