How to Train for a Week-Long Bike Tour

There is no better view of new places than the one seen from a bicycle. You see, hear and feel things you will never experience in the seat of an automobile. Those that have successfully completed a tour will tell you it's one of the richest and most rewarding experiences they've had as a cyclist.

The first year I did a week-long tour, I wasn't confident that I could ride my bike seven days in a row to total some 470 miles. This particular tour was loaded with long Colorado climbs to altitudes that would make even the fittest athletes gasp for oxygen. Additionally, I wasn't interested in giving up the other sports I loved—swimming and running—to train for a bike tour.

How much training do you really need to do to prepare for a week-long tour and what kind of training? Is it as simple as "ride your bike"? What if you want to include other sports too?

I can help answer these questions.

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Current Training Status and Tour Goals

Let's assume that you're aiming to do a tour that has a daily challenge of some 60 to 80 miles. Your main goal is comfortable (a relative term) completion of the daily distance averaging some 12 to 15 miles per hour.

If you're currently riding three days per week, with two rides in the 30- to 60-minute range and a third ride that is 60 to 90 minutes long, you can be ready to ride a week-long tour in around 11 weeks. If you're getting in a fourth riding day right now, better yet.

If you are a multisport athlete, you might be riding, running and swimming two or three days per week, per sport. Your long ride and run days are each around 60 minutes long.

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In both cases, single sport or multisport, you may or may not be strength training. If you are strength training, plan to reduce time and intensity in the weight room to a maintenance mode. That means cutting back on strength work to only one day per week and reducing the weights so that you are never sore or fatigued from a weight workout.

Key Weekly Workouts

As you might expect, a weekly long ride is important to your training. I like to have the long ride part of a two or three day block of riding. Riding two or three days in a row will help your endurance as well as conditioning your fanny to tolerate sitting on a bike saddle for multiple days and miles.

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The second key workout I include in tour training plans is one that works on lactate threshold speed. I begin with Zone 3 intensity and move to Zones 4 and 5a. For example, the first workout in the series might be doing 5-7 repeats of three minutes at Zone 3, each followed by one minute of easy spinning before doing the next interval. As you gain more fitness, you can include threshold work within your long ride so you get two threshold workouts per week.

The remaining weekly workouts are either form work, aerobic or easy recovery days. I put these workouts in a single group and consider them key workouts. They are key because they help with recovery which allows you to become a stronger, faster cyclist. These workouts help with consistency and I consider consistency the most important element to athletic success. If you are unable to be consistent with workouts, you will never reach your potential.

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The Long Rides and Weekly Training Hours

A week-long tour is much more attainable than many people think. You don't have to complete tour distances in a single week before doing an actual tour. Let me use an example outside of cycling to help you understand. People that train for an Ironman triathlon that takes some 13 to 17 hours for most age group athletes, will not complete an Ironman triathlon in a single day of training and most will not complete a marathon in the training preparation for an Ironman.

How much training is needed?

More information: Find online training plans for bike tours.

The chart below is pulled from my book, Training Plans for Cyclists. It is from the chapter, "Level I Week-Long Tour, 60-80 Miles per Day." It displays the total weekly training hours and the two long rides required to prepare for a week-long tour.

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Week

Long Ride #1

Long Ride #2

Weekly Total Hours

1

0:30

1:00

4:00

2

1:00

1:30

5:00

3

1:30

2:00

6:30

4

2:00

Day off

4:00

5

2:00

2:30

8:00

6

2:30

3:00

9:00

7

2:00

Day off

4:00

8

3:00

3:30

11:00

9

3:00

4:00-5:00

12:00

10

2:00

2:00

7:30

11

0:30

5:00 - tour day 1

7:15

12 - Tour Week

 

 

25:00 +/-

The chart displays the long rides and the remaining rides during the week are some 30 to 120 minutes long. If you have the time and energy to add 30 minutes to some of these rides, you can; but, it's not mandatory. You can also bump up the long rides by 30 minutes.

Take notice that weekly training hours do not build to a peak in the week before the tour. Too many cyclists go into their tour exhausted from the training. You want your biggest training week to be some two or three weeks prior to the tour. Aim to have the weekly training hours around 50 percent of your estimated tour week.

Also notice that recovery weeks are included in the weeks leading up to the tour. These recovery weeks help you absorb the training and bump your fitness to a new level. Don't make the mistake of constantly building weekly training volume in a linear fashion for some 10 to 16 weeks prior to your tour.

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What About Other Sports?

You can keep other sports like swimming and running in your plan. I recommend keeping at least three and maybe four days of cycling in your plan. If you are currently swimming three and running three days per week, cut each of those sports to two days per week—each. In some weeks you may need to cut them to one each.

Your long run can be substituted for one of the aerobic bike rides and a swim can be substituted for one of the cycling recovery workouts. Make the second swim and the second run very easy Zone 1 or Zone 2 efforts. Consider your swim and run workouts as sacrificial—that is if you're tired, these are the first workouts to skip.

Advanced triathletes can use a week-long tour as part of their triathlon training. This discussion requires a separate column.

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In nearly all cases, I suggest skipping swimming and running during the week of the bike tour. You will have plenty of training volume during the tour and there is no reason to run. If you want to splash around in a pool to recover after a long day of cycling, that's fine—but—no swim "workouts."

Not as Simple as "Ride Your Bike," But Not Complicated

As you can see it is unnecessary, and likely counterproductive, to "just ride your bike" to prepare for a tour. Most cyclists will be over-trained by riding as much as possible to prepare for a tour. You need three things to be ready for your tour: 1) consistency, 2) long rides, and 3) shorter, more intense rides.

The best part is you don't have to give up your life to train for a week-long tour. Just train smart.

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