Warm Up before, and Relax after a ride
Before and after each ride you have to warm up (and relax/stabilize) your muscles, at least for 5 minutes. Stretching will help in muscles stress removal and also in prevention of injuries during ride. If you short with time, it’s better to steal 5 minutes from a ride, then avoid warmup.
Start your ride gradually
If you start abruptly with full speed, or even worse start riding up heavy hill, you will destroy your muscles. Warmup your muscles by riding for 5 minutes with average speed and effort. That will supply blood and oxygen to your muscles, and prepare them for heavier effort.
Keep training continuity, avoid catching-up through hard training
If you miss to train on your regular schedule, do not try to catch up by riding more aggressively. Heavy training with high intensity will weaken your immune system. As a consequence you will start avoiding regular training and will be missing more and more trainings. If you miss a training from time to time, it’s ok, happens to all of us, then get back slowly into shape.
Drink lot of fluids
Did you notice how you sweat way more during indoor training? Well, it’s the same thing when you ride outside, but due to air fluctuation you don’t notice it that much. Remember to drink lot of water, even if you are not thirsty.
Try to finish your ride easy, and if possible keep pedaling until you fully relax
When you finish your training or a ride, it is good to continue spinning pedals for another 5 minutes but with an easy tempo. You need to cool off slowly and stabilize your organism properly.
This is one shaky video of a beautiful and easy ride behind a Bronte Creek campground: Bronte Creek campground mountain bike ride