Touring - How many days into a tour does it take your body to 'kick-in' and quite aching ?

How many days into a tour does it take your body to 'kick-in' and quite aching ?
Maybe no one else has this experience; however, I've got to ask.
I am 58 and have been touring for 5 years... and have noticed that my physical aches and pains don't seem to go away until the 5th day.... I doesn't seem to matter how much I train and condition prior to the tour, I am sorry to say.... In fact, it has been so consistent, irrespective of terrain or load, that in the last two years I have let up and trained less cause I could not see the benefit !!!.
Has anyone one else had this sort of experience????

Opps! Let's make "QUITE" QUIT.

3 months touring in Australia last year around this time .... and my body NEVER quit aching.

My touring partner kept telling me, "Any day now you'll get used to this and be fine" but it didn't happen.

Maybe that was because our touring schedule had us riding a minimum of 100 kms a day, every day, and took us up and over the Snowy Mountains with heavily loaded touring bicycles, first thing (and I hadn't climbed a mountain in two years and ended up walking a good portion of the way) ... then we did the Great Southern Randonnee (a 1200K ride in 3.5 days) ... then, after only a short rest, we spent three weeks touring Tasmania (more mountains) ... then we headed up to Queensland, and just when I started finally feeling a bit more comfortable with things, I had an accident that laid me up for 5 days before I had to get moving again, still bandaged and sore.

Maybe under other, more relaxed, circumstances I would feel better out there sooner.

I go into tours usually in pretty good condition. But the first day is always tough because I typically have spent the night before on a bus plane or a train none of which I can ever sleep on. So I start the first day fatiqued and usually trying to find my way out of a large city. I'll get a good nights sleep and the next day I feel great and I'm on tour!
But ask me again in 11 years when I'm 58 and I might have a similar complaint to yours ;)

Four

I am 33 and it takes 4 to six days to be comfortable doing consecutive 60-mile days. My last tour was in Italy and lasted only 9 days, but we did pretty light mileage - never really got the kinks out all the way.

On a TransAm trip a while back, I met two touring ladies in their early 50s in Idaho who had been on the road for two weeks. One lady had always biked since a child and took a week to "recondition" herself. Her friend hadn't ridden in 30 years, thought what her friend was doing was neat, so bought a bike and the appropriate gear, and took off with 1 day of "training" (to learn how to shift).

The second lady said the first 10-12 days "were like Dante's hell" but she was doing fine then (14 days into ride).

As for my 17+ tours, I have always need at least 3 days to adjust, sometimes as much as a week. I used to ride a lot (15k+ a year) but have reduced significantly past 10 years due to kids :) . I personally think it is due to some travel fatigue, riding a loaded bike is always a change, stress of getting to starting point, unpacked, and out of the city's airport, etc.

Solution: Ride longer tours :)!! This way the first few days are not counted!

Some aches, if present at the beginning of a tour, do not go away. They get worse. For me, knee pains are in this category. But once I get the positioning and pedaling technique issues sorted out, it's not a problem.

I would say it takes four to seven days for my body to acclimatize to the rigours of touring. I always promise myself to take it easy for the first couple of days, but in my enthusiasm I sometimes "forget" to stop early in the day.

I'm 61 right now and the tour I did last spring gave me problems the first two days but they were 120 km days In fact the trip averaged 112 km/day.

I expected to feel terrible on the third day and rode what I thought was a conservative pace. And yet I was in a couple of hours before my tour mates. We got separated and I expected them to be faster than me so continued.

The fourth day on I was obviously the strongest and I am not quite sure why.

Two to 6 weeks after I get home :) I swear, "I'll never do that again" and then after a few weeks I start thinking, "I could do things so much better the next time." Some people never learn. ;)

Im 45 and it takes a solid week for the pains to go away.

No one told me there would be pain!

I'm 58 and I sometimes get arthritis pain at home but not when I'm touring. This is why I ride a bike, it is mostly pain free. I ride 75-100 km's a day and often more and have no pain. Sometimes if I don't move my hands around enough I get tingles in my hands, but that is not really pain.

