Sportive season
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Have you set yourself a summer challenge?
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Distance, route profile, training time and logistics should be considered when choosing a sportive to enter (Pic: Media 24)
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Putting the miles in ahead of your sportive will pay dividends (Pic: Matt Alexander/Human Race)
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Check out the route in order to understand the challenge ahead (Pic: Media 24)
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Put your summer fitness to good use on an end-of-season sportive
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Find a group of riders to share the workload
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The key to staying fuelled on a long ride is to eat and drink little and often
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Put together a list of everything you need and prepare your kit the night before
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Riding a sportive should be fun - the most important thing is to enjoy it (Pic: Roz Jones)
Sportive season
The sportive season will soon be in full swing and every weekend thousands of riders will be taking to Britain’s roads – but tackling your first organised event can be a daunting experience for a new cyclist.
Many riders will be panic-stricken in the lead-up to the event. Have I done enough training? Will I be able to ride in a group? Am I going to bonk? Will everyone laugh at me (and my bike)?
Riding a sportive and enjoying all that comes with it – riding new roads on a challenging course as part of a well organised and supported event, with hundreds or thousands of cyclists for company – should be fun experience. Remember, it’s not a race so there’s not reason to be intimidated.
Still, the key to settling any pre-sportive nerves is, of course, preparation, so here are eight dos and don’t for your first sportive (or, in fact, any sportive). Share your own advice on the RoadCyclingUK forum.