How to Prepare to Bike in Italy

Posted on March 25th, 2008 in Touring, Travel Guide by admin


[Bicycle Home Training - credit: ?keaggy.com
]

Training tips to Bicycle Italy

1° Evaluate your fit level doing a test: Bike for 5 Km at your maximum speed noting how much time you employ for this route

  • If you employ a time between 8 and 10-minute you have a good level
  • If you employ fewer than 8-minute you have a higher level

If you are satisfied with these limits you have a good basis to face the hardest routes, but you have to follow an appropiate training.

2° If you want to try this adventure you have to rise your resistance force.

  1. Before starting your training, warm up on a level route for 30-minute.
  2. On the first your biking will consists in low number of spin pedal up no hard slopes.
  3. Progressively increase the spin pedal number and the hardness of slopes.
  4. Start to train on long routes of 20 Km about 10 % medium slope: this level is the goal of your training.

If you can repeat more times the n° 4 point you are ready to try the hardest bike routes in Italy


[Mortirolo, one of the hardest bicycle tracks in Italy - credit: renschmensch]

Alternate the training and rest days: during a week you can ride four days. Repeat this practice for 2/3-month

4° It is better to assure of your health condition by a physical examination

5° Combine the training with the correct nutrition LINK ALIMENTAZIONE

Nutrition Tips to Prepare for Biking

Posted on February 25th, 2008 in Touring, Travel Guide by admin


[Italian Spaghetti - credit: Gio JL]

You need to pay attention to nutrition to train well and bike on difficult routes.

Italy has a great selection of typical foods. It could be a great idea to join the health benefits of fresh food wiith your nutrition requirements.

What to eat before a cyclotour?

  • Carbohydrates
  • Fructose
  • Proteins

These are nourishments that you should feed in the right measure also during training time.

The right diet consits in 5 meals a day

Don’t hope that doping is a real solution to replace a good training. This is a dangerous method that threaten your health. Anabolic steroid and other substances are dangerous and outlaw.? Protein supplements are the result of chemist elaborations such as freeze-dry of low quality milk, You can find good proteins in white meat and eggs.

Suggested Italian Foods to eat

Here an exhaustive list of the aliments: (Click here to read the Mediterranean food pyramid)

  • Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes
  • Vegetables: Spinach, Cauliflowers, Carrots, Eggplants, Tomatoes, broccoli, capsicum, capers, garlic and onion
  • Fruit: Olives, Grape, Oranges, Lemons, Apples, cherries, Strawberries, peaches, apricots
  • Legumes: beans, peas
  • Fruit: Walnuts, Almonds, Pistachio nuts
  • Oil of olive
  • Honey
  • Milk and cheeses
  • White Meat (chicken, rabbit, turkey, etc…) and fish (fish sword, sardines, tuna, clears)
  • Eggs
  • Red meat (veal, lamb, etc…)
  • Water