Fueling up

Nutrition is always important when talking about endurance sports, it probably is of greater importance than we often care to think of. If you forgot to fuel up properly before a ride, you'll surely feel it in your legs at some point. During longer rides, it is as important to fuel during the ride as before you jump on the bike. You easily burn more than 2000 calories, which is more than the amount you burn during a "normal" day without excercise. You're like a car, without fuel you stop. So what do you eat during a ride?

It all begins with hydration, drink enough and minimize the risk of cramps. I myself use and recommend the High5 electrolyte drink. It's really refreshing and the bubbly drink always tastes good and keeps the cramps away. And what's nice about is the easy preparation, just fill the bottle with water and put one or two tablets in and you're done. No shaking and filling needed as with preparing the "normal" energy drink. Minimizing the preparation time before heading out for a ride is important.

High5 electrolyte drink (click to open in wiggle)

For longer rides (+100km) I usually have approximately one energy bar/40km depending on the activity level. I've found out that Maxim energy bars are suited "for my stomach". It is important to notice that not all energy bars and other products suite all. Some enjoy a banana, others get sick of a banana during a ride. I've tried out many different energy bars and different energy drinks, and the ones mentioned here suits me well. What is important is also that everything tastes good. Endurance sports is all about the feeling, and tasty nutrition gives you a good feeling, and even though it would have the same amount of energy in it than any other snack, you can pedal faster just because you enjoy what you're eating.

Maxim offers many different flavored energy bars (click to read more) Sometimes you feel a sudden drop in energy levels and at that time energy gels are the best way to regain energy levels fast. Usually these are really like sugar in liquid form, and taste really bad. So be careful when buying them. Energy gels are also a good energy boost when you are approaching the end of a race and want to maximize your effort.

I've recently bought these, and people seem to like them. Hope they're right! (click to read more)Caffeine is something that you might like to have to give an additional boost to your energy levels, but be careful, caffeine usually drains you a little, so be careful with hydration. All in all, you need fuel when you ride, especially if your ride is a longer one. And personally I think it is of great value if you enjoy the stuff you eat and drink.

Here you can see the data from Tyler Farrar (Team Garmin Barracuda), stage 2 in Giro d'Italia 2012. During 5 hours he burned more than 8000 calories! Beat that! And I'm pretty sure he didn't do it without having a proper meal and having something to eat and drink every now and then during the stage.

I'll be back with more photos from recent rides!

Have a good one!

Giro d'Italia 2012

The spring classics are over and now it's time for the first real grand tour of 2012! The Giro d'Italia will be ridden for the 95th time, and hopefully we'll see a great Giro without accidents and a even battle for the Pink! Giro d'Italia is the main event for most italian riders, and is especially important for the italian teams. The biggest names battling for the win this year are Roman Kreuziger (Astana), Ivan Basso (Liquigas), Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha).

This year the Giro d'Italia will begin in Herning, Denmark. The first stage is a time trial and the two following stages are flat stages also taking place in Denmark. 

The Giro d'Italia 2012 route (click to open detailed stage information)

The route will cover 3503,0 km with an average stage lenght of 166,9km between May 5th-27th 2012. 

The Giro d'Italia will gather a lot of people along the streets of Italy to watch one of the most prestigious sport events in the world. If you're not in Italy, there will be live video coverage from all the stages on several channels. If you don't have access to Eurosport, you can always use the Gazzetta TV or check other live streams from Steephill.tv.

The official promo video for Giro d'italia 2012 

Photo taken from www.cyclingtips.com.au

I hope you all enjoy the Giro d'Italia 2012!

Early Spring in pictures

Before reaching the 2000km (1250miles) mark of this year we've experienced everything from snow, icy rain to sunshine. Sunday March the 11th was the day that brought us back on the roads, with a pleasant sunny weather and some +6 degrees celcius. Yet there was plenty of snow around, which made the little breeze quite chilly. 

Bike all set up for the outdoor season

Proper clothing is important in any weather condition

All smiles

Setting up the Garmin device for outdoor use

Plenty of snow, but the roads were almost all dryAlmost all the roads...

Sunbathing in +6 degrees (C)

It was a pretty dirty job..

A week later, icy rain and + 3 degrees was pretty nasty

April was quite cold here in Finland, but fortunately we had at least a couple of good sunny days to ride our bikes.

Taking the ferry to Attu in late april

Run out of energy bars, so I had to use these finnish Karelian pies instead. Unfortunately my stomach didn't like them during exercise, I felt really bad and had to fight against throwing up later during the ride. But they're really tasty in any other occasion!

