The celest/ blue mustasch train steamed on with slender and brute force, cheering and boosting everyone we met. I caught myself thinking “one should really wake up at 02.00 in the morning every day, it is crazy how much stuff you can achieve instead of sleeping” as the sun was rising in the east and we already covered about 80 km of awesome cycling.

We cycled through the morning and faced an amazing day with dry roads, a warming sun and fair winds. The course around vättern can be split into three main parts.

Phase one is the stingy first couple of kilometers when you are all excited about being on the road and need to remind yourself and your teammates to keep the temp down and ride safe.
Second phase is the Honeymoon ride, all the way down to Jönköping. This is a fairly easy distance to ride and a lot of nice views to enjoy making it an even more pleasant experience. The key here is to enjoy the ride but not go to fast.
Phase three is when you have passed Jönköping, this is when the climbing starts and the real race begins. The next 200k is where you will have to work, keep the spirit up with your teammates and make sure to eat and drink. We sang in the uphill climbs - great way to keep up the team spirits.

A key component to any long distance cycling adventure is nutrition, hydration and mineral levels, especially if it is a warm day like ours. The most important factor is continuity, you will be totally fine if you remember to drink and eat something on a regular basis, very much depending on the day but at least every 30 minutes and prioritize on drinking. Another recipe for success is mixing sports drink in your water, this will give you some extra energy but also the electrolytes and salts that your body needs to refill with.

There is 9 stops along the cycle course where you can refill with water or sports drink and get some carbohydrate refills. Have fun, eat and drink alot and the ride will be an absolute pleasure!

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