Ultra Cycling Race Preparation Guide

Ultra cycling race preparation is the difference between a hard race and one you can’t finish. Nobody feels ready for their first ultra — that’s normal. But there’s a difference between pre-race nerves and the kind of unpreparedness that turns a tough event into a suffering spiral you can’t climb out of. I’ve finished Gravel Birds, survived a failed attempt on The Goats, and completed the Badlands race in 5 days. What follows is what I wish someone had handed me before my first ultra.

I’ve finished Gravel Birds, survived a failed attempt on The Goats, and completed the Badlands race in 5 days. None of those races went perfectly. All of them taught me something. What follows is what I wish someone had handed me before my first ultra.

Start with a realistic finish time goal

The first mistake most first-timers make is not having a number. Not a vague hope — an actual target finish time that drives every other decision about pacing, sleep, and resupply.

Take the total distance and elevation of your race and build a realistic daily plan around it. Be honest about what you’ve done in training. The biggest day I’d covered before Badlands was 180 km and 3,200 m of elevation on The Goats — so I knew what was within reach, and I planned five days accordingly.

The VeloAtlas Pace Calculator is built exactly for this. Put in your distance, elevation, and expected moving speed and it will break down what a realistic finish looks like across multiple days. Use it before you commit to a plan, not after.

Study the route before you pack a single bag

Import the GPX into Komoot or RideWithGPS and go through the route section by section. Mark every resupply point — villages with bars, supermarkets, petrol stations — and identify where the gaps are. Some stretches in hot races like Badlands run 80–100 km between reliable food and water. You need to know those stretches exist before you’re in the middle of them with two empty bottles.

Also mark potential sleep spots. Playgrounds, covered bus shelters, campsites. In the Badlands race some of the best sleep I got was on a playground with insulated rubber ground — not because I planned it perfectly, but because I’d already identified the general area as a sleep zone and knew what to look for.

Sort your kit — and then cut it

Pack everything you think you need. Then ask yourself what happens if you don’t have each item. If the answer is “I can manage,” it probably doesn’t come.

The VeloAtlas Packing Checklist covers every category — bike and mechanicals, navigation, clothing, sleep, nutrition, first aid, documents. Work through it systematically rather than packing from memory the night before.

A few things that matter more than most people expect:

Lighting. On ultra cycling races you will ride in the dark. Significantly more than you anticipate. I carried two 900-lumen front lights and a headlamp on Badlands, and I used all three. Exposure Lights and Lezyne both make reliable options built for long-distance riding.

Gearing. If you’re not a strong climber, go lower than you think you need. I rode a Canyon Grizzl Escape with a 48T cassette through the mountains of southern Spain and was grateful for every tooth of it.

Sleep kit. An inflatable mattress, emergency bivvy, and a light sleeping bag will cover almost every situation. Keep it minimal but don’t cut it entirely — a bad night’s sleep in the cold is a race-ender as surely as a mechanical.

One thing I skipped and regretted: a spare pair of boxers. After 100+ km in a bib short, having something clean and loose to sleep in matters more than you think.

Train in the conditions you’ll race in

This sounds obvious. Most people ignore it.

If your race runs through hot terrain — the Gorafe desert, the Tabernas basin, the exposed climbs of southern Spain — you need to have spent time riding in heat before the start line. Not race-pace heat training, just consistent exposure over four to six weeks. Your body adapts: plasma volume increases, sweat rate improves, and you lose less sodium per litre of sweat. I rode through Portuguese heat waves in the months before Badlands and I’m convinced that adaptation made a significant difference to how I held up across five days in the desert.

Training Peaks has solid resources on heat acclimatisation protocols if you want to structure this properly.

Get your nutrition and hydration strategy right before race day

The Badlands race taught me that ultra cycling hydration is not about drinking enough water — it’s about managing sodium alongside it. When you sweat heavily you lose electrolytes, not just fluid. Replace the fluid without replacing the electrolytes and you dilute your blood sodium, which leads to cramping, nausea, and eventually a complete inability to eat or ride effectively.

Read the full breakdown in the ultra cycling hydration post — but the short version is: carry salt tablets, take them on a schedule from the first hour, and treat every food stop as a sodium opportunity as much as a calorie one.

For nutrition, the rule that works across every ultra I’ve done: eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty, and take salt before you cramp. Reactive nutrition in a long race is always too late.

Know your mechanicals

You don’t need to be a bike mechanic. You need to be able to handle the things that are likely to go wrong on a long gravel race: a tubeless puncture that won’t seal, a snapped derailleur hanger, a chain that needs a link replaced.

Carry at minimum: spare derailleur hanger, chain links, tubeless plugs and sealant, a multi-tool, zip ties, and enough chain lube for the whole race. On Badlands I went through two small bottles. Dry desert conditions eat lubricant fast.

Park Tool has clear repair guides for every roadside mechanical you’re likely to encounter.

Read the Field Manual

The VeloAtlas Field Manual exists precisely for ultra cycling race preparation — and for the moments mid-race when something goes wrong and you need a fast answer. It covers heat management, sleep strategy, nutrition when your stomach shuts down, and the small tactical details that experienced riders have learned the hard way and that almost never appear in mainstream cycling content.

Go through it before your race. Bookmark anything that applies to your specific route and conditions.

The week before

Don’t try to cram in extra training. Your fitness is already set — the week before a race is about arriving rested, not arriving fitter. Keep your legs moving with easy rides but cut volume significantly.

Sort your kit and pack it by Wednesday or Thursday. Leaving this to the night before means making decisions while anxious, which is how you forget things that matter.

Sleep as much as you can. The sleep you bank before the race is real — it buffers the deficit you’ll run up on the road. Matthew Walker’s research on sleep and athletic performance is worth reading if you want to understand why this matters so much.

At the start line

Be conservative in the first hours. Everyone goes out too fast and you will feel the pull to go with them. Don’t. Your race is measured in days, not the first climb. The riders who surge off the front on day one are often the ones you pass on day three sitting at a bar with cramps.

Eat in the first hour before hunger arrives. Take your first salt tablet early. And take a moment to look around — the start of an ultra cycling race is a rare thing. Most people standing there have worked for months to be at that line. So have you.

The rest is just riding.