Participating to a big cycling event need preparation, both mentally and physically. Such an event will place a fair amount of stress on your body, but many of the participants consider it live changing and one very rewarding finally. If you decided to accept the challenge, this is what you should be prepared for:

You’ll use up energy

No, really...This main source of energy for intense exercise is carbohydrates and therefore this is the nutrient you need to pay close attention to. Embark on a casual 20-miler, and you’ll be fine — no snacks necessary. But once you’ve surpassed two hours of cycling, it’s recommended that you refuel. And if you’re out there for 4–5 hours, nutrition requirements become serious. In addition to water and electrolyte-laced beverages, you’ll want to eat simple, easily-digestible carbs like energy gels to avoid the dreaded bonk.

You could Bonk (in the bad way)

To avoid bonking you should be eating something small every 20-30 minutes from about 60-75 minutes into the event. The signs of bonking include dizziness, shaking, feelings of extreme fatigue or weakness, nausea and blurred vision. Therefore, if you notice any of these, be sure to take on some fast digesting carbohydrates as soon as you can – for example via an energy gel.

You’ll lose fluid

Sweating intensely make you rapidly lose fluid and due to an increase in sweat rate and these fluids must be replaced. Set a timer to remind yourself and drink 500 – 1 liter per hour. If the weather is hot, you should drink more because of the higher sweat rate.

You sweat out useful electrolytes

This is the time when salt is really what you need. When you sweat you not only lose fluid, but you also lose key electrolytes. Consider replacing electrolyte losses using an electrolyte tab or isotonic drink. Isotonic drinks also contain carbohydrate so are great for providing fuel as well. You could also include a little bit of salty food into your fueling strategy to help replace sodium losses. Spreads like marmite and peanut butter are great options and these can also be a very welcomed alternative to lots of sweet and sugary carbohydrate-based foods.

You might get cramp

Cramps are involuntary muscle spasms that can make pedaling momentarily impossible, because of their intensity. So what causes muscle cramps? The scientific community doesn't have a definitive answer, either. There are theories on what causes cramping, but no certainties. The current theories on muscle cramping include muscular fatigue, low electrolyte levels (sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium, magnesium), hyper-hydration, dehydration and personal susceptibility. Solutions? One is to make sure you stay properly hydrated and replace lost electrolytes. Secondly, but more important, actually, consider taking a magnesium supplement before your event. Magnesium has been found to regulate muscle contraction. Third, if you do experience cramp, stretching will bring immediate relief.

Fear kicks your fight-or-flight response into overdrive. All of the things that we think of as longer-term interests get diverted to the immediate interest: fight or flight. The fight-or-flight response, also known as the acute stress response, refers to a physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically. The response is triggered by the release of hormones that prepare your body to either stay and deal with a threat or to run away to safety. The term 'fight-or-flight' represents the choices that our ancient ancestors had when faced with a danger in their environment. They could either fight or flee. In either case, the physiological and psychological response to stress prepares the body to react to the danger.

Like an animal trying to avoid being eaten by a predator, all of your body’s resources get diverted toward one goal: staying alive. Your heart rate and blood pressure increase, you breathe faster and your muscles tense up. Your pupils dilate so you can see the threat more clearly.

The fight-or-flight response plays a critical role in how we deal with stress and danger in our environment. Essentially, the response prepares the body to either fight or flee the threat. It is also important to note that the response can be triggered due to both real and imaginary threats.

Either are real or imaginary, the threats should be treated with calm. This is the only thing to remember: remain calm inside and be rational. If you remain calm, your reaction will be much more efficient and quicker.

What Fear Does to Your Eyes

Like in the cartoons, when you’re scared, your eyes open wider so you can better see and process threats, but you miss the gap that’s right in your face. Because you are not looking for real dangers, you scout for something threatening and invisible. Remain prepared for the visible ones and that will keep you safe.

What Fear Does to Your Neck + Shoulders

Your muscles tense when you’re freaked out, which can wreak havoc on your bike handling. To reduce this, relax your shoulders—performing some shrugs or shoulder rolls should help you loosen up.

