Doing a Super Randonneur can be a great training focus, as well as helping you build a really good base for longer events in the future.
A Super Randonneur award is received for riding 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km rides within the specified time limits, usually requiring an average speed of 15km/hour, including all stops and breaks.
All four rides must be completed within a specified 12 month period.
They can be completed in any order and you may substitute longer events for shorter ones if you wish. Rules may vary from country to country so do check out the rules for your associated Audax Club.
You will first need to train to a point where you can complete 200km 13.5 hours; the best way to do this is to do some regular riding and aim to do at least one ride per month where you test your distance against the elapsed time.
It's usually a good idea to train for 2-3 weeks then have some easy days/days off before doing a long ride to test yourself. You can then build your long ride gradually over the months.
Once you have done a 200km and established a good routine all you need to do is stick to your routine and keep pushing that long ride every 3rd or 4th week to meet the Super Randonneur milestones.
You can learn whether you are fast enough from your test rides and if you aren't you need to get faster. You do this by simply riding faster, either by doing short fast rides or by interval training where you do fast segments and then have a break.
If you are fast enough to take the step to the next distance, you can focus on building endurance with more frequent longer rides.
If you are starting from scratch, we suggest you focus on endurance first until you can ride for 10 hours and then evaluate your strengths and weaknesses to refocus.
If you have some experience, you can get stuck into working on your weaknesses.
You can find more detailed articles on our blog, or you might like our YouTube channel where we discuss training for endurance cycling events.