Do I have to ride the whole day?

HOW TO PREPARE: An 8 part series to get you ready for your first TDA tour. Click here to read more.

“Do I have to ride the whole day?”

This is a common concern for someone who has never done a tour with us before – there is a natural fear of being too slow or being left behind. Rest assured, our staff do regular attendance to ensure everyone is accounted for and are ready and willing to give you a ride in the support vehicles if needed.

The simple answer to this very common question is “No”. This is a supported tour and while we encourage people to ride as much as they are able to, and the goal is for everyone to be able to ride the full day, we do have space on our vehicles to pick up a limited number of riders who are too tired to continue, or have become sick or injured.

>>RELATED BLOG: How far can I ride in a day

Planning Ahead

With our navigation system, you can review the upcoming stages and decide if you think it will be more than you can handle, or whether it’s a stage where you’ll attempt to ride the whole day and see how far you get. The Ride with GPS app (where we share the route information) will give you distance and climbing information. In addition each evening before dinner, the staff will host a rider meeting. This will cover the following day’s route, including navigation, hazards, interesting sites and accommodations. With this information, you can make a plan for the upcoming stage.

Riding Part of the Day

Our typical riding day is around 100 to 120 km. If you have reviewed the route and listened to the tour leader’s briefing the night before, you may want to ride only part of the day’s route.

Option 1: Start from the lunch stop

Our roadside lunch provides an excellent start or end location to do a half day of riding. If you let the tour leader know the night before (or the morning of the ride at the latest), they can load your bike onto one of the vehicles and drive you to the roadside lunch location. From there, once the crew have set up the lunch table and prepared the food, you can grab a sandwich and hit the road with the whole day to cover half of the day’s scheduled distance.

Option 2: End your ride at the lunch stop

Alternatively, once you arrive by bike to the roadside lunch, you might decide that you will not continue cycling – no problem. Let the lunch crew know, and after all the riders have finished lunch and the vehicle is packed up, they can drive you the rest of the way to our hotel or camp for the night.

Option 3: Pickup along the route

While the lunch stop is the simplest place to start or end your ride, there are also possibilities to get picked along the route if you can’t continue. Sometimes this might mean waiting for a vehicle to return to get you. On our tours, we don’t have a ‘sag wagon’ that follows the group, but we do have a staff person each day riding a bike as the ‘sweep’ – meaning they ride at the very back behind the last rider and can be helpful in the event you are unsure about the directions or if you need them to call for a pick up.

On longer or more challenging days we sometimes have an additional water stop part way thru the ride. Or in other situations a vehicle will drive along the route and stop to check in on each rider as they pass. This is another opportunity to refuel and prepare for the rest of the riding or to determine if you have had enough and need a lift.

Pacing Yourself on Long Distance Cycling Tours

Of course everyone’s goal is to cycle as much as possible – it is a cycling tour after all. We know that the people who are happiest on tour are usually the ones that don’t try to grind out every last inch, but instead they are more strategic and save some energy and save their body for the days ahead. Sometimes pushing too hard means you end up having to take more time off the bike to recover from fatigue or overuse injuries.

This is especially true in the first days and weeks of the tour where you are still getting into shape and your body is adapting to being on a bike so much. If you allow yourself to steadily get stronger and more fit, you will start to get more and more out of each day’s ride.

Settle in and Enjoy

“You feel so confident in the staff that you can let go of worrying and just focus on experiencing the world around you.”

That quote from one of our past riders says it all – let go! Trust the staff and challenge yourself to cycle some of the tough days, but also listen to your body and know when to take a break. Among the real joys of traveling by bicycle is the freedom to determine your own pace and to immerse yourself in new surroundings. Don’t get so caught up in making it to your day’s destination that you miss the pleasures of the journey. Stopping in villages and towns to meet the people or to visit an unexpected local attraction along the route will only add to your overall experience. Often the unexpected surprises turn into the best memories. Adventure travel is all about being spontaneous and relishing the unexpected.

How to Prepare

An 8 part series to get you ready for your first TDA tour. Click here to read more.