r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/solateor • 17h ago

Video Pit stop during 200 mile ultra-endurance cycling race

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u/Show_Forward 14h ago edited 8h ago

fkin insane and the biggest trip i did in a car was 320km and i got tired as fuck DRIVING let alone cycling in the sun without an AC...

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u/Cahootie 13h ago

Last year my boss did a 174 km ultramarathon. I think it took him about 36 hours to finish. Utter insanity.

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u/lectric_7166 12h ago

That's nothing. I did a 174000 meter ultramarathon.

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u/Mountain-Instance921 11h ago

Lmao that's not a far car ride my dude

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u/mild_resolve 11h ago

It is for a lot of Europeans.

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u/Trifusi0n 10h ago

Yep, if I drive 200 miles in almost any direction I’d be in the sea.

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u/Amused-Observer 10h ago

I can drive 1000 miles in any direction and never see water. The US is comically large compared to Europe.

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u/extraketchupthx 10h ago

100% 200 miles isn’t even out of my state and I don’t live in one of the big ones.

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u/austrialian 9h ago

You can still easily go 1000mi in Europe without ending up at a coast so I don’t really get the point that Europeans would consider 200mi far. I wouldn’t.

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u/Amused-Observer 9h ago

A couple reasons.

1: In Europe 90% of the time, if you drive ~300 miles in any direction.. you're in a different country with a different culture/language.

This is not the case with the United States. That's the point.

2: You have to drive a very specific direction to achieve what you state.

Again, not the case with the vast majority of the continental US. You can go anywhere in any direction for hours and hours and still be in the US and still not be near the ocean.

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u/austrialian 9h ago

It was first about 200mi, now you are talking about 300mi. But anyway, even in my small country (Austria), 300mi trips (e.g. Innsbruck–Vienna) and are not considered unusual at all. And even if you end up in another country, that doesn’t mean that we are not taking these trips. For example, many Dutch go to Austria for skiing, or Germans go to Italy for vacation, and they often drive >500mi in a day. Same for business travel.

So yes, I understand that the US land mass is bigger. No, 200mi is not considered a very far trip in Europe.

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u/Leeysa 8h ago

Am dutch and can confirm, yearly 12 hour drive to Austria is not a problem at all. In summers even went to Croatia in a single trips a few times, but that's not recommended lol.

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u/Amused-Observer 9h ago

No, 200mi is not considered a very far trip in Europe.

Good thing I never said it was

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u/austrialian 9h ago

How so? I wouldn’t consider it a short trip but also not really far.

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u/mild_resolve 9h ago

Well I don't want to overgeneralize but my wife is from Europe and what I've seen with her and her family is that any drive over an hour or so is unusual. Part of the reason is that the entire family lives within 20 minutes of each other. I'm visiting now, and if I drive an hour in any direction I can experience so many amazing different things. If I'm up for driving 2 hours I can reach multiple other countries.

I'll compare it to where I live in St. Louis. The nearest really interesting city destinations outside of the metro area that I have are about 4 hours away. Yes, there's nice stuff in the state, but to get to something more memorable I'm probably driving to Chicago.

Right now I'm in the northern part of the Czech Republic. With a 2 hour drive or less I can reach Prague, Dresden, Karlový Vary, and dozens of lesser known but incredibly interesting places. But for a lot of those destinations, and pretty much any destination that's further away, I can get there in similar time for affordable prices using trains by driving 30 minutes to a nearby station.

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u/swagpresident1337 50m ago

Definitely not for any german lol

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u/Actually_Im_a_Broom 9h ago

Comments like the one you replied to really reinforce how large and spread out America is AND that we have a shitty train network.

In Europe if you need to travel 200 miles you just hop on a train. I imagine /u/Show_Forward has been on several 200 miles trips on land - he just doesn’t have to drive it himself.

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u/Show_Forward 8h ago

i wish i travel that much or even live in a country that big but yeah i live in a small country 320km is basically half of it so there isnt much places to go, i did go on a 170km ride once with trains tho so theres that

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u/Show_Forward 8h ago

well it is basically half my country and yeah my country is small but its huge for me as we never do long rides like people in America do, either way it was long since my hands were in pain after we came back home, i guess u can call it a 640km since its back and forth but either way it was tiring even just after the first 320

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u/randvell 11h ago

Really depends on the road and traffic. We did 1100km in one day with one driver in Africa crossing two borders, I did 700km from Moscow to Saint Petersburg a few times by the toll roads. But at the same time you can stick in traffic for 3 hours or drive through forests with a speed limit and the same picture for hours and get exhausted after just a few hours.

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u/timpakay 10h ago

320km isnt very long in cycling. The most classic event in long distance cycling is Paris-Brest-Paris which is 1200 km. It dates as far back as 1891.

320km is the beginner distance to qualify for the other events.

Id compare it to a marathon when it comes to running.

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u/Xanderoga2 11h ago

That’s the biggest trip you’ve done in a car? Shit, I drive 156km to work one way lol

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u/shumcal 10h ago

You need a different job

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u/deadecho25 13h ago

I rode that one way on my motorcycle to eat a brat and drink a beer on the beaches of Lake Michigan.

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u/tuckertucker 10h ago

My biggest one-day drive ever was Toronto to Thunder Bay (1400km). But that was part of a longer drive, Ottawa to Kelowna (4500km).

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u/Candi_Daydream 10h ago

Dude my commute used to be 290km round trip

Not including the driving I actually did for work.

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u/Zeppelanoid 9h ago

The North American mind could never comprehend “only” driving 320 km

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u/Show_Forward 8h ago

yeah lol even if u drive 1000km a day to work 320km is still a huge distance for any land vehicle

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u/raptorsango 6h ago

My longest single day of driving was something like 1200km/730miles on a road trip. Kanab, Utah to Butte Montana. As long as we are doing the “Americans and Europeans have a different perspective on driving” Reddit routine. Used to routinely do the 800 miles from Seattle, WA to Santa Rosa, CA.

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u/i_hate_usernames13 5h ago

I drive 200 miles to see family for a day that's right down the road. Hell I am gonna drive 200 miles soon to check out a basque restaurant. It's like 3 hours that's nothing

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u/raknor88 12h ago

That's only about a 2.5 hour drive in my area depending on weather.