Supercharge Your Cycling Adventures! Preparation is Key!

Have you ever considered doing a multi-day cycling event then decided against it because you didn’t think you could do it? Me too until I did my first multi-day cycling trip when I was 50-years old. I fell in love with being on the road, and hope you will too!

My name is Jona Saxby. I work for AXN Fitness and Coaching in the Marketing Department.

I had the opportunity to ride for 6 days  from Warsaw to Krakow in 2012. I discovered I was extra happy traveling by bike! I have ridden through most of Spain, many parts of Italy, a large part of Germany, most of Portugal, around Cuba, parts of Canada, and many places in the United States since my first bike trip to Poland. 

I dreamed of riding cross country after the first few cycling trips, but didn’t know if I could really do it. Finally, I made the decision to try a cross country trip in 2019 and didn’t look back. I still doubted my ability to complete the ride, but determined I’d rather fail than not try.

I rode the Southern Tier across the United States. I dipped my back tire into the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, California. 45-days and 3000+ miles later I dipped my front tire into the Atlantic Ocean in St. Augustine, Florida, having crossed California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. I did not fail!

This blog post is not about bike packing. I haven’t had a loaded up bike or camped a single night on any of my multi-day cycling adventures. This blog post isn’t about equipment for cycling adventures. Those topics are ripe for a series of blog posts by someone more knowledgeable than I.

My focus instead is this: It is possible for all of you to cycle mutli-day adventures! And you should. You’ll find yourself a different person after every adventure! You will become physically stronger, mentally tougher and you’ll develop a new level of confidence.

I can’t tell you that all my cycling adventures were easy and pain free. Well, I could tell you that but it’s not the truth. 

What I can tell you is this: Preparation is key when it comes to multi-day events. With a healthy dose of preparation you can make things much easier on yourself and reduce your exposure to pain!

I’m referring to physically and mentally preparing yourself for being on your bike for miles at a time and for the reality of being on the road multiple days, whether you’re racing, traveling by bike or just pushing your own limits for personal reasons.

I somehow managed to complete my cross country trip, but I was not as prepared as I should’ve been. I devoted more time getting my equipment and gear ready than getting me ready! Rookie mistake. I paid a price for that neglect. 

I blistered my bottom lip badly during the first leg of the trip between San Diego and Tucson. My lip didn’t heal until somewhere in Mississippi and it was quite painful, especially on windy days (and probably 85% of my rides were in the wind). I also suffered two bladder infections that drained me of energy and took me off the bike a few afternoons because of the antibiotics that cause sensitivity to sun. I was also so fatigued by the end of the first 2 weeks that I struggled with motivation each day. There were even a few mornings I dreaded getting on my bike, and a few afternoons I would’ve gladly called for an Uber had an Uber been available.

I “trained” before the cross country trip. I now know how inadequate my training was. 

I made all the common training mistakes Marissa talks about in her masterclasses and her FASS program. I put in a lot of slow, long miles to get ready. Had I focused more on strength training and HIIT training on my bike to build more speed, I would’ve avoided a lot of long days in the saddle, sun exposure and bladder infections! Working with a coach like Marissa would have made such a difference!

I also didn’t properly prepare to fuel myself for the physical demand of 40 days of long rides. You can bet I made sure I had plenty of cans of Starbucks espresso shots to keep in the SAG van but I neglected things like protein and carbs. Caffeine was not a healthy substitution for real energy. 

I didn’t entirely cut out the caffeine on the trip, but I did learn to grab whatever protein I could find in the morning, stock up on bananas and I kept more healthy snacks in my bike bag because I never knew what I would find on the road. I also learned I needed to eat healthy foods right after a ride, or I’d resort to junk. My body craved grilled chicken, broccoli, asparagus, eggs, chocolate milk. When I paid more attention to what my body told me it wanted, I was able to fight the fatigue and ride faster and smarter the next day.

Finally, I didn’t adequately prepare myself mentally. I wasn’t prepared for the mental grind of riding 80 + miles a day, day after day over the course of 45 days, and I certainly was not ready for the “difficult days”, those days when things out of the ordinary happened, like a series of flat tires on a busy stretch of freeway just East of  Tucson, a big ice storm while riding through West Texas, a raging dog chasing after me on a remote back road in Mississippi, and an unexpected and dangerous stretch of road construction on a busy commuter road in the Florida Panhandle.  Knowing hard stuff is coming up helps one work through it!

I was unprepared for hours of alone time. I thought I’d spend my time riding with the other 6 cyclists on the trip. That didn’t happen. Most days I didn’t see or hear from anyone else for 4 or 5 hours at a time.

I had to find strategies to deal with the discomfort of living in my own head! I played math games in my head, such as dividing my rides into percentages (If I ride 10% of 100 miles, that’s 10 miles and I get a reward”). I gave myself geography quizzes on the road. I listened to lots of Spotify playlists, creating new ones at least once a week, and included song recommendations from friends back home. 

I played games with my hydration. Some days I got to drink water every 3rd song. Sometimes it was every three miles. When I was climbing hills, I counted to 8, then did 8 sets of 8 (roughly a minute) and so on until I got to the top, and then rewarded myself at the top with a snack, usually a bite off my PayDay bar. [Sidenote: PayDay bars are a great on the bike snack, and I wish I had stocked up on them before the ride because they’re tricky to find.] 

I played with my pedal strokes. I played with riding straight lines on the white paint. I tried to play a game with rumble strips. That was dumb because rumble strips are annoying no matter what you do!

Finally – and this is really important to consider before you go on a cycling adventure –  I didn’t prepare well enough for enjoyment. What I mean by that is I didn’t think about riding for fun for at least 2000 miles worth of the ride, not until I was well past Texas! 

I didn’t stop at roadside attractions. Honestly, there weren’t many but I should’ve stopped when I could. I didn’t take many photographs. Taking a few extra minutes to pull out the camera would’ve been a good reward now and then. I was so task oriented until I knew I could finish that I missed out on some of the best parts of any adventure!

I’ll wrap this up now. The best advice that I can offer to you if you’re considering a multi-day event is to start preparing NOW even if you don’t yet have a specific adventure in mind. It’s good for you to start your training early plus it’ll motivate you to look for an adventure too! Start here: where’s somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, and how much more fun would it be to see it by bike?!  

How do you get prepared? That’s an area where a good cycling coach, like Marissa and Julie, can help. A great place to start is with Marissa’s upcoming Free Masterclass “Breakaway from Fatigue: Three Ways to Supercharge Your Cycling Adventures.” The first presentation of this Free Masterclass will be September 15, 2022 at 4 pm PST // 7 pm EST or on October 27, 2022 at 4 pm PST // 7 pm EST, and will be presented again on October 27th at 4 pm PST // 7 pm EST. 

You can  register now for the September 15th Masterclass. The doors open to register for the October 27th Masterclass on September 20th!