How often do you rest during a ride?

[Slick]

As others have said, it just depends for me as well. When out with my mate, he will run all day without stopping but when out with my wife it's every 10 miles or so. Not something worth stressing about.

 

[bladderhead]

I stopped today. Before I started.

 

[ColinJ]

I remember fast riders complaining about the rides on one training camp holiday in Spain. The ride leader would not stop even to allow riders to fill bottles. They were doing 100 miles in just over 4 hours in spring temperatures sometimes exceeding 25C!

I stopped today. Before I started.

Ha ha! I managed to ride to Lidl and back so I had a mid-ride break after 1.5 kms ...

 

[lane]

I don't thnk it's essential that I stop I probably could keep going. If I am on my own I would still stop every 20 or 30 miles or so but just for a short time - about 10 minutes. I seem to just feel better for even a short rest off the bike I think it might be as much a mental thing as physical. With the cycling group they still seem to stop around 20 to 40 miles depending on the ride so maybe I am just used to that.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I had a friend stop halfway up a hill to look at the squirrels.

 

[C R]

As others have said, it is entirely personal. Myself I stop every hour or so to refuel (I am type 1 diabetic, so need to be careful not to go hypo), plus whenever I find a photo opportunity, tops of hills tend to be good for that, as @Andy in Germany says .

 

[Ming the Merciless]

More seriously if I am on a long ride then I find I need to stop to eat roughly every 3 hours. If eating on the bike then I can just keep going till I need to top up the on the bike food or drink.

Anything less than 3 hours I head out without food or water as I don't need it for that interval.

 

[HLaB]

On a solo leisure ride of 36 miles I wouldn't normally stop but on a social ride that's could be a halfway stop if its an intense ride. The funny thing is that on solo rides I can choose to stop as often as I like, just don't often, whereas on a group ride I'm more controlled by others. We are all different though just do what is comfortable/ enjoyable for you

 

[rugby bloke]

Very much depends on the state of the weather, the terrain etc. At home I can blast around a 30 mile ride without a stop if I'm feeling keen, or just a single cafe stop for anything up to 60 miles. However last week when we were climbing in the Spanish mountains in 30 degree heat we were managing around an hour before needing a rest, shade, photos etc.

 

[raleighnut]

Depends how many pubs* are on the route,

*TBH I do ride past some but only if I know there's a good un nearby.

 

[Gixxerman]

Generally I don't. The only time I do is to take on food, which is normally at 2-3 hour intervals, depending on how I feel.

 

[Kajjal]

I stopped mountain biking once when a bull was explaining the regulations for entering his field.

Normally I just stop whenever I want, generally I last about 2 hours without any food and drink as needed. Any good looking Cafes tend to slow me down as well

 

[Rusty Nails]

My usual rides are up to 30 miles. Freewheeling provides a lot of the rest needed. A coffee shop is just because I like coffee...honest.

 

[Vantage]

If I think I'll be exceeding 30 miles I'll bring a flask of tea and some sammiches & crisps/fruit. About halfway round the trip I'll find a nice, quiet spot and have a mini picnic. In addition to that, being type1 diabetic I'll also have a few stops to check my glucose or treat a hypo.
The fact that I use a saddlebag big enough to carry all that crap for those stops may also play a part in 'scenery expeditions'.

 

[ColinJ]

If I think I'll be exceeding 30 miles I'll bring a flask of tea and some sammiches & crisps/fruit. About halfway round the trip I'll find a nice, quiet spot and have a mini picnic. In addition to that, being type1 diabetic I'll also have a few stops to check my glucose or treat a hypo.
The fact that I use a saddlebag big enough to carry all that crap for those stops may also play a part in 'scenery expeditions'.

Obviously, it is a bit more critical for you.

Having said that, I have effectively rendered myself an honorary diabetic a few times by not keeping my blood sugar up on hard rides...

My vision started to fail. Black speckles appeared suspended across my field of view. I was at long last offering my first greeting to ‘The Man With The Hammer’. So this is what cyclists mean by ‘bonking’! My legs were shot, my arms were shaking, my head was gone — I’d ‘hit the wall’. Lights out.

Just as I was about to keel over I spotted a bench seat at the side of the road. I dropped my bike on the grass verge and slumped on to the seat. There was an object resembling a little old bearded man at the far end of the bench. Suddenly, I was startled by the object starting to talk to me. It WAS a little old bearded man! I sat with him for a few minutes having a surreal conversation, the detail of which is now completely lost to me. Eventually, it became necessary to move, or die. I chose life.

What followed forever redefined my concept of ‘tired’. There was no question of riding the bike up the hill; even walking was agonising. I had to do it a single pace at a time. I rested a few seconds after each step. I don’t think that there was a single gram of glycogen left in my body, and I sure wasn’t burning my ample stores of fat very quickly. It was deeply, deeply unpleasant. I was no longer out for a Sunday ride. I was toiling in the Gulag, or the wartime jungles of Burma. I was in survival mode, with just one primitively-focussed set of objectives – Get Home, Drink, Eat, Sleep.

I have not only got so bad that I couldn't pedal, I sometimes couldn't even sit down at the side of the road! I was trying to do a loop of Mull a few years back but I developed a really weird tummy bug which pretty much stopped me eating, or even drinking much water. After a few hours I kept falling off my bike. Several times I ended up lying down in the road. A few very alarmed tourists stopped to see if I'd been knocked off and left for dead!