I’m planning a big ride this summer - about 180 miles, 28k of climbing, targeting about 15 hours to avoid running out of daylight on hairpin descents. I’ve done vEveresting a few times and have been training 8+ months so am fairly confident in the power numbers I’ll be able to sustain. I’m basically looking for a reality check/second opinion on whether my watts will bring me under my time target, so started dabbling with Best Bike Split. It does seem to do a thorough and rigorous job of estimating the route duration but bases it upon heaps of variables that I’m not sure I (or it) can accurately estimate. In particular, the cDA looks a bit optimistic. I see that it can analyze this from various rides I upload, and I’d be willing to do a few controlled baseline rides if that’s worthwhile.
I’m curious if others have good/bad experience with this service, and in particular with the reliability of its estimators. My ride/scenario is ridiculously long so I’m not expecting to follow the detailed segment targets other than for controlled pacing on the climbs, but I’m very interested in whether it capable of getting the time within 5-10% of actual.
I have no experience with these type of tools but have some with multi-day ultra events. I think that over these distances weather and road surface conditions have more impact on your overall time than FTP and CDA. You’re doing lots of climbing and that will even out the difference a bit, but a strong headwind for 150km where you expected a tailwind can still increase your overall time with more than an hour. Same goes for bad roads, mechanicals and resupply spots that don’t turn out to be as well stocked as you expected.
When estimating distance per day for multi-day rides I always give myself a window of 4h, roughly 100km. I’m usually within an hour or 2 of my estimates, but being prepared and having a plan for when it takes longer than expected gives me peace of mind during the ride.
My advice: ride the way you want to ride and bring a good battery powered light and a high vis jacket just in case.
Good advice, though I’m going uber ultra and planning this as a single day ride. It’s a loop, so in theory headwind/tailwind balance out, but obviously weather’s a big factor and limited predictability. I throw that in the “man plans, God laughs” category of things I might prepare for but shouldn’t over analyze.
I’m not expecting feedback from anyone who’s done a comparatively difficult a ride, but suspect there are some in this community that do use this type of tool to plan and manage rides in the 3-6 hour range and am curious whether either the estimated times or recommended high/low effort splits have proven helpful.
I’ve tried using Mywindsock for planning the duration of longer, unfamiliar rides of 80-120miles. Over that distance, aerodynamics has quite a dramatic effect on expected time to complete, and while it permits you to enter your cda, I have no idea if the number I’ve entered is remotely close to my actual. In my experience it ends up overestimating the time to complete.
When I do a 10k climbing ride, I can easily go an hour faster or slower just based on how I’m feeling for the day.
Up the elevation to 28k ft and increase mileage by 2x and I’d expect epic variation
I personally would trust BBS as a rough starting point. I’m not sure what else I could do that would be more accurate. However, i have found BBS to be accurate in a TT when I ride mostly consistent power, never done it when I will ride steady power UP and zero power DOWN
But all that being said, my guess is how long you stop (either those that are planned or unplanned) will introduce more variability in your times than +/- 20% in power or cda for the day.
I would very very conservatively try to estimate how long it takes me to ride 90miles / 14k climbing and double it + add 2-3hrs as my guess.
Looking back at multiple 100mile / 12k climbing routes (annual group ride) it usually takes me approx 7.5hrs to complete. I’m pretty wrecked by the end. I couldn’t do 180 / 28k in 15hrs, but I would try it with lights =)
I’ve used BestBikeSplit for two big rides: and it did a pretty good job. The estimate was close enough that I would use it again. There are a lot of variables but I didn’t really worry about them except for the route, FTP, and weight. You can adjust the other ones and see how that affects things but it probably won’t change the time a lot.. Obviously weather can play a big factor and you never know how much rest time you will need.
One app I really like, is Epic Ride Weather. You enter a route, start time, and average speed and it will show you the estimated weather throughout the ride. This is super helpful especially if wind can be a factor.