How To Ride All Day | GCN Goes Bikepacking

Josh Ibbett and Si recently bikepacked the Atlas Mountains in Morocco on their 3T Exploros. They give their top five tips on riding all day, from fuelling appropriately to having a strong will power.

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Josh is a long distance expert but Si is newer to this game! Josh passes on his wisdom in this video with his top five tips for managing a long endurance ride. He covers effort, energy, hydration, managing your body and state of mind.

Let us know what you think is most important to manage a long ride. 👇

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📹 GCN Goes Bikepacking Morocco http://gcn.eu/bikepacking
📹 Ask GCN Bikepacking http://gcn.eu/askbikepackinggcn

Photos: © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Bettiniphoto / http://www.bettiniphoto.net/

Music: Epidemic Sound

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(rock music) – Now one of the easiest
ways to pace yourself when you’re on a really
long ride, like this. – Yep, trying to cross the
Atlas Mountains of Morocco. – Is to keep tabs on
your energy expenditure. Now you don’t wanna go too hard too early. My advice, decided this morning, was find a nice easy gear that
you’re comfortable to ride in and then shift up to the next easiest one. Now it will feel a little
bit too easy to start with, however, later on in the day,
it’ll start to make sense and it’ll help you pace much more evenly. – And now, I must say, it
was a little bit difficult, first thing this morning, to do that. But once I got my head around the fact that it wasn’t about speed, it was about getting to the destination, actually it was pretty liberating. And what it’s meant, in practice, is that we have been going
slowly on the climbs. Particularly as we’re
heavily laden with gear. But, then, that is also
a pretty good excuse as to why we are going slowly. And, then, the one thing
I have had to bear in mind is it’s not just about the long climbs, it’s about those short
little ramps and rises where, back home, I’d just get out of the
saddle and power over it. But I’m not actually
allowed to do that here. But, then, it doesn’t really
matter, we’ve got all day. – And, quite often, if you do feel tired when you’re riding all day, it’s often due to energy levels,
low energy levels, or that. So it’s a really great excuse to stop, have a nice lunch, have
a snack, maybe a coffee, and take in the views
and the local culture. (rock music) – Ah, yes, energy levels. Now, in order to keep riding all day, you need to keep your
energy levels topped up. And that means eating. The general rule of thumb, on long rides, is to eat little and often. But, when we’re out all
day, as well as doing that, we also need to think about meal times. – A great way to manage your meals is to break the day down in sections. So you want to start your
day with a nice big breakfast to give you the energy to
see you through to lunch. Keep snacking throughout the morning. And when you get to lunch time, it’s a chance for a big meal. You can enjoy the local
cuisine and the local culture. And then the same principles
apply after lunch. So keep snacking, keep
your energy levels up, and, by the time you get to dinner, you would have really earned it. When you’re on a multi-day trip, it’s important to keep
eating early in the trip for the subsequent days. Your natural energy levels
will drop as you go onwards. So if you don’t eat early, you could really struggle later on. (calm hiphop music) – While post lunch, whilst
we’re waddling slowly up this quite epic climb, let’s take the opportunity
to talk about hydration. Which is, actually,
arguably, more important than getting your food right. Cause there’s some pretty
serious health consequences of actually getting
into a dehydrated state. So the key, if you wanna
ride your bike all day, is to drink little and often. And, when you get thirsty, which, in a hot country like
Morocco, is quite a lot. – You also need to consider
storing water on your bike. Now, on this trip, we’ve
got 700 ML bottles. And that’s just about
enough to see us through. However, on a longer trip,
or in more remote areas, you may want to consider running a cage underneath the down tube. Or carrying a bladder
inside your frame pack to give you extra storage. Now in Europe and North America, it’s often safe to drink the tap water. However, in more far-flung
places, such as Morocco, the tap water isn’t always safe to drink. So it’s important to try and drink bottled water when you can. Or, if it’s not available, take the appropriate filtering
equipment to make water safe. And that can be a water filter, a UV pen, or just chlorine tablets. – Now in order to make sure that you are carrying
enough food and drink for your whole day ride, you’re
gonna need to plan ahead. Now depending on where
exactly in the world you are, it’s gonna dictate how
much you need to plan. If you’re in a really
well-developed country with loads of towns and villages, then you’re probably not
gonna need to plan that much. You’ll always be able to find stuff. Whereas here, in Morocco,
and particularly today, we’re going through some
really, really remote high mountain areas. And, so, we have had to stock up. We’ve looked at the map. We reckon that we can probably get lunch. But, otherwise, we’re kind of on our own. So we are stacked full of all the water and all the food that we can carry. Particularly given that we’ve actually got to cook dinner tonight as well. – Yeah, so we’ve got rice
and tuna, just in case. (rock music) – By now, you may have noticed a theme. Riding all day is all about management. As well as managing your
effort and nutrition, and hydration, you need
to manage your body. Little things, that may not
irritate you on a short ride, could soon add up, over
the course of a day, to cause bigger irritations. – Yeah, like not putting
on sunscreen, for example, or not covering up. Because the heat is really extreme. The consequences of that, it will make you pretty
uncomfortable and, also, pretty ill. And, even on a cloudy day,
you can still get sunburned. So, a golden rule, slap some
suncream on, early doors, and top it up as the day wears on. And bear in mind, as well,
in really extreme conditions, riding all day might not
literally mean riding all day. It might be riding first
thing in the morning and, then, getting off the bike and sheltering from the heat of the day, before getting back on in
the cool of the evening. – It’s also important to consider the clothing you’re wearing
on your bike packing trip. So make sure it’s tried and tested, if you’re not wearing something new, it may be uncomfortable. You may also want to consider the seams. I mean, you may have a seam
that’s okay for short rides. But it may rub over the course of a day. Wearing slightly loose-fitting clothing can also be more comfortable as well. (calm hiphop music) – Now, finally, as the cliche goes, endurance is a state of mind. If you follow Josh’s advice, that we’ve covered in this video, it’s gonna go a long way to alleviating some of the physical challenges associated with riding all day. But the fact is, if you let it, your mind can make you call it quits a long time before your body does. So staying mentally
strong is absolutely key. – A way to manage your ride, mentally, is to break it down into smaller chunks. So rather than thinking about one big ride that’s gonna take all day, think about two or three smaller rides that are broken up with breaks or meals. Now if you do feel really tired and your mind is beginning to wander, and is thinking about
quitting or stopping, quite often the best thing to
do is to stop, have a rest, eat some food, and have a drink. When your energy levels are high, your mind is functioning at its best. And that’s when it’s gonna be strongest. – Seems like food is something
of a reoccurring theme in this video, Josh. – It’s a bit of a
result, really, isn’t it? – Maybe I can ride all day after all. Now do make sure you give
this video a big thumbs up. Not least because we’ve
ridden up the Tichka Pass in the Atlas Mountains, whilst making it. And if you wanna see some more content from this bike packing trip, then why not check out
that video just down there.