Cyclo sportives are one of the big growth areas of cycling. There are a growing range of different sportives which allow entrants the opportunity to ride a certain route at whatever pace they like. They provide a clear challenge, which is both manageable and allows a degree of flexibility in how you approach it.

Cyclo sportives can range from a short 50 mile introductory ride to a multiday challenge like Paris-Brest-Paris. However, for many a sportive implies a ride of around 100 miles, usually incorporating quite a few hills. For the more adventurous, sportives can go up-to 150 miles and replicate a stage in the Tour de France

Training for Cyclo Sportive

When you’re riding a hilly 100 mile sportive, you need to give training considerable foresight. More than anything, you need to be relatively comfortable with the mileage you are attempting. If you’re riding a 100 mile sportive, you want to have done at least a few 70-80 mile rides before hand. If you make the leap from the odd 50 to a hilly 100 mile ride, you will be able to struggle around, but your muscles won’t thank you the next day.

For more detail on training for cyclo-sportives.

Nutrition / Hydration in Cyclo Sportive

This is perhaps one of the most important things to get right, and sometimes the most difficult. Firstly, you will be consuming at least double the number of daily calories. You need to compensate for this by taking on more energy – even though it is more difficult to eat when you are exercising so mcuh.

• Energy Stores. The day before, stock up on low GI foods. (foods which give gradual energy release). Also have a good breakfast which is high in these slow release complex carbohydrates.
• Eating Enough. During the ride, you will want to supplement your calorie intake with High energy foods (basically, energy drinks based on maltodextrin, fructose e.t.c). These supply glucose directly to the blood stream when you need it.
• 4:1 Carb / Protein. Consider High Five 4:1 (mix of 4 parts carbohydrate, 1 part protein). This makes an excellent combination for long distance training.
• Glucose and Fructose Also a mix of maltodextrin and fructose such as Torq 2:1 is reported to enable a higher uptake of carbohydrate than just relying on maltodextrin.
• Real Food. As well as energy drinks take some energy bars for different taste and complexity. WIth all the sugary energy drinks floating around your stomach, you may appreciate some more savoury snacks, e.g. these natural food energy bars or some bananas. Generally, you want to avoid high fat, as this is difficult to digest. But, don’t be religious. Sometimes it is psychologically good to have food which may have high fat content (e.g. nuts)
• Hydration. Your hydration needs will depend very much on temperature. When it is hot, your liquid needs can increase significantly. Also in hot weather you will want to take on electrolytes (salt). The easiest way is to take energy drinks which include electrolytes mixed to the right concentration. This makes it easier to hydrate.
• Energy Gels. Energy gels are a concentrated energy drink. If you take them, make sure you take sufficient plain water. Generally it is advisable to take energy drinks or energy gels and plain water. Be careful of mixing. If you do want to mix try isotonic energy gels – which don’t need diluting.
• Caffeine. Some riders like to take energy drinks with stimulants like caffeine. This can give a temporary lift, but is not the way to get through a six hour ride. Also bear in mind the benefits of caffeine diminish in the heat because it can cause dehydration.

Racing v Enjoying

There’s no hard and fast rules how to ride a cycle sportive. some people get joy by racing around as fast as they can. Others get joy from finishing the distance and enjoying the scenery. Just make sure you don’t get sucked up into a really fast group and end up exhausted after first 40 mile of chain gang. If you are riding fast, you have to be very confident about the distance. Very few regret taking it steady for first half of cyclo sportive- especially if it is your first one.

Know your Limits

Distance isn’t everything, if you try something like the Dales sportive, the sheer brutality of some of the climbs, makes it effectively much harder than a flat 100. Compensate by taking it easy on the climbs (although when the climb is 20%, it’s hard to take it easy unless you walk – a good case for a triple chainring)

Common Mistakes in Cyclo Sportive

• Not eating enough. You need a lot of calories. Eat complex carbs before, take extra energy during ride. Don’t wait until you feel hungry. Remember you may not feel hungry but you need to keep taking on extra energy.
• Taking on large quantities of energy gels and finding they don’t agree with your stomach. In training take the same energy gels and drinks you will use in ride. Have mix of energy drinks and solid energy bars.
• Mixing energy drinks and energy gels. If you take an energy drink, electrolyte concentrate 6% and a concentrated energy gel, you are effectively drinking a too concentrated solution. This will make it difficult to hydrate and can leave you feeling sick.
• Starting off too quick. I’m sure many have done this at some stage. Starting off too quickly, getting carried away by the excitement of the race and then struggling around last part of course.
• Making last minute changes to bike and not testing them. There’s nothing worse than having a big ride ruined by mechanicals. Test your bike in the weeks leading up, don’t decide to put on a new handlebar, the night before and find it slipping off.
• Inadequate preparation.

Equipment

You can spend anything you want on a road bike from £350 to £5,000. You get what you pay for. Though don’t feel obliged to save a few thousand before doing sportives. A good road bike will get you round. Spending an extra few thousand will shave a few Kgs of the weight and give a stronger ride. If possible budget for a £1,000. For £1,000 you can really get some great road bikes, with carbon forks, lightweight frames and decent components.

