this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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You would have to be in incredible shape for that.
For the vast majority of people, a horse would be able to take them further than they could themselves on a bike.
Maybe the info I found online is wrong but looks like a horse and rider can go about 50km a day. Going by Google maps that is around 3 hours by bike and their times I find are not too far off a casual bike ride for someone who doesn't do any racing training.
If you have a racing bike and use it frequently then then you could probably cut it down to easily under 2 hours.
What? It’s recommended you don’t go more than 3-5 miles on your first few bike outings until you’re capable of going longer.
Those lengths you’re suggesting requires training like marathons.
People train to travel 50km by bike in a week, let alone a day or a single outing.
Maybe you’re thinking of ecycles and other non manual bikes?
To give another point of data.
People walking pilgrimages like El Camino de Santiago de Compostela routinely walk 23 km (14 miles) per day for multiple weeks. And those are people in all kind of shapes and ages, including slow walking grandparents. Trained people can do twice more.
Humans are really good at long distance, not just athlets. Modern life made us forget about it and anything longer than 5 km sounds impressive.
Exactly, a day is a long time. You can take breaks along the way and don't have to push yourself for speed. When I was in my teens the local scout group often went to the next town over, about a 20km round trip. No one trained for it, some people may have been a little tired by the end of it but not excessively so and it was fun.
Similar trips done both walking and cycling, of course cycling it takes much less time. Even our school ran a bike trip at the end of the year, wish I measured the distance but certainly 10s of km as it was pretty much a full school day riding. Minus maybe an hour at the start of the day to check over bikes and a bit for lunch.