First ride without arm warmers was ridden in late April

A fallen off chain.....and just seconds later back on the bike

Icy rides in March are already forgotten

Even the donkeys are out, enjoying the spring!

I hope you enjoyed the pics, I'll be back with more stuff again soon. The Giro d'Italia is about to start in just a couple of days and there are also other stuff on the agenda!

Ci Vediamo!

Up and Cycling!

Spring, the long waited season has been showing signs already for a month in southern Finland, but ever once in a while, after periods of sun and somewhat warmish days there has been signs of winter as well. But at least now it looks like the temperatures will stay above +0 degrees throughout the night and day. We actually managed to take a ride as early as 11th of March, almost a month earlier than last year, but as mentioned we had several setbacks after that. So nothing more than a couple of soaky chilly rides so far, but hopefully the following weeks will provide us with the weather that would support us getting some miles in our legs. At least so far, riding outside, has taken more on my legs than on my lungs, so the legs really need those miles. I will post some more pictures from those rides next week.

Today we had one of the first finnish spring-classics in Turku, TS-kortteliajot. This race is ridden along the river Aura, crossing it and making it an about 1,2km circular route that is ridden 50 times around. 

Our national road cycling champion, Kjell Carlström couldn't participate due to flu, but he was following the race and we had change to meet him and discuss the race and also about his future career. I really hope to still one day see him in the professional peloton. 

Kjell Carlström discussing the race outcomeThe weather was pretty good, sunshine with some western winds, which meant a headwind on the finish line. The riders began pretty easy, some smaller attacks that were caught up pretty fast. The first serious attack was made by Kimmo Kananen but as the peloton realized a threat they slowly caught up this two man breakaway just a couple of laps later. The real breakaway was launched at halfway the race, a strong 8 man group including among other a couple of TWD länken riders and one Velocitor rider who rode pretty strong as well. This breakaway was strong enough to almost catch the peloton, and for the first time in history the peloton had to be taken out of the race before the end. With some 10 laps to go, the breakaway split up and four riders was now battling for the win. During the last lap it soon became only three riders, and a moment later Samuel Pökälä came first in the sprint for the win, winning the race.

The 8 man breakawayThe group worked well togetherKimmo Kananen tried his legs out on the greatest bike in the peloton, the Bianchi OltreThe peloton tried to catch the breakaway, with Turun Urheiluliitto in the frontTurun Urheiluliitto tried to work together but they were not strong enough this timeThe rest of the peloton followingSome riders were not that lucky, here a puncture halfway the raceTWD länken working hard in the front of the breakaway (Aku Silvénius and Samuel Pökälä)And Jesse Virtanen making the most to catch up the breakaway together with Mika SimolaPeloton (notice the Bianchi Oltre)Samuel Pökälä celebratingPodium celebrationsThe new Cervelo S5 that is said to be the fastest road bike out there. Didn't win today though, but looks like a fast one.

Hope you all survived it 'til here, I'll be back with more stories and photos from our own rides later next week. I hope you all have taken out your bikes already, no matter carbon or steel.

Ciao!

February legs and a summery mind

February legs, cycling slang for a heavy stoney feeling in your thighs is okay when it's February. February is usually the time when you start realizing the summer is approaching. One sign is when you start looking at new clothing for the upcoming season. Well first you start getting daily e-mails from the online bike-shops "Save up to 40% on winter clothing! Clearance on 2011 bikes! NEW 2012 ranges in stock now!!"

Before you know, you have 12 open tabs in your browser showing both bikes, clothing, helmets, energy bars, shoes, sunglasses.. you name it. You start comparing different sites, and in the beginning its hard to choose, because you need to pick up stuff for about $300 to get free shipping. And all of a sudden, when you browse through a new neat jersey it says "this item has free shipping to your country". Your basket now has 10 items and the basket value is $350. This, is spring.

So even if we have loads of snow and it's still below 0, the mind is set on spring and summer. I ofcourse envy people living in southern latitudes, where you already began your outdoor cycling season, but to be honest, the Trainerroad app that I mentioned earlier is taking good care of my pre-season shape. I now have ridden more than 500km (well above 300 miles) in a month, and finished the Early base (Foundation,form&base) training plan. Next week the treshold rides will begin, and they will add more strenght and endurance to my legs. And if all goes well, I get rid of my february legs during February month.

 A month ago I ran into a superb video made by the GarminUK team. It's an ad for the edge 800 and the GarminConnect community. Check out their page with training tips and other stuff!

Click to open the Garmin site

 I hope my winter training could some day look like this!

Click to open in YouTube HD or watch the video below

Have a good one!