What Fear Does to Your Hands + Feet

You might be familiar with your hands sweating when you're feeling scared, but you might not know that fear and anxiety can also cause your hands and feet to feel cold. While the fight or flight response changes are active, they can cause a wide range of sensations and symptoms, including having cold hands and feet (or just cold hands, or just cold feet), the Anxiety Centre explained on its website. That’s because your body pulls blood away from the skin to aid major muscles and your heart and lungs. This prepares them to do hard work to help you flee.

What Fear Does to Your Heart

Being prepared for the flee step, the body releases adrenaline when you’re scared, which triggers a rise in heart rate. It’s meant to prepare us to be strong and fast. Breath calmly and the brain will send the impulse that everything is alright and your heart will get slower to normal. Don’t worry, nothing is happening if you heart beat faster than usual.

What Fear Does to Your Bladder

Some people can pee in their pants when they’re frightened. What’s going on? Under stressful conditions, however, the inhibitory signals from the frontal lobe can themselves be overridden by the limbic system, a combination of brain areas that controls the famous “fight or flight” response. When we become stressed or anxious, electrical signals from the limbic system become so intense that the brainstem has trouble following the frontal lobe’s commands. That’s why many people urinate more frequently before important exams or in the starting corral of a marathon. In life-threatening situations, the limbic system’s orders become so urgent that you can’t even make it to the bathroom. Make a stop and go to a bathroom, while try to ease your anxiety with slowly, calmly breathing.

What Fear Does to Your Skin

Fear can cause skin rashes, this is actually a symptom of fear. According to the website Hives.org, prolonged stress and anxiety can weaken your immune system and cause your body to break out in hives or rashes.

Fear Can Cloud Your Ability to Think Clearly

Feeling fearful or anxious can cause you to become overwhelmed, which can cloud your ability to think clearly, remember things, and make decisions. In short, fear gives you brain fog. According the UW Medicine blog Right as Rain, fear basically scrambles your brain.

Dear bikers, try to respect few simple and basic rules of cycling pros, and that’s essential you need to keep you safe.

• Choose good routes (study them before riding)
• Always be watchful to the traffic signs
• Make yourself visible in traffic
• Wear helmet and proper signalizing equipment
• Be intuitive with others possible reactions

Riding 100 miles on your bike is a major achievement, whichever way you look at it. Century ride’ – one that covers a distance of 100 miles (160.9km) – remains the ultimate desire for many weekend warriors. You’ve completed every training ride and double-checked every piece of gear in preparation for your first century. You've even followed a nutrient-rich diet in the months before your event. Just one final challenge remains: finishing on race day. Be prepared to experience a total combo of fun, pain and epic pub tale fodder on the side.

What are the best trips for the ride of your life?

Zone in on the race

“To build up your endurance before a long bike ride, without taking up all your free time, the best thing to do is find out your maximum heart rate and then do regular training rides for one hour in what we call ‘zone 3’ (typically 75-82% of your maximum heart rate). Working at that level – not too fast and not too slow – is a really good way to make gains in your base fitness so you can last the distance”, told to Telegraph, British national road race champion, Laura Trott.

Survive three minutes of pain

“Another good drill for improving your endurance involves doing three-minute flat-out efforts, followed by 15 minutes of recovery. If you do that three times during an hour-long ride you will really notice the difference in your fitness”, said also our cyclist, Laura Trott.

Speed up with 20-40s

Laura Trott advice to progress and try to improve your speed, you can try a drill called ‘20-40s’: sprint for 20 seconds and then rest for 40 seconds, and repeat that sequence four times for one set. You can do as many sets as you want. It’s a good way to improve your speed and fitness in quite a short amount of time.

Eat every hour

If you pace yourself and eat enough food, you'll finish your century without difficulty. Set a goal to eat 200 calories of carbohydrates every hour during the race, including the first hour. If you wait to eat until the second half of your race, it's already too late. If you're a smaller rider, you can eat a little less that the recommended 200 calories. If you're a bigger rider, you'll need to eat a little more. Be prepared to take enough food with you that you don't have to rely on the food at the aid stations.

Think drink

Drink something with electrolytes in it, ideally make your own sports drink and eat some salty food. However, you choose to do it, feed your muscles and replace the salt lost through sweat.

