Your Big Ride: Don’t Hurt the Legs
Dec 06, 2023
Pacing and Fuelling - The Key to a Great Day
The big day
This is it, the big day. You have been training for and thinking about this day for months. What started out as a dream, perhaps even a mad one, has lead to this.
It could be you have entered a big charity ride, perhaps you are in France ready to climb multiple mountains on the L’Etape du Tour, or you are setting out on your first 100km ride with friends.
Whatever the ride is, it will feel different to those you have done before – and that’s where things can go wrong.
All roads lead to….
When you are new to cycling and aiming for a challenge most of your thoughts are geared to getting yourself fit and learning new skills. If you have been following a structured training program, your rides will have been getting longer and you should have been riding over different terrains and in different ways.
Your challenge ride might be harder or longer than you have done before but you will have done a lot of work to prepare for it. So, in some ways you know what to expect.
Physically you are ready, psychologically, and how you ride your event, not so much.
Out of your control
The key to getting through big days on the bike is pacing and once you have got that sorted, fuelling, or what you eat and drink.
If you are on a challenge ride there are likely to be big crowds. Some events have you lining up at 6:00am with potentially thousands of others. You can almost run a knife through the excitement, and – a memory from my racing days – the loos will have that all too familiar aroma of nervousness…. Suffice to say, when you set off on your ride you will be in a highly charged emotional state.
It is now that must concentrate on how you ride your bike.
I have coached many people over the years, from youth riders who have gone on to be National Champions, to people who want to ride a great L’Etape du Tour. The most common trait I have found across all types of riders is most of them start out as batterers.
What do I mean?
Left to our own devices, most new riders tend to go hard up climbs – the battering – forcing the pacing, hurting our legs and getting themselves way out of breath. Over the top and down the other side we will pedal slowly and then hardly push on the pedals when on the flat. It creates a very uneven effort profile for the ride. Professional riders on the other hand ride in a completely different way. If they have an endurance ride planned they will ride steadily over all terrain, backing off on the rises and keeping the pressure on the legs when on the flat. They search for consistency of effort making rises smoother and more predictable.
For the rest of us, the trouble with battering is that it hurts the legs. Going hard up a rise is a short destructive effort that uses up your energy stores much quicker than riding steady. Now, if you are out on an evening ride in the lanes for an hour, battering can be OK as it gets some good training in in a short ride.
But challenge rides are not short rides….
A challenge ride could be 4 to 5 hours for 100km and upwards of 7 to 8 hours for things like L’Etape. If you batter at the start of rides like these then you are in for a hard day.
The secret is to stay calm and to ride in a smooth and controlled way. Don’t get caught up in the mad rush to stay with a fast group or start a climb so hard that you come spluttering to a halt pretty soon. Instead, imagine you are a pro rider and as the road starts to rise, consciously back off the effort. Switch to a pace that you know you can maintain and actively try not to hurt your legs. If you have trained well, you will know what battering feels like and know what riding calmly feels like – aim for the latter.
Riding like this conserves energy and means that you will have more power for the last few hours of the day or that last great climb. It may feel too easy to start with but trust me, I have helped many riders enjoy their day just by using this simple, but hugely effective trick.
What not to eat….
As well as how you ride your challenge you should think about what you eat during the day, it’s easy to forget to eat. But you are going to be riding for many hours, potentially the duration of a whole working day, and so, you must eat.
The trick here is to start eating early and keep eating all the way through the day. Take food and drink with you and then use the stops to pick up some more. What you eat is also important too. A full day’s riding is a long way on sports nutrition alone, so eat as much real food as you can. Take things like bananas or dried fruit. Perhaps make some jam and peanut butter sandwiches for early on. Put carbohydrate drink in your bottle but avoid the gels until the end of the ride. Gels are great sources of carbohydrate energy but if you eat them all day long then there is a good chance they will mess with your stomach.
Food is obviously very personal but the basic rule of real food first, and for as long as possible will make a big difference to your day. Start early and keep eating so you are constantly topping up your energy stores.
A bit about training….
It’s interesting that my two tips in this blog are ways to make your ride easier and more enjoyable whatever state of fitness you arrive at your big day in. For me, cycle training and coaching is as much about the skills and knowledge you have as it is your ability to press on the pedals. They work hand in hand.
As a coach, I like helping people progress on the bike, that is why I have created a cycle training program specifically to help new and returning riders to go from hardly riding to riding for multiple hours. The Cent-Soulor is a purpose-built, progressive, and consistent training program designed to take you from 0 to 100km in just 16 weeks.
Breaking new ground in cycle coaching, it’s video and written instructions guide you through each week and every ride. You're told not only what to rides to do but how to do them. Background videos reveal the context of why, helping you build fitness, confidence and skill.
The Cent-Soulor: 0 to 100km in 16 weeks.
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