Things to Carry

• Waterproof. Never underestimate the effect of prolonged downpour, when you’re 40 miles from home.
• Puncture repair, at least two spare inner tubes / tubs.
• Small multitool for roadside spares.
• Nutrition. You might not want to rely on roadside feeding.
• Rough idea of route. Many routes are excellently signposted, others can rely on your own intelligence.

Do you have any tips for riding a cyclo sportive you would like to share?

Related

• Best Sportif Bikes
• Cyclo Sport

Cycle sportives are one of the fastest growing areas of cycling. They provide one day challenges of both distance and climbing. Some of the hardest cycle sportives can be as difficult and demanding as a stage of the Tour de France. Many who are wanting to ride a 200km plus cycle sportive will be anxious to consider the best way of training for a 200km ride, especially as most people have limited time to train.

Building up Base Endurance

For many sportive riders, one of the challenges is getting use to riding the distance. Sportives over 100 miles definitely need careful preparation and you need to work up to the mileage you are comfortable with. Some quick tips for building up base endurance.

• Don’t leave it to last few weeks before trying to acclimatise to 100 mile rides. Start planning ahead, build up mileage in incremental increases, e.g. weekly total of 10%
• Look for opportunities to get more miles in, e.g. commuting to work by bike, cycling to the shops.
• With longer distance riding, it is important to pay attention to cycle nutrition and energy requirements. See: Tips for cycle nutrition

See: Tips for long distance riding.

photo M.J.S. Flickr
Weekly longer Ride.

Once a week, it is necessary to find time for a longer ride. This doesn’t have to be 4-6 hours every week of the year. One good tip is to try every month to get a good distance ride in. This monthly ride should try to by 70-80% of the target ride. So if you are planning to do a 200Km ride, it is good to aim to have done at least, a 150km ride in training. But, a long ride once a month, will be sufficient for making you used to riding the longer miles. Obviously, if you can do it more frequently, that is better, but, it is not essential to cycle 300 miles every week.

Quality of Miles – Threshold Training

For the other rides during the week, it is important to give priority to quality training sessions. In these sessions, the aim is to improve and stretch your fitness; it is training that will make you able to ride faster. If you can ride faster at 10 miles, you will be able to ride faster for 100 miles. Just riding a bike at a comfortable pace, doesn’t really improve your fitness. What will improve your aerobic fitness is training at or near your anaerobic threshold. (see: Threshold Training) This training should be ‘comfortably hard’.  Training at this intensity will increase your aerobic capacity and enable noticeable improvements in your overall fitness levels. This will give you greater ability to ride up hills in the sportive challenge.

• The day after a tough threshold training, it is good to have an easy day. Either a day off the bike, or cycling at low intensity. A long steady ride can interrupt recovery. However, threshold training does less damage than anearobic efforts. With 20 minutes ‘threshold training’ you can make big strides in fitness.

Hill Sprints.

Another good training sessions is to ride fast up hills at a pace, even higher than your lactate threshold;  a pace higher than you could maintain for an hour. These will improve your fitness and power.

Shifting your training from ‘easy’ base training to shorter higher intensity efforts will lead to improved performance in many areas:

• Increased blood plasma volume
• Higher performance of fast twitch fibres
• Accumulate lactate at a higher % of VO2 max
• Increased ability to ride quickly.

In short don’t be deterred from entering cycle sportives, even if you can’t commit to a lengthy training schedule. The important thing is to make the most of your limited training time and give focus to your training efforts.

It means some of these intense efforts should be done on your own. Riding in a group often leads to slow moderate efforts, the kind of riding that doesn’t do much to improve your fitness.

If you enjoy comfortable riding and you have the time to ride all day, it will be of some help. But, to make the fastest improvement, it is important to stretch your ability; this means riding out of your comfort zone.

Training for Multiday Sportive

Some multiday events offer three consecutive days of riding. For example.  106miles, 117 miles & 106  miles.

With a one day sportive, you can always grovel around and if your legs ache the next day, it doesn’t matter –  you can take as long as you want to recover. But, with a three day, it is even more important you are used to the distance, and also used to riding consecutive days.

If I was training for this kind of sportive, it would mean some big weekends of training. I would want to be doing say 100 miles on Saturday and at least another 50 miles on Sunday.

Target of Training Miles. For this kind of distance, I would want to be comfortable with riding 300 miles in a week. It doesn’t mean you have to do 300 miles every week. But, perhaps once a month, you would want a week with at least 300 miles +.  If you can do more training, even better, but, this would be a rough rule of thumb.

Building up the Miles

A key issue in this training is simply building up the miles. If you currently cycle say 100 miles a week, you need to target a steady increase in weekly mileage. A training plan like this gives an idea of how you can gradually build up distance. But, there are no hard and fast rules, you have to listen to the body and see how quickly you can progress.

• Week 1 – 120 miles
• Week 2  - 150 miles
• Week 3 – 180 miles
• Week 4 – 120 miles (easier week)
• Week 5 – 200 miles
• Week 6 – 120 miles (easier week)
• Week 7 – 220 miles

Riding A Multiday Sportive

When you are reasonably fit, another big challenge of a multiday is actually riding it and getting sufficient energy. Remember the motto of the pros – you are eating for the next day.