Stick to familiar nutrition

Try to find out before the race what will be available at the aid stations. If this is what you've been eating and drinking during your training rides, you won't have anything to worry about. Be careful not to try new food or drink and risk an upset stomach.

Don’t fight the hills

Don’t be stressed about the hills. Keep a steady rhythm and alternate between sitting down and riding up out of the saddle so you use all your different muscle groups.

Be careful riding in a group

Riding in a group, sharing the workload and chatting are part of the fun of an organized ride. However, if you aren't familiar with your companions' bike handling skills, be careful and don't risk a crash.

Don’t wear anything new

Contact points (hands, feet, and butt) are critical areas for a cyclist, and they need familiar surroundings on century day. Don’t take any chances with untested equipment. The urge to showboat new gear can be strong—especially if you’re cycling with buddies—but a 100-mile ride is not the time to do it. New shoes, in particular, should stay at home. Similarly, your saddle should be like an old friend—comforting and supportive. And same goes for your kit.

Partner up

If at all possible, tackle your first century with at least one friend. A riding partner (or two or three) makes the day much more enjoyable, allowing you to not only pass the time with conversation, but also draft off of one another.

 Perhaps the most widely recognized NASA spinoff, memory foam was invented by NASA-funded researchers looking for ways to keep test pilots cushioned during flights. First designed in the mid-1960s for NASA airplane seats, memory foam is made from a substance called Viscoelastic. It is both highly energy absorbent and soft. After potential applications for the medical and consumer fields were realized, viscoelastic, foam was sold to a public company which would eventually introduce memory foam mattresses in the 1990s. This marked a major breakthrough in an industry that had seen little advancement in nearly a century.

Memory foam was subsequently used in medical settings. For example, it was commonly used in cases where the patient was required to lie immobile in their bed on a firm mattress for an unhealthy period of time.

Since then, lots of improvements were made, that memory foam better and better.

For long comfortable rides, memory foam is the answer. Do you know why? Because it is perfectly adapted to your body shape and natural movements and you can spend hours without any discomfort at all. Practically, you won’t remember what the painful rides mean!

But how is this happening?

Memory foam provides a true body fit

The memory foam actively molds to your body in response to heat and pressure, allowing the surface to evenly distribute body weight when occupied and return to its original shape once pressure is removed.

Pressure point relief

Essentially, when a person lays in position for a long time, the pressure of downward pulling gravity and upward resistance in other materials can affect circulation and damage soft tissues caught in the middle. The pressure-relieving benefits of memory foam were used to help prevent pressure sores and minimize pain in sensitive areas. This is still one of the core benefits of memory foam. When you sit down on memory foam, the material yields and adjusts to your shape, rather than forcing you to contour to it. Unlike other materials, memory foam does not “push back” or place added upward pressure on the biker. Pressure point relief is one of the leading benefits of memory foam is its ability to prevent pressure points. Other materials resist weight and push upwards against you, while gravity also pulls you down. This results in painful pressure points at the heaviest points of contact like hips. Open-celled memory foam does not resist weight, rather it compresses, conforming to the user and distributing weight across the surface of the saddle. Compared to traditional foam, memory foam can reduce pressure by up to 50% or more.

Dear bikers, if you have these next strange sensations during a ride, two things are certain: you are not suffering from a major illness and you are not going insane also! Many of them are generally signs that you've worked your body hard and however strange they seem do not represent any risk to the health. So, don’t panic! But, let’s see what are the strangest sensations we can experience during a ride!

Blood taste in your mouth

If it has happened to you that you feel the taste of blood in your mouth at a time of great physical effort, you should know that it is an effect caused by the explosion of blood cells. When you push yourself past threshold, your red blood cells are being taxed and release some heme, or iron, which is why it tastes like metal. Red blood cells can also leak into your air sacs during really hard efforts. If it's temporary, it's nothing to worry about. However, if you notice that this persists, even when you are not training, it is advisable to consult with a doctor.

