Road Cycling

Rocking up to your first sportive can be a pretty intimidating, especially when you see all the keen beans on their swanky road bikes. Follow these great tips to ensure you’re right in the peloton and make the most of your big day.

Get the miles in

One of the easiest ways to make sure that a big ride goes well is to get lots of base miles under your belt. There is no substitute for decent training when it comes to endurance sports like cycling. In your training, you should not only get lots of miles done so you can get used to spending lots of time in the saddle, but you’ll also want to practice dealing with hills. Getting accustomed to going up and down hills is a great thing practice so make sure you’re ready to tackle whatever the sportive course has to throw at you.

Get the kit

Not a lot will admit it, but most cyclists are only in it for the stash. You will have noticed cyclists put a lot of time and effort into the kit that they were when they’re out on the road. Make sure you’ve got all the kit you need and be prepared for all weather just in case.

Get your bike checked

Can’t do a bike ride if you don’t have a bike. Make sure your noble steed is in good-working order. The last thing you want is to get a mile into your ride to find that your gears don’t work. If you don’t know a huge amount about bike maintenance then take your bike into a shop to have a service and they’ll make sure that you’re good to go.

Before you head out for the ride, double check you’ve pumped up your tires to your desired pressure and make sure your chain is clean and well lubricated to ensure a smooth and trouble-free ride.

Get your mates involved

The only thing better than getting out on your bike and getting some good quality exercise, is doing it with your friends. Drag some mates along with you and make a proper day out of it. A nice big bike ride in the morning followed by a big pub lunch with some of your pals always makes for a great time.

Get some proper fuel in

Nutrition is so important when it comes to long distance cycling. So important, in fact, that we wrote an entire article on it.

Cycling uses up a lot of your body’s energy stores so it’s important to keep this in check. Make sure you’re taking on a good amount of carbs to keep your energy levels ticking over, and enough protein to help your muscles repair after long training rides and for building strength.

Don’t forget to drink enough water as well. It’s very easy to ignore the fact that the more you exercise, the more water you need. So try and keep drinking water over the course of your days.

Get there early

It’s always good to get to the event nice and early so you’ve got lots of time to sort all your stuff out. Most sportives will require you to sign in or register on the day so you’ll want to get there early to avoid the queues.

There is also always a big queue for the porta-loos so best to try and get in there early before too many people have been through..

Get your pace right

I must stress, a sportive is an noncompetitive (often un-timed) bike ride so don’t throw too much at it. The main aim of a sportive is to have fun and get some exercise so you want to think about completing, not competing.

You also don’t want to go off to fast off the start. It’s very easy to front-load a ride and end up with no energy for the rest of the ride so take it easy off the start and find a good, sustainable pace that you can hold for the duration of the ride.

You wouldn’t go on a long drive without filling up your car with the right fuel, so why treat your body any differently? Follow these simple cycling nutrition tips to keep your wheels spinning as the miles rack up.

With cycling, as with any endurance sport, it’s important to keep your body properly fuelled before, during and after the ride itself.

Before the ride

Nutrition before a big cycling race is fairly standard and in line with the sort of things you would be eating for any other kind of endurance event.

• Keep your carb intake up. This means healthy amounts of pasta and rice and cereals to keep your energy stores stocked up during your long training sessions. You don’t want to overload your body with stodgy carbs, but a good dose of pasta will give you the energy you need to get the miles done. The idea of ‘carb loading’ is a slightly outdated concept that has been proven to impact on the quality of your sleep so don’t over-do it on the pasta.

• Hydration is key. Making sure you keep your water intake up is just as important as what you’re eating. Try and stay consistently hydrated in the few days leading up to the ride so that you don’t have to try and catch up on the day and risk losing time in toilet stops.
• Race-day breakfast.You will want to get your breakfast in 90–120 mins before you start riding. This is to give your body ample time to digest the food and get all the energy that you’ll need from it.
• Porridge is the perfect pre-ride meal, giving you the perfect level of energy, without overloading you with carbs, fats and fibre. If you’re going for a longer ride then why not add in an omelette to give you some extra slow release energy to keep you ticking over.
• Again, make sure you’re keeping hydrated. The trick is to take sips of water at regular intervals over the day.

The Race

You will start to make your way through your energy and water stores as you go around the course so make sure you keep topping these stores up.

• Keep sipping your water as the race goes on. Aim to have a sip of water every 5–10 mins so that you can aim to get through around 500–1000ml each hour depending on water stops, your build and the weather.
• Carbs need to be taken on board early and in small amounts. Although 30 mins into the ride may feel too early to start chomping down on an energy bar, 15–20km later when your legs are really starting to work, you’ll be thankful that you did.
• If you’ve got energy gels or bars with you, you’ll want to get one down you every 60–90 mins to keep your energy intake consistent and efficient. Bear in mind they are often stuffed full of sugars so don’t go crazy unless you’re planning a visit to the dentist.
• Make the most of the feed stops. Most cyclosportives will feature a feed stop around the halfway point (longer rides will have multiple stops) and make sure you stock up when you’re there. They’ll often have lots of jelly babies and flapjacks, both great stores of energy that will keep you going and going.

After the race

Recovery food is just as important for your body as pre-ride food. If you’ve paced yourself right and fuelled yourself properly then when you cross the finish line you should be pretty hungry, but not starving. If you can, get your hands on some kind of protein and carb-filled drink to really kickstart your recovery stage. This will help give your muscles what they need to start their recovery.

• Try not to get caught in the trap of ‘I burned all these calories so I can eat what I want’. Your post-ride lunch wants to be nice and healthy and have good amounts of carbohydrates and proteins. Be sensible and don’t overdo it.