Once I had a bad saddle. That was a pain. What kind of pain are you talking about?

No one told me there would be pain!

I'm 58 and I sometimes get arthritis pain at home but not when I'm touring. This is why I ride a bike, it is mostly pain free. I ride 75-100 km's a day and often more and have no pain. Sometimes if I don't move my hands around enough I get tingles in my hands, but that is not really pain.

Once I had a bad saddle. That was a pain. What kind of pain are you talking about?


Deep, agonizing muscular pain ... like EVERYTHING aches!! Have you ever done bodybuilding ... after that first workout, or after every time you increase the weights ... that's the pain I'm talking about! You wake up in the morning and can hardly move because you're so stiff ... and then when you finally do move something ... it screams in agony ... but you grit our teeth and haul yourself, whimpering, off to the nearest bushes or toilet. The very thought of getting back on the bicycle again another day is torture. But you do it anyway because you've got no choice ... you're in the middle of nowhere and the only way to get to somewhere is by bicycle. That pain.

Three days.

I'm getting wiser now, and I don't go all out on the first couple of days. Also, I start a tour about 70% fit so I won't be tempted to race fellow tourers. After about three days, I'll feel ready to do a few sprints to liven things up. I do get sore going up hills, and the aches never seem to get away. On mty last tour I found a relief. Just when I thought that my calves would not take another day of hills, I had a massage by a seventy one years old woman.I told her to go light, yet she had me screaming. Later, she professed that she never had a client that wailed as much as I did. Nevertheless, I was good to go the next morning, and never had any ache the following 35 days. Never under estimate the healing power of massage.

I'm sixtyyseven and when touring with full camping gear it takes me ten days before the aches disapear. In my experience if you take "arnica" every day while touring this is a great help for all pains and it also prevents bruising.

I'm sixtyyseven and when touring with full camping gear it takes me ten days before the aches disapear. In my experience if you take "arnica" every day while touring this is a great help for all pains and it also prevents bruising.

Thanks for the tip... have found "arnica" at http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/arnic058.html
I will read up on it an probably give it a try..... Maybe I will find that I can exchange it for my normal procedure of 4 ibuprophens (sp.) + green tea at the end of each day.....will see if I can jettison the ibuphrophen....I know I would be better off it I were to do that :- ). I can see that it is an externally applied remedy.

I'm closing in on 50 and I'm trying to remember the start of my last trip.

Actually, when I was much younger I remember feeling a little peeved that I couldn't get "cyclist's legs" despite mega-miles of riding. My legs just looked like tree stumps. Well, fortunately, the peasant build has served me well in other areas - if not in looks. Even though I always seem to start my tours overweight - I am hard pressed to recall feeling beat or hurting. And for whatever reason, I have never had to deal with prickly butt - knock on wood.

I try to keep the mileage under 60 - then work up to 80. Plus I try to avoid killer terrain at the start. Also, I take a lot of banana breaks. And I send part of my gear - that I won't need immediately - up ahead to a post office - so I'm starting out with less weight. More than anything, I notice that my climbing is sub-par - but I don't push it. Maybe I'm just lucky.

My body never starts aching...... Have I mentioned I don't have a car and bike every day?

I never get pain, except not surprisingly during tough climbs.

Of course, I tour on a recumbent, a Bacchetta Strada with the panniers hanging under the seat between two 559 wheels.

I'm not into pain. Color me a wimp.

I havent toured yet, But I am a messenger and probally clock in anywhere from 60-110 miles a day and I cant say I really hurt at all. My right knee is currently giving me problems, but that is old injury/straining it one day last week. April 1 sanfran-Charleston. :) Nothing like getting paid to train ;-)

I agree that training doesn't really help the problem much. I always found my bum aching in the first 2-3 days after having rested for several days or not having ridden for a longer period. That is just normal I recon. The best thing to do is just to take it easy for the (painful) beginning. I especially do a lot of streching and warming up before and while cycling on hard stages.