Dripping nose

Exercise-induced Rhinitis (i.e. runny nose during exercise) is a common complaint among cyclists, especially, of course, during times when allergens like pollen, dust, and dry air are high. By irritating the nostrils, mucus production is automatically increased, which has the function of protecting our respiratory tract from external agents. This should not worry you but can be really annoying and might interfere your training; you can apply some palliative medicine to control this effect.

Rider cough

It’s Bronchoconstriction: It's similar to what happens in people with asthma, but it can happen to anyone. After completing a cyclocross run you notice that you have an intense cough that is kept for several minutes. It happens when you exert yourself at an intense level than you're used to and the small muscles lining your lungs get a spasm. You see it more in the beginning or end of the year when people may not be in peak shape. In addition, some climatic conditions such as cold or drought can induce this effect. The best way to avoid it is by wearing a scarf and breathing through it.

Sudden urge to go to the bathroom

Don’t be embarrassed, you are not alone! This is a very common effect among runners. It happens by the stimulation that the exercise exerts on the intestine, besides the foods with high load of sugar, as well as the drinks with caffeine increases the intensity of this digestive effect. This is something that you can easily control by improving your diet, especially by taking care of what you eat right before you go running.

Uncontrolled itching

For some people, it's an actual allergic reaction known as exercise-induced urticaria, which can cause itching and flushing, as well as hives and—in extreme cases—breathing difficulty. But, for most of the cases the itch is caused by temperature; The heat helps the capillaries and arteries expand, which causes the nerves to stimulate and itch. The best way to avoid this is by applying moisturizer to protect the skin.

Mental mist

Heavy physical exertion can a cause certain level of confusion, to the point of forgetting where you left your keys, your car and even suffer orientation problems. This is normal because exercising quickly consumes the reservoir of glycogen, which is the fuel of brain cells. The best way to recover and return to a state of lucidity is by eating a healthy food and drink that will help us recharge energy as soon as possible.

Tingly fingers or sleepy hands

It can be disconcerting when your hands start tingling—or worse, when they go numb. The hands are necessary to control the handle of the bicycle, so this effect can get very nervous. This happens by the pressure that we put in the nerves that surround the wrists when taking the handlebars with force for long time. One way to avoid this uncomfortable effect is to wear gloves or try to move your hands while handling, as much as possible, to reduce pressure.

Bike commuting not only helps the environment and saves gas money, but it can also help you stay fit, healthy and burn a few extra calories. Not to mention, the coolness of the bikers riding to their office with their cool outfits and accessories, their cool bikes, their careless played attitude and their cool everything, exactly what you don’t have, being stuck in traffic for the rest of your life.

Despite the obvious reasons to ride your bike to work, there never seems to be a good time to start. So why not start now? Even if you commute only a handful of times, it's better than none at all. To help you get rolling, here are some tips to get started.

Plan your route: If you're new to cycling, knowing where you're going in advance will save you time and keep you out of dangerous situations. Less experienced cyclists should plan a route with bike lanes and less-trafficked streets, and avoid construction and busy intersections.

Consult maps of your city for the best route: Google maps gives the option to display directions for cyclists. If you're participating in a bike-sharing scheme, check out the official website for routes and station maps. Some bike-share programs even have their own apps for your phone.

Start with an achievable distance: If you live only a few miles from work, it is conceivable that you can commute both ways on the first day. If you live several miles away and the commute will take you 45 to 60 minutes or more, consider hitching a ride with a co-worker to get to the office, then ride home. Make the distance doable for you; don't worry about what other people might be doing.

Start with an achievable frequency: Of course, it sounds good that you're turning over a new leaf, and you have grand plans to commute to and from work every day. But is that goal achievable immediately? Begin by setting a goal to commute one to three times per week. After you can consistently achieve success, add more commuting segments or days.

Consider Non-Traditional Gear: The discussion of weather usually leads to the next logical topic; commuting gear. You can choose the fashionable commuting threads from lots of websites, they are very helpful, but they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of the fashionable commuting gear. When the weather takes a turn for cooler days, definitely consider out-of-the-box options offered by motorcycle or snowboarding apparel outlets, and when the mercury begins to rise, consider swim wear and yoga clothing to round out your commuting wardrobe. In areas like New York City, commuters like me endure the extremes of very hot summers and very frigid winters, so investing in products offered on these non-cycling sites can significantly add to your comfort, style, and commitment to riding year-round.

Look ahead for road hazards (e.g. potholes, sand/gravel, glass, drain grates) so you have time to negotiate around these.

Keep it safe! As a commuter, your primary goal is to arrive safely to your destination each and every time. To achieve this goal, remember that crashes are most likely to occur at intersections, or when riding too close to parallel parked cars. To avoid these types of accidents, brush up on some advanced safety techniques for bicycles.

Basic cautions that keep you safe:

• Stay visible, never assume a car sees you, give them every opportunity to see you.
• Signal your turns to avoid surprising a driver and getting hit.
• Trust and verify a driver’s next move, which requires slowing down to trust that a car signaling to turn is actually turning by verifying its wheels are turning the direction it indicates.

Use hand signals: Biking in a predictable manner can go a long way to keep you safe on the road. If people behind you (other bike riders, cars, etc.) can predict what you’re going to do, they can better plan their movements around you. Just as drivers who don’t signal cause crashes, so do people on bikes. Use hand signals when you’re turning or stopping to avoid unnecessary confusion. A bent left elbow, fingers raised skywards, means turning right, while pointing your arm straight out to the left indicates a left-hand turn. Pointing your fingers down with a bent left elbow signals that you plan to stop.

Make yourself visible: Use bicycle lights when riding at night to be more visible to other road users. While the usefulness of helmets and other safety-wear for cyclists remains a contentious issue in the cycling community, the use of lights is hard to argue against. Motorists can’t look out for you if they can’t see you!

Now who’s the coolest biker in town?!

The best way to get better at cycling is to ride more and train better. But there are other ways that each ride can be improved, and it's not just about getting faster.

You may not have the time to train like a pro, but that doesn’t mean you can’t reap the benefits of a little pro-level training. Try these tricks from pro trainers’ and race better than ever, no matter your riding style or goals.

Let’s ride on!

1. The empty(ish) stomach makes a better sleep

‘Denied fuel for five hours, your body will start burning its own fat,’ says fitness expert and author Bob Harper. That means if your dinner was at 8pm, you’ll be burning fat by 1 am.

The best pros go to bed just a little bit hungry,” says also Allen Lim, PhD, who has worked as a sports scientist for pro Tour teams and now runs Skratch Labs in Boulder, Colorado.

The lack of carbs in your bloodstream will also let your body produce the hormones it needs for better sleep.

'When you go to bed moderately hungry, you lose about a pound a week.

2. Save your energy 

“It’s easy to ride well when you’re fresh, but race-winning moves are often needed exactly when you least want them to occur.

Being able to settle in and do work when all the alarm bells are going off in your body is worthwhile,”  says Rob Pickels, team manager of BCS Elite Devo at Boulder Junior Cycling and lead exercise physiologist at CU Sports Medicine and Performance Center. “Doing higher-intensity efforts in a glycogen-depleted state, like the end of a ride, may help build your mitochondria. So your fast-twitch fibers that you use during higher power-output efforts become more oxidative—they burn more fat and less glycogen.

Being a better fat burner at higher intensities is a definite performance booster in endurance sports like cycling”, he says.

As sports psychologist and author of The Only Way To Win, Dr Jim Loehr puts it, ‘Toughness is the ability to consistently perform towards the upper range of your skill regardless of the circumstances.’

3. Freeze a bottle before a hot ride

Next time you go out for a long, hot ride, pre-freeze the liquid in one of your bidons. Leave it for the last part of the ride, by which time it’ll have melted, and you’ll have a long, cool, refreshing drink to see you into the home straight.

4.Squeeze fresh lime juice into your water bottles

Limes are amazing. As the flavonoids in lime juice has a proven track record as a powerful anti-bacterial agent it’ll help keep the inside of your bidons clean.

It’ll also add a zesty tang to metallic-tasting tap water, while providing your immune system with a dash of vitamin C.

5. Learn to ride steady

Pros spend a lot of time riding at a steady pace to build and maintain a strong foundation of endurance fitness, where you have optimum fat-burning and capillary development, says longtime pro trainer Iñigo San Millán, PhD, director of the Exercise Physiology and Human Performance Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. “The bulk of your riding should be in ‘Zone 2,’ or at an intensity where you can have a conversation—about a 5 to 6 on a 1 to 10 scale,” he says. This intensity isn’t slow or easy; rather, it’s a steady, moderate pace from start to finish. So while it feels almost too easy when you first roll out, by the time you finish you should feel as though you’ve done some work.

6. Always have some duct tape with you

Duct tape is a great thing to have with you. Simply wrap a piece around your seat post or your on-board pump and forget about it until the day you need it.

It can be used to remedy any number of sticky in-the-saddle situations from patching up torn waterproofs or busted mudguards to providing an emergency fix for a slashed tire.

7. Save that valve cap

When changing a tire, many people get rid of the plastic valve cap that comes on the fresh inner tube, but you should absolutely hang onto it because it might save you in a tight spot. If you cut the top off, the cap can be used as a makeshift Presta to Schrader valve converter.

It’s not perfect, but in a pinch, you can use this little hack to use the air compressor at your local gas station if you get a flat out on the road and can’t quite get your tires topped off with your mini pump or CO2 canisters. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper than a proper Presta to Schrader converter.

8. Furniture polish for your frame

Not only will furniture polish give your bike a bit of sparkle, but it will limit the amount of dirt that will stick to your frame on your next ride. It's a cheaper alternative to the bike specific products too!

Other tips:

• The rear tire wears much faster than the front. When replacing a rear tire, swap the front to the back, and put the new one on the front.
• When road biking, use rimless sunglasses without ventilation holes. You need to keep your eyes from drying out, and you don't want to be looking at the top rims when you are leaning forward.
• Thin bandannas under your helmet do an amazing job at keeping sweat out of your eyes.
• Always carry a plastic bag for your cell phone, in case it starts to rain.
• If road biking, wear real cycling clothes, not cotton T-shirts that get soaked, or impervious wind jackets that balloon up.

Did you noticed that anyone has the possibility, at any level to do something extraordinary for the planet? 

We, as cyclists, can do much more than we think only by biking.

With the U.S. spewing 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air last year – one-quarter of the world total – if we only cut it to half, could you imagine how magnificent improvement?

One-third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are from motorized transport, yet half of all car trips are just 5 km or less.

Can you imagine that even if you choose once in a while the bike instead of the car, the existing roads will be enough?

 Any cyclist would say that summer is the best time to take a ride, but we have to be prepared to ride comfy even when our body deals with high temperatures.

Get ready, because we have some tips to get you cooler rides for the whole summer.

1. Cooling vests

The lightweight cooling vest is an integral piece of cooling clothing for elite sporting bodies, industry workers, athletes, doctors all around the world.

During warm-ups or between races, the vest lowers skin temperature, delays the onset of dehydration, and reduces the heart's workload, all factors that increase performance. 

2.Not all the jerseys are the same

A key characteristic of summer cycling jerseys is the ability to wick away sweat from the body. This will help to keep us feeling cool and comfortable as the mercury rises. Lightweight mesh panels can be great for this, although be aware that the sun’s rays can penetrate the holes so you may need some sunscreen under your jersey in such instances.

Choose an aero jersey that fits closely and provides plenty of breathability, along with an elasticated hem to prevent fabric shift.

The right jersey are very light, and thanks to a stretch fabric, the fit is tailored without feeling restrictive. A full-length zipper, perforated holes under the arms and a mesh panel underneath the rear pockets add to the jersey’s superior breathability, which is one of the best we’ve tried in hot and humid weather.

3. Bibs make the difference

Cycling shorts are probably the most important part of your summer cycling clothing. A comfortable pair will help prevent saddle sores and leave you able to ride longer and faster even when your legs don’t want to.

While the most important part of any pair of shorts is the pad, which must be good enough to cope with the demands of longer rides, the main thing that will be different about summer-specific cycling shorts will be the bibs. Essentially these should be made of as little material as possible, with a loose mesh construction and a low front to prevent overheating. However it’s important that they still provide enough support to keep the shorts securely in place.

Choose the ones that mix cut with thin, the proper shorts are designed in a way that air intake is optimized with a ventilation cut.

4. Airy Shoes

The shoes we ride in are highly personal (with choices of flat or clip-less, and a thousand-and-one variants to each).

Some are definitely intended for wintry use though, so be sure to check for decent ventilation and low bulk when purchasing to avoid cooking your feet!

5. Summer glasses for cycling

Not only your skin, but your eyes are particularly sensitive to sunlight.

Bright summer sun can lead to headaches and strain on your eyes. That’s why it’s rare to see a pro at the Tour de France who’s not wearing a pair of sunglasses to protect their eyes.

Always look for good quality sunglasses which block out 100% of the sun’s harmful rays.

The darker tint of a pair of sunglasses will help limit the amount of light entering the eye and help to protect you while riding.

Lens options can include clear for use at night, yellow to boost contrast on overcast days and photochromic, which will adapt to changing conditions.

Interchangeable lenses are available in any range price, while higher-end models come with top-quality lenses from optics experts such as Zeiss. For faster rides, choose wraparound frames if you want the best peripheral vision.

 6. Hydration mix

Other than sun exposure, your number 1 concern when riding in the summer is staying hydrated. While the Hyper Hydration mix isn’t for your everyday rides, it is something you should consider for those really hot days when you’re sweating more than you can replace with fluids. The high-sodium content helps retain the water you consume, but this mix should only be used on long or intense rides in the most extreme conditions.

Forget about the busy traffic and ride on to work every day!

We can also mix the business with pleasure, losing at least one pound/ week. So far, everything looks great. Except the sweaty appearance which we are not at all delighted to display once we arrive.

Don’t worry, we have some tricks for you to keep your fresh allure even after a long ride. 

1. Wear a well-ventilated helmet

Ventilation plays a big role when avoiding sweating. So you need to wear a well-ventilated helmet. Most cheap helmets aren’t safe and well-ventilated so you need to spend more. But don’t worry, it’s a good investment.

2. Ride relaxed

Save the racing speed for the ride home and bike at a moderate pace during your morning commute. Though part of the reason to bike to work is to increase your activity level, riding at a moderate pace rather than a workout pace can help you to stay sweat-free. You’ll still strengthen your muscles, burn calories and enjoy being outdoors but you will arrive at your office properly groomed for a day's work. You can even start the journey a bit earlier to have time and ride relaxed.

3. Wear comfy clothes

Dress light if you have to wear your work clothes during your ride to prevent overheating from too many layers. Wear your slacks and shirt, but carry your sweater or jacket in a backpack and put it on when you arrive at work. Although it’s fashionable to ride your bike in your office attire, you can’t do that if you’re avoiding sweat. Just wear something light and comfortable. A comfy white t-shirt is a good option because it keeps your body cool. But if you hate wearing white t-shirt, you can wear workout clothes. They can also keep your body cool and they draw the sweat away from your body. The condition is to not forget change them once you arrived at the office!

4. Refreshing point to beat humidity!

Basically, getting "sweaty" is a function of the temperature, humidity, clothing, level of effort, length of exercise, and your personal propensity to sweat. If you're dressed lightly enough, the weather is not too bad (below 75F and maybe 60% humidity), you travel only a short distance (maybe 2 miles max) on relatively level ground, and you maintain a very "casual" pace, then you can hope to arrive without too much visible sweat. For shorter distances you can probably stretch the other parameters a bit.

What we can’t change is humidity. If the relative humidity is 80% it's going to be hard to avoid working up a sweat, regardless of the other factors. Rather than simply hoping that you won't get sweaty we recommend having a way to change your shirt and "freshen up" a bit on arriving at your job. Buy some of those "sport towels" for drying off at work. They're compact and travel well.

5. Drink cool water

Drinking cool water can help you avoid sweat. It regulates your body temperature. It also keeps you hydrated. So don’t hesitate to take your water break when you’re riding your bike to work.

6. Plot your route

Whenever possible, plan a route along quiet, shaded side streets. Tree-lined minor arterial roads often have better air quality and provide shade. And if you can, opt for bike lanes. Any street that keeps you farther away from hot cars will help you keep cool.