These 5 most common cycling injuries and how to prevent them could improve your cycling and reduce your risk of injury

Cycling injuries form a small part of the cycling experience but there are some issues that are found to be more common. The following are a few of the most common cycling injuries and ways to avoid them.

1. Lower back pain

The hours spent in the same position curled over the handlebars mean that one of the most common injuries that cyclists suffer from is lower back pain as stress is being placed on the whole spine.

To prevent this injury occurring in the first place make sure you’ve set up your bike correctly. Try to avoid overreaching which usually means your frame is too big, or a hunched posture and your frame being too small. Adding in some core exercises into your fitness regime will help protect your back and make you a more powerful cyclist.

2. Knee pain

Knee pain is another common cycling injury and is usually caused by a poorly fitting bike. A tight IT band, which is the fibrous tissue that runs down the outer thigh, caused by less flexibility and a repeated action can change the muscle balance around the knee and create tension.

To prevent any damage to your knees, check the height of your saddle and make sure it suits you as this can have a big impact on the state of your knees. Try adding in some hip and knee stretches to reduce tension and increase mobility and finally, try not to over-train and make sure you utilise rest days.

3. Neck pain

Neck pain in cyclists normally originates from riding in the same position for a long time and the pressure on your neck from hyperextending.

To avoid this, make sure your bike fits you well and you’re not straining to reach the handlebars. You should also check that your handlebars are not too low as this can put added pressure on your neck.

4. Saddle sores

Saddle sores is a painful skin irritation that develops after spending many hours on a bike. It’s caused by the friction between your skin, clothes and the saddle and can lead to unpleasant rashes.

Make sure you’ve got a well fitting saddle that suits you and invest in some decent cycling shorts that have a bit of padding. You can also buy some chamois cream to help reduce friction.

5. Foot numbness

Numb feet is another common find among cyclists. This can be caused by ill-fitting shoes or cleats, cleats being placed too far forward or excessive hill cycling, both of which put added pressure on your feet.

To avoid this make sure you invest in properly fitting cleats and you may need a pair for summer and a pair for winter depending on how your feet swell. Make sure the cleats are positioned correctly to alleviate pressure and try to mix up your cycling training so you don’t go overboard with hills.

And how you should avoid making the mistake

“Slow Down” feels like a funny thing for Constantine “Stan” Louloudis to be saying to me. Working together at LetsDoThis.com, there’s no real doubt about who the best athlete is.

Stan has an Olympic Gold Medal from Rio, to go with his bronze at London and one of the highest VO2 Maxs in Team GB. I’m barely the best athlete in my family. Matthew Pinsent is drooling over his numbers on BBC Sport, whilst I feel positively out of breath just watching it.

How, then, is he possibly telling me to slow down? It turns out a mighty engine is not built from constantly ragging it…….

Sam Browne (SB): If I only have 40 minutes to train a day, surely my best bet is to just go and hammer it to get the most out of the session?

Constantine Louloudis (CL): Yeah, to be honest, you couldn’t really be more wrong. There’s this misconception that if you’re working harder and “leave it all on the track” in every training session you’ll improve by sheer force if will. Actually you’re just training in a zone that you’ll only be in for maybe 25 minutes at the end of a race, in truth you can only exclusively exist in that zone for about 2 minutes. If you’re in an under trained zone, i.e. when you’re not totally out of breath, for at least 75% of your race you’re not going to race particularly well.

SB: That makes sense, I tend to have a pretty solid kick for home but struggle in the mid section. What should I be doing instead?

CL: You want to spend at least 80% of your training at tempo pace — basically sitting just below your lactate threshold. We had fancy blood tests in the Olympic team to judge this exactly but your threshold is normally about 85% of your max heart rate. So you want to be training in the 70–80% of max heart rate zone. You really need to have a heart rate monitor to judge this but if you don’t it should be a pace where you’re not totally relaxed but that you could hold for 40 minutes without dying. That’s going to feel really pretty slow if you’re used to going out and just trying to smash it for 20 minutes.

SB: OK but I don’t have 3 hours a day to go and do tempo runs [runs in this heart rate zone just under lactate threshold]. If I just swap my high intensity sessions for tempo sessions will I see improvements?

CL: For sure, whilst having the luxury to train 7 hours a day is great, it’s not necessary to improve. If you’re training 40 minutes a day aerobically — where your body’s use of oxygen can supply you with enough energy to keep going through aerobic metabolism — you will keep increasing that lactate threshold and be able to go faster for longer without entering the red zone. Your body just can’t handle running above your lactate threshold for all that long so the more you can train yourself to be efficient and fast in the zone just below that threshold, the faster you will go across the race as whole.

SB: Great, so no more pain cave sessions?

CL: Haha no not quite. Some anaerobic training is important. This is where you’ve exceeded your lactate threshold and your body can’t produce enough energy from the oxygen you’re supplying it — the chemical reaction to still produce energy has the by-product of lactic acid. You can get better at handling lactic acid and, therefore, operate better in this zone at the end of the race when you’re really on the limit. Anaerobic training increases the alkaline reserves in your muscles, which allows them to perform better in the presence of lactic acid.

SB: Great so I can still go and ruin myself sometimes

CL: Yes occasionally, but maybe make the Any Given Sunday speech a pre workout ritual once a fortnight rather than every day.

SB: Sacrilege! But fine I guess….

Feel Inspired? Check out one of these awesome events coming up in London

Virgin Sport British 10k

Dorney Lake Triathlon

Hyde Park Spring 10k

Tour of Cambridgeshire Festival