Had our (road) club “Legbreaker” this weekend. It’s a 129km road ride taking in as many hills as the route can contrive. Not the biggest ride I’ve ever done by any margin, but a LOT of climbing. I’ve not ridden much this last 18 months due to sprog number 3 arriving and was quite nervous about this ride, having struggled a little last time I did it in 2013 and struggled on the last club ride that was smaller and with less climbing.

Anyhoo, I did 3 small rides this week (more than I usually do in a month), carbo-loaded the night before, stretched before the start and fed/watered myself well over the whole route. On top of that I paced myself. Result? I finished without any major problems and actually had lots left in the tank.

Quite convinced and impressed that all these things made a difference, but which one do you think made the biggest difference?

Pacing. If you have something to work with (and most recreational cyclists will be in the reasonable levels of fitness) then you can ride all day IF you don’t go into the red too much. I too struggle with long rides due to not having the chance, but as long as I’m riding to my clock and no one elses I can still knock out a few miles.

What was refreshing (pun intended) was that my pace wasn’t a million miles off quite a few others I expected to be dropped by. I had a nice second-wind in the final few miles too.

Pacing and eating/drinking during the ride. The other stuff would have made little difference. As long as you pace yourself and keep fuelling you’ll be ok.

Edit…coincidentally was watching something on GCN the other day about what fields the pro’s have on their Garmin displays and was initially surprised by now many had calories on there. But if you’re doing long days or multi day races then tracking and replacing expended energy is a big deal so makes a lot of sense.

SLEEP!

Second sleep as being a massive factor. I regularly get insomnia the night before a race, if I do even though it feel I’m going hard, I’m not actually. Something about lack of sleep raising your heart rate I think.

I won’t pretend to give a definitive answer, but I did the grisedale pmba enduro yesterday with 2,000m climbing and at no point did my legs feel ‘cooked’ like they usually do with that much climbing.

I put this down to pacing ourselves for the climbs and only going hard for about 12 minutes out of 8 hours on the trail.

Training, what you do in a race/event is decided in the build up. No one is going to win a race if theyve not ridden a bike in 6 months and simple decide to carboload and do a few stretches.

Once you are prepared and on the start line you can’t train. At that point I’d suggest pacing. Again, no amount of hydration and food is going to prevent you blowing up if you get this wrong. My best results in TTs have come from when I get the pacing spot on. Feel like you are starting too slow, become uncomfortable in the 3rd quarter and then nail it to the finish and ride through the pain.

I’d go training too..

Pacings fine once you’ve done the base miles, but without training you’d end up pacing at a very low level and at an extended length of time.

Out of those it’s probably nutrition.

But out of all the factors that make a difference it’s mindset. I did a 145 mile ride which was fairly hilly yesterday. I knew that it would be a hell of a hard ride if I got dropped. Because of that I simply turned myself inside out so that I wasn’t dropped. That’s what has made the biggest difference to my riding.

As above depends on the timescale. Pacing and food help massively on the day, trading only if you’ve been doing it the previous months/years.

Pacing, definitely, especially if your not that fit as your body can not recover as quickly as a very fit person.

I can not see how going out 3 times the week before would have helped, if anything it would have hindered.

SLEEP!

😆

With my boy waking me up at 4:50am I can guarantee you that sleep wasn’t a positive factor 🙂

I don’t train. I’m lucky if I ride once a week. Some of the lads who finished way before me were done in, yet my legs felt relatively good. I wondered whether I’d done something good in my preparation or did I just take it at a comfortable pace that just happened to match those who convincingly dropped me a fortnight previous.

I do wonder if I could go harder, but if I push too hard I tend to get outer knee pain, so for rides much more than 50/60 miles I tend to go steadier than usual.

Summary? Pleased that perhaps my fitness has not tailed off quite as much as I feared

I don’t train. I’m lucky if I ride once a week

That’s a contradiction. Any exercise is ‘training’, riding doubly so.

Anything you do helps. And so long as you ride within your capabilities, you can go all day if you fuel sufficiently.

You feared the worst, so adrenaline and endorphins probably helped as well. I doubt that if you tried the same ride again next week and did exactly the same things, the result would be the same as you would be in a mentally different place…

I don’t train. I’m lucky if I ride once a week

…was a response to this…

Pacings fine once you’ve done the base miles, but without training you’d end up pacing at a very low level and at an extended length of time.

I see training as a more organised and structured form of riding and hence something I don’t really do. I ride – infrequently – and it keeps me moderately fit in mind and body. If I rode more I’d then investigate “proper” training to help me improve further e.g time on the turbo trainer that is going rusty in the shed.

It’s much like when I rock-climbed in that the best training was simply finding time to get out climbing more. I didn’t want to waste time on fingerboards when I could be out actually climbing.

Semantics perhaps, but it helps differentiate in my mind when I’m just enjoying riding for the sake of riding and when I’m actively (no pun intended) trying to improve myself.