Quote Originally Posted by DarcyInOregon View Post
You should do a full century over similar terrain as the brevet first. It is more than doing the mileage. It is about all of the things that can happen to the body during a long ride, how to recognize incipient signs of problems and what steps to take immediately to avoid having problems. You are over the age of 50, correct? It is different cycling for an older person than it is for a young person, and the older body may struggle with increased distance whereas a younger cyclist may not have any difficulties. You need to do a century first, to find out if anything will happen. It is a big difference between 60 miles and 100 miles.
Certainly, I do understand that I need to do at least the century. Just wondering if I need to do MORE than the century before the brevet. I would like to do so if I can. I think my speed is good enough as long as my endurance will hang in there - but of course so far the longest I've been on the bike is 5 hours, and that is a long ways from 10-13. I am slow.

I have been trying very hard to not increase my mileage too quickly. However I was just looking at the calendar and pondering the number of weekends I have left before the brevet and wondering how realistic it will be for me to do more than a century prior to the event. I am hoping to do two 70-75 mile rides Labor Day weekend (a day between them).

As an aside, I did receive the RUSA handbook in the mail today, and it appears to have quite a few articles on preparing for the different brevet lengths.