How should I prepare for an 80mi bike ride?

[BIG T]

I know how I am supposed to eat, but I am not sure how to prepare my muscles for the long ride. Most importantly, can I exercise the day before the ride or should I not exercise 2 3 or even 4 days before the ride to let my muscles calm down?

Thank you for your expertise.

 

[Bob A]

Talk it easy the two days before a big ride and load up on carbs. You should be traing for a ride like that by ridding a hour a day and taking loger trips on the weekends.

 

[Duct Tape Doc]

To train, start at your current distance and increase by 5 - 10 miles per week. Don't over do it. If you can make it to 50 miles, you can do 80. But frankly, I like to do the full distance once in training just to increase my confidence. Your training should peak the week before the event. The week of, you should taper down and just stay loose. At this point, additional training won't do much good and could lead to injury. Over use injuries have ruined lots of rides. Certainly stay off the bike the day before. Pass the time by cleaning your bike, lubing your chain, etc.

Other advice- don't change anything on your bike two weeks from the ride. Don't eat or drink anything new during the event. Remember to pump your tires up to full pressure. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Don't forget sunscreen. Most importantly, have fun!

 

[jonski007]

if you dont know how to excersize before doing such an extreme event maybe you should sorely reconsider doing it at all

 

[intrepidfae]

There are a lot of training plans online about how to train for a century. http://www.maccfund.org/trek100/riders/train.pdf is an example. There's not a lot of difference between riding 80 miles and riding 100. If you follow the "train for a century" plan, the 80 mile ride will be easy.

HTH

 

[Voytek P]

100 mile rides are now my every other day thing, but when I was just starting out I would do minimal biking the day before.

I think that if you've done 50 or so miles you shouldn't worry about it. Once I did a 155 mile ride, got up the next day and felt fine, could have probably done another 155 miler.

It really depends of your level of fitness and how comfortable you are riding long distance.
That rhymed, btw ^