As winter training starts and the turbo comes back into your life, thinking about scorching tarmac and suncream feels premature. But if you want to ride well next summer, now is exactly when to plan how you’ll handle cycling in the heat.
Hot-weather rides can be brilliant – long days, fast roads, café stops outside – but they’re tougher on your body than most riders realise. Get it wrong, and you cramp, fade and cook from the inside out. Get it right, and you’re the calm one, still pedalling smoothly while everyone else is melting.
The good news: you don’t need a heatwave to prepare. With smart habits, a clear hydration plan and some structured work on ROUVY over the cooler months, you can arrive in July already heat-ready.
Why Prepare for Cycling in the Heat Now
Your summer performance is built long before you pull on a short-sleeve jersey. Winter and spring quietly build the fitness and routines that make hot-weather cycling feel manageable rather than miserable. When everyone else is “getting serious” two weeks before their big sportive, you’ll already have the engine, the habits and the plan.
Off-season work helps you:
Build a strong aerobic engine, so your heart isn’t overwhelmed by both pedalling and cooling. The fitter you are, the less your body has to panic when the temperature climbs.
Practise pacing, fuelling and drinking in low-risk conditions. You can experiment with bottle frequency, carb intake and ride intensity without the pressure of a 35°C heatwave.
Test kit and nutrition on controlled ROUVY sessions rather than mid-sportive. If a drink mix upsets your stomach or a jersey feels like clingfilm, it's better to discover it in your pain cave than on a sun-baked climb.
You can also begin gentle heat preparation before the temperature rises. Repeated exercise in warm conditions over 7–14 days improves sweat response, cardiovascular stability and your overall tolerance to heat. That doesn’t mean daily suffer-fests – just a few planned, sensible exposures to higher temperatures: slightly less or no fan on some ROUVY rides, finishing a session then sitting in warm kit for a short period, or choosing the warmer part of the day for an easy outdoor spin.
Think of it as “teaching” your body what’s coming. By the time summer arrives, your cooling system is already well drilled, your hydration routine is automatic, and hot-weather rides feel like a familiar challenge rather than an unpleasant surprise.
I’ve used heat methods in my coaching. Earlier this year, I worked with a rider who spent winter and spring in cool conditions but was targeting hot races in Spain and southern Europe. We added a couple of short indoor “heat stress” sessions each week – steady efforts with reduced fan cooling and a tight hydration plan. When he finally hit the long climbs in the Spanish mountains, where speed (and therefore cooling) was low, but temperatures were high, he coped far better than the riders around him. The heat still felt hard, but it was familiar rather than shocking – exactly what good preparation should do.
Understanding Heat and Performance
When you ride in hot weather, there are several adaptations, and your body is essentially doing two big jobs at once:
- Moving you forward.
- Stopping you from overheating.
To stay cool, more blood is sent to the skin, heart rate rises, and sweat production increases. That all costs energy. As your core temperature rises and you lose fluid through sweat, performance drops and every effort feels harder.
Common hot-weather mistakes
Most problems come from simple errors:
- Starting too hard. You feel good early on, surge, and pay for it later.
- Overdressing. Thick base layers, dark kit and closed vents trap heat.
- Under-drinking. You wait until you’re thirsty, then throw down a whole bottle at once.
- Ignoring early warning signs. Headache, rising heart rate, irritability and goosebumps are all red flags.
Riding well in the heat isn’t about proving toughness. It’s about managing stress on your body so you can still ride strongly at the end.
Smart Pre-Ride Preparation
Training adjustments for heat adaptation
You don’t need every ride to feel like a sauna. A simple approach is as follows:
- Start 4–6 weeks before a hot event.
- Pick 2–3 rides per week to focus on heat, leaving easy days between them.
- Keep intensity mostly endurance or tempo at first.
Indoors on ROUVY, that might look like:
- Riding your usual endurance route with slightly reduced fan speed for part of the session.
- Finishing an indoor ride, then sitting in warm clothing for 15–20 minutes while sipping an electrolyte drink.
- Doing short controlled intervals and noticing how heart rate drifts when the room is warmer.
Over 7–14 days of repeated heat exposure, you’ll usually start to sweat earlier, your heart rate at a given workload comes down, and you feel more comfortable at higher temperatures.
What to eat and drink before a hot-weather ride
Treat your pre-ride routine as heat insurance:
2–3 hours before: a balanced meal with carbs, a bit of protein and some salt (for example, porridge with fruit and a pinch of salt, or eggs on toast with a banana).
60–90 minutes before: sip 5–7 ml per kg of body mass of fluid, ideally with some electrolytes if it will be a long or very warm ride.
Just before you roll out: bottles loaded, quick snack if you’re hungry, sunscreen on, light kit chosen.
