Stopping for a cup of coffee, slice of cake or even a full English at their favourite café is a ride highlight for many riders. It is a chance to get warm, regroup, have a tasty snack and to chat about the miles done and the miles to come. However, is it always a good idea and what impact can it have on the effectiveness of your training.

Getting chilled

A real negative of a café stop is, especially on cold and wet days, it can easily lead to you getting chilled. You are warm from pedalling when you arrive at the café, toasty while inside but, once you head out in your damp kit, getting going again can be a slow and chilling process. You can reduce the effect by carrying spare gloves, socks and even a base layer in a zip lock bag but, if it is really foul, it can just be better to plough on without a stop.

Time

If you are short of training time, why waste 20 minutes or more of potential pedalling sat in a café? Over the course of the four months of winter, if you forego a 20-minute café stop on each weekend ride, that tallies up to an extra five hours of riding. Or, if you are more concerned with harmony at home, less time out on a Sunday. You don’t have to miss out on the social side, simply ride with the group until the café but then peel off and do your own thing.

Psychological effects

If you are preparing for a long event but always have a significant stop midway through your training rides, there is bound to be a nagging doubt in your mind about whether you can do without it. Committing to riding straight though without a stop regularly in training will either give you reassurance that you are ready for your event or a reality check that you need to adjust your approach.

Physiological effects

Probably the most convincing reason not to succumb to a café stop is the impact it has on the potential training gains you will achieve from the ride. A straight through 4-hour ride is physiologically very different from a 4-hour ride with a coffee and cake stop in the middle. The stop effectively gives your body a chance to reboot, allowing your digestive system a chance to process fuel, raise blood sugar levels back up and stretch out any aches and pains. This means, compared to riding straight through, you can get away with poor pacing, under-fuelling and even a bad bike fit without paying for it later on in the ride. This is fine until you try to apply a similar approach to an event in the spring without taking a significant stop when, despite all of your “four and five hour rides”, you come to a grinding halt  on a climb in the last hour or so.

Without the café stop reboot, even with regular fuelling, if you’re riding just slightly too hard, your body won’t be utilising fat reserves and you will be constantly chipping away at your carbohydrate stores. Eventually you will deplete them and then, if you need to increase your effort, such as on a climb, you won’t be able to fuel it.

As well as learning truly sustainable pacing and fuelling strategies, doing your long rides without a café stop also enhances your body’s ability to utilise its fat reserves, preserving those valuable carbohydrates for when you really need them.

Yes or no?

If you’re out for a club-run or a ride with friends and the emphasis is definitely on the social side of the sport, then, have and enjoy a café stop. However, if your focus is training, especially for a long event, you’re probably better without.

Carb fasted option

If you really can’t face the prospect of a ride without a café stop on your long ride but want to still get a good endurance training effect from it, try following a carbohydrate restricted protocol for the first 60-120 minutes of the ride up to the café stop. This will aid the development of your body’s ability to burn fat as a fuel. You can have a protein breakfast beforehand, such as an omelette, sip a protein drink on the bike and will need to stick strictly to Zone 1-2. Once at the café, go for coffee and cake to raise your blood sugar levels and then, when you set off again, fuel normally with carbohydrates. If you’re including any higher intensity efforts, do them during the second part of the ride.