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Racing

How to Taper Before a Cycling Event or Sportive

By James Vickers and Lyra, WattPlan's AI research voice··6 min read

The WattPlan Podcast · Episode 20 · 9 min

How do you taper without losing fitness?

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James asks, Lyra answers from the studies. All episodes · RSS

Next episodes: How do you read your Fitness chart? · How do you plan a season so you peak on the day? · How to pace a 10 mile time trial

Read the transcript

James. This is the WattPlan Podcast and I'm James. Family, a day job, the odd podium and building WattPlan in whatever hours are left, plus a sports science habit that eats the rest. This week, the part of training I'm worst at. The event's close, the work's done, and every instinct says squeeze in one more big ride. So how do you taper without throwing away what you built? Lyra, our AI research voice, has the studies, and every one is linked in the show notes.

Lyra. You ride a lot less and you keep a little sharpness, and that's most of it. Tiredness clears in days, fitness fades over weeks, so a short, steep drop in riding lets the fatigue go before the fitness does. The mistake almost everyone makes is adding a ride, not missing one.

James. Days against weeks. Is that literal, or a figure of speech?

Lyra. It's close to literal in how WattPlan counts it. Fatigue is a seven day average of your Load and Fitness a forty-two day one, so Fatigue falls about six times faster. Form is Fitness minus Fatigue. In a taper, Fatigue drops away, Fitness dips a touch, and Form climbs. That climb is what you hope to feel as fresh legs. Form counts the training, not your legs, so let the openers tell you how the legs feel.

James. And is there real evidence it makes you faster, or is it just coaches being cautious?

Lyra. There's good evidence, and we looked at three studies for this. The first is a 2003 review in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise by Iñigo Mujika and Sabino Padilla. They define the taper as a progressive cut in training load to shed accumulated fatigue without losing adaptations. Their summary of the research is that performance usually improves by about three percent. [2]

James. Three percent. Honestly, that sounds a bit underwhelming for a whole week of not training.

Lyra. Put it in time. Three percent of a five hour sportive is around nine minutes. That's a big margin to win by doing less. And the range they give runs from half a percent up to six, so some people gain a lot more.

James. Okay, you've sold me. So what do I actually cut?

Lyra. Volume, hard. Mujika's recipe is to keep the intensity, cut the volume a long way, and only trim how often you ride a little. The second study pins the numbers down. A 2007 meta-analysis in the same journal, by Laurent Bosquet and colleagues, pooled 27 studies of competitors, judged on real race or field results. The best taper lasted two weeks and cut volume by 41 to 60 percent, with intensity and frequency left alone. [1]

James. Two weeks. But WattPlan gives me one. Surely I'm being short-changed?

Lyra. I'd push back on that. Mujika puts the useful range anywhere from about four days to more than four weeks, so one week sits inside it, at the short end. And those were competitive sportspeople shedding heavy training. One week is a judgement that suits most sportive riders, not a number a trial handed us. Nobody has compared one and two week tapers in amateur cyclists.

James. Right. Talk me through the week itself.

Lyra. The rides get short. Nothing over an hour and a half in the last five days. Depending on how your days fall, there may be a short harder session or two a few days out. Two days before is a full rest day. And if you ride the day before, that's openers, mostly easy with a few thirty second efforts at about 110 percent of FTP.

James. So the opposite of my usual plan, which is one last long ride on the Wednesday to prove to myself I'm ready.

Lyra. That ride is the classic taper mistake. It adds fatigue in the one week you're trying to shed it, and it can't build Fitness in time to show on the day. If you feel springy and restless, the taper is working. It's not a sign you need more.

James. How do I know it's working, though? By Thursday I'll be convinced I've lost it all.

Lyra. Most riders are. The good signs are springy legs, better sleep, a resting heart rate that's normal or a bit low, and openers that feel sharp. The warning signs are the reverse. Heavy legs that don't lift, a resting heart rate creeping up, motivation dropping. And the phantom niggles, every twinge feeling like an injury, are normal. They tend to disappear once you're riding.

James. And if the legs are still heavy on the Friday?

Lyra. Then the answer still isn't more training. One flat day before an event is common, and the openers often shift it. If the whole week felt heavy, that's worth a look after the event, not something to fix with extra riding in the last two days.

James. Does the week look different depending on where I'm at?

Lyra. A little. If you're new to this and it's your first event, just trust the short rides and spend the spare hours on the bike check, your kit and sleep. If you use power or heart rate, watch the Form line climb towards positive numbers as race day comes, and use the openers to check the legs respond. And if you're racing, note one honest difference. Mujika's review says progressive tapers beat a sudden step down. A one week taper after full peak weeks is closer to a step.

James. Is that a problem?

Lyra. It's a trade. A longer, gentler taper gives up training time, and nobody has measured which wins for a rider on eight hours a week. What the evidence does agree on is the part you control. Don't add work, and don't stop riding altogether. Complete rest leaves riders flat.

James. What about food that week? Because I'm riding less, so instinct says eat less.

Lyra. That instinct works against you for a long event. The third study is a 2011 review in the Journal of Sports Sciences by Louise Burke and colleagues. It says eating carbohydrate in the hours and days before an event raises how much fuel you have available. And for events longer than about two and a half hours, it puts intake on the bike at up to ninety grams an hour. [3]

James. How much carbohydrate are we actually talking about?

Lyra. For an event longer than about ninety minutes, the guide is ten to twelve grams per kilo of body weight a day, for the last day and a half or two. For a seventy kilo rider that's seven hundred grams or more, which is a lot of rice and pasta. Cutting the riding back is what lets it fill the tank. For shorter events, normal carb-heavy meals are enough.

James. So the scales go up a bit and I'm meant to be fine with that.

Lyra. Yes. Stored carbohydrate holds water, so a kilo or so on the scales is fuel, not fat. For the ride itself, the Coach's guide for a sportive is about sixty grams every forty-five minutes, roughly eighty an hour. Practise that on long rides before the taper starts, never for the first time on the day.

James. What can't the research tell us here?

Lyra. Plenty. These reviews pooled competitive sportspeople, not amateurs with jobs. Nobody has tested how long a taper a rider on six hours a week needs. And the three percent is an average across sports, not a promise for your event. Your own response is the unknown, which is why those warning signs matter more than any formula.

James. Give me the to-do list for race week.

Lyra. Two things. Open your plan, find the last week before your event, and spot the rest day and the openers. Then ride it exactly as written, and if you're itching to do more, clean the bike instead.

James. Shorter rides, rest two days out, openers the day before, and I keep my hands off the extra Wednesday ride. My bike's never been cleaner.

Lyra. The fitness is already banked. The taper is just how you get to spend it.

Lyra. The full article and every study we mentioned are on the WattPlan blog, linked in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed this, follow the WattPlan Podcast wherever you're listening, so you don't miss the next one.

James. And if you want a plan built around the time you've actually got, get WattPlan on the App Store or Google Play. Thanks for listening.

Voices produced with ElevenLabs. James's voice is a clone of his own, Lyra is an AI voice, and James reviews every episode.

You've done the work. Months of consistent training, thousands of kilometres, countless intervals. Now comes the counterintuitive part. To perform your best, you need to train less. Tapering is the art of shedding fatigue while maintaining fitness, arriving at your goal event fresh and ready to deliver your best performance.

What is Tapering?

Tapering is the planned reduction of training load before an important event. It allows accumulated fatigue to dissipate while preserving (and even enhancing) the fitness you've built.

Training creates two simultaneous effects.

  1. Positive fitness. Increased aerobic capacity, power, endurance
  2. Negative fatigue. Accumulated tiredness that masks fitness

Fitness develops slowly and decays slowly. Fatigue accumulates quickly but also dissipates quickly. A proper taper exploits this difference. Fatigue drops faster than fitness, revealing your true capability.

The Science of Supercompensation

Your body adapts to training stress during recovery, not during the work itself. Consistent training creates a "fitness debt", adaptations your body hasn't fully expressed because you're always slightly fatigued.

During a taper, several things happen.

The result is supercompensation, performance that exceeds what you could achieve while maintaining full training load. Reviews of the research put the typical gain from a well-run taper at about 3%, with a range of roughly 0.5 to 6%.

How Long Should a Taper Be?

A-Race Taper (Full Taper)

Duration. 2-3 weeks (a 2007 meta-analysis found about two weeks, with volume cut by 41-60%, worked best)
For. Your most important event of the season

A full taper allows complete fatigue dissipation. This is reserved for one or two events per year, your main goal events.

WattPlan's event plans end with a one-week taper, shorter than this range, and our view at WattPlan is that one week suits most sportives.

B-Race Taper (Moderate Taper)

Duration. 5-10 days
For. Important events that aren't primary goals

Enough reduction to perform well without losing significant training time. You'll race well but might not hit your absolute peak.

C-Race Taper (Mini-Taper)

Duration. 2-4 days
For. Training races, tune-up events

Minor freshening, no significant training disruption. Performance may be slightly below peak, but these events serve training purposes anyway.

Volume vs Intensity During Taper

This is where most riders go wrong. The instinct is to reduce everything equally. That's a mistake.

Reduce Volume Significantly

Volume (total training hours or kilometres) drops substantially.

Maintain Intensity

Intensity (how hard individual efforts are) stays high.

Here is an example.

The goal is to stay sharp without accumulating fatigue.

Sample Taper Timelines

2-Week Taper for A-Race (Gran Fondo/Road Race)

Week 1 (14 to 7 days out).

Week 2 (7 to 1 days out).

10-Day Taper for B-Race

Days 10-7. Normal training with slight volume reduction (80%)
Days 6-4. Significant volume reduction (50%), maintain intensity
Days 3-1. Very light riding, short openers, rest

4-Day Mini-Taper for C-Race

Day 4. Reduced normal training
Day 3. Easy ride with a few hard accelerations
Day 2. Rest or very easy spin
Day 1. Brief opener ride
Race day. Go race

Signs of a Successful Taper

Physical Signs

Performance Signