Alastair Smith, Senior Associate in our Corporate team who is taking part in the Tour de Forth is a keen cyclist and shares some suggestions for anyone less familiar with preparing for sportive challenges.
“It would be fair to say I enjoy cycling and ride my bike whenever I can. However, I have only taken up road biking regularly in the past couple of years, but have completed a few sportives before the Tour de Forth.
“I have been mountain biking since before it was cool and generally like long rides on off-road tracks as opposed to manicured Glentress style trails. I also cycle toured around the Western Isles in 2014 (500 miles over two weeks with camping gear in panniers) and have done half of the North Coast 500 in 2016 from Inverness to Durness in four days which was much hillier and tougher than expected. Finally, I commute every day to work and back…
“In terms of the Tour de Forth sportive I completed a training ride of 48km last Saturday morning which was very enjoyable in the hot sunshine of East Lothian! With now just a few days to go till the Tour de Forth on Sunday 4 June I find it very important, from past experience, to plan when you will get out riding as the sportive approaches and what to prepare before the day. In no particular order a few hints and tips that I find helpful:-
- Check out the route. I have not ridden much of the Tour de Forth route before and will be checking it out on Strava / Tour de Forth website a couple of days before. Very important to know if there are hills towards the end for which you need to save some energy or whether you can go flat out after the hill half way round!
- Prepare to ride at a good pace for you i.e. don’t go out fast and finish slow! A nice steady pace for you is essential and hopefully your training will be able to tell you if this is 15kph or 25kph. Remember you can always blitz it at the end.
- Eat and drink little and often as hopefully you should have done through training rides. If you plan on eating a bar, banana or gel on the bike it is important to practice (alternatively you can fuel up at feed stops). I only like a couple of brands of gel so will have 2-3 of them in my cycle jersey on the day. Pre-sportive I always like a bowl of porridge, honey and banana as this provides plenty of fuel to keep you pedalling through the morning.
- Prepare kit in advance and have a final pre-sportive ride. I find it helps to have a good bike ride the day before (not too long but enough to get the legs working – I would plan on doing about 20-30km the day before the 97km Tour de Forth). Once I have been on my final training ride I like to put all my kit in a box so I know where it all is for sportive day and save any last minute panics.
- Last but by no means least the most important thing is to enjoy the sportive (and be safe). For the Tour de Forth I am planning on taking it quite easy as a training ride for a couple of longer sportives later in the year and may be spotted at a café with a coffee half way round (that’s not cheating by the way!).”
We are delighted to be raising funds for Forth One's Cash for Kids and Mercy Corps and would be grateful for any donations that you could make to these excellent charities. You can support our team by donating here.