Riding a Cyclo Sportive

Once you’ve done the training, you will be eager to start riding. There’s a few tips here on how to ride a cyclo sportive.

In particular, a key feature is getting nutrition and hydration correct. If you get it wrong (and it’s surprisingly easy) you will end up feeling uncomfortable or sick.

See: Tips on Riding a Cyclo Sportive

Books on Cycle Sportive Training

Elite Performance: Cycling: Successful Sportives by Garry Palmer and, Richard Allen. Comes with good reviews from Amazon.co.uk

Related Books on Cycle Training

Serious Cycle Training at Amazon.co.uk

Cyclist’s Training Bible – Joe Friel

More Articles on Training

• Training for Time Trial
• Interval Training Tips
• Winter Cycle Training

More articles on Cycling

• UK Cyclo Sportives
• Photo by Tricky (a sportive in Scotland)
• Principles of cycle training

When riding with others, there is always a dilemma of how hard do you try and stay with other riders, and when do you let go and ride on your own?

On the one hand, it is great to keep up with a fast group:

• You can benefit from the shelter (about 25% + of your energy)
• By riding with faster people, it pushes you out of your comfort zone and helps you get much fitter.
• It can be more fun cycling fast and following wheels.

On the other hand, it can be a mistake trying to keep up with a group who are:

• Significantly stronger than you.
• It is only a race if you make it so. Who said, you have to keep up with a certain group of riders? Often our pride comes to the fore, saying we can’t get left behind. But, if we ride into the red zone, it can be something to regret later.
• It depends on the ride, and your goals. For example, riding with a fast group, is particularly damaging at the start of a long ride / cyclo sportive. There is a great tale of a few keen riders who had gained entry for the Etape du Tour. They arrived full of training, enthusiasm and eagerness. The hotel was about 20-30km from the start line. Before, they know it they got caught up in a very fast group riding to the start line. Full of enthusiasm and not wanting to get left behind, they find themselves racing at 50KMPh per to the start line. When the sportive actually started, they have already blown a gasket making the ascent of the col du Tormalet after 150Km very painful. This is the kind of example where you really want to ride at your own limits, even if it means getting passed by lots of old women with shopping baskets. (though if you do get passed by an old lady on a 3speed raleigh shopper you probably shouldn’t be doing the Etape Du Tour)

Before a ride, it is good to be very clear about what you want from the ride. If  you want to do a steady endurance ride, then be prepared to let go if the other rides want to cycle as fast as possible. It may be you’re not the only one who wants to go at a slower pace. If there is a big pack of 12+ riders, it is liable to split at some point in the ride.

Save Racing for Racing. If you have a programme of racing, it becomes much easier to stick to your own training schedule. Is the ride your race or preparation for a future ride?

If you want a sportive ride / training ride to be like a race, that is fine too. But, make sure you have the right balance between steady rides and hard rides. If you go out with a fast group every ride, you will have no chance to recover and it could lead to overtraining. If you do steady rides, then the one weekly group ride may be a good chance to push it as much as you feel like.

Depends on Time of Year. As a general rule, I don’t do interval training for three months over Winter. This is not a rigid rule, if I feel like racing up a hill I will do. But, generally, I keep things fairly steady.

Depends Who You Ride With.

When I started cycling, I often went on old fashioned Sunday club rides (How I started riding). This meant waiting for the slowest riders – even if it meant cycling 40 miles home at 10mph (it did happen, one ride a youngster joined, we spent about 8 hours doing 100 miles) But, the ethos of the group wouldn’t let someone straggle back on their own. Other groups of riders have a completely different approach; it can seem the whole point of the ride is to try and drop as many people as possible. It really depends what you want.

It’s important to choose riders with some similarities of goals and ability. If I went training with Team Sky, I’d soon get demoralised because I’d get dropped at various sections. Every ride would be an interval session to try and keep up. Similarly if I went out with total beginners to cycling, they would soon get fed up.

• Tips for riding in a Group

Training for Cyclo Sportives

I do alot of my training in the chilterns. One of my favourite hill climb training rides is one that weaves up and down the edge of the chilterns, around Wycombe, Stokenchurch, Chinnor and Bledlow Ridge. One of my favourite climbs is a 5 mile ascent of continuous climbing from Wycombe upto Stokenchurch on the A40. The gradient is pretty shallow, but the climb can take 15 minutes. The other Chiltern climbs tend to be a lot sharper and shorter, with some great descents as well.

Verulam CC are sponsoring a cyclo sportive The Chiltern hundred Challenge. It offers 3 different routes

• the Gran Fondo of 171km (107 miles), with ascent of 2,620m
• Medio Fondo of 102km (63 miles) climbing 1,730m
• Corto Fondo incorporating the Amersham Road Cycling Club 80km (50 mile) challenge. An undulating ride for all-comers.

The 2008 edition will be held on 1st June. The start and finish will be at Great Missenden,

For more details and online entry see: Chiltern 100.org