Daspydyr 

Its not huge, well for me its pretty darn large. 65 miles in Phoenix. Only @2000 feet of climbing. I have been riding "again" seriously since January 1. Its a charity ride that I am doing with my son in law. I know I will need to push hard to make him break a sweat. I plan on riding tonight (Thursday) for about 20 miles just moderate. But work interrupted riding on Mon-Wed. Should I rest on Friday or get some miles in?

zowie

No. Unless it's a very short ride just to check out equipment.

Machka 

Sometimes I ride on the Friday before a longish or long ride on Saturday ... sometimes I don't. Just depends how I feel.

gregf83 

If you've been riding 5-6 days/wk then it wouldn't hurt to do an easy ride on Fri with a few short hard efforts. But it isn't going to help your ride on Sat. Nothing you do on Fri will improve your fitness on Sat.

chasm54

I wouldn't " get some miles in", exactly. On the other hand, I probably would get out on the bike on the Friday for a leisurely ride of about an hour at recovery pace. In my experience, one's legs always feel a bit dead after a day off, so while turning a gear on Friday won't improve your fitness, it might improve how you feel the following day.

Carbonfiberboy 

OTOH, I do better if I don't ride the day before, and even take it easy or at least don't push hard two days before. I suppose the main thing is not to do anything to the bike other than pump the tires the day before. Sometimes people get anxious the night before, so be sure to get plenty of sleep two nights before.

Myosmith

Leisurely pleasure ride would probably be OK as long as you keep it short. The time for training for Saturday's ride is past.

HokuLoa

Yes but not a goal oriented "training ride." More of a lax spin to get the fluids moving, work out the kinks, and expose any bike issues in need of attention. As an example if the routine is 5-6 days a week with 40-50mile/day training rides and a longer 65-100+ mile weekender then the pre-event ride is often a 20-35mile easy flat land spin.

C_Heath

last year on a sat I rode 82 miles with 12k in climbing. I didnt ride at all the week before. I made it and I will do the exact same this year.

cleansheet

Did a great 40 mile easy spin ride with a friend the day before I had my best triathlon timed race ever a few years ago.

You should be fine as long as you don't push it too hard.

Rowan

I went over 10 years without owning a motor vehicle and got heavily involved in randonneuring or long-distance events. No car meant riding to the start of events and home again, or catching trains/buses and riding to the start. For one 200km event, I rode more than 100km overnight to get to the start.

I am not a fast rider, and I probably wouldn't do the same sort of thing if racing. And I think you would find most professional and top-level cyclists would ride the day before an event, even though they might be tapering for that event. But it would be more to keep muscles and ligaments/tendons limber than to get any aerobic/anaerobic fitness or power benefits.

wkndwarrior

Usually I don't, but an easy short ride probably won't hurt. In fact, it might even help for the big day.

DataJunkie

If I want to. I just keep it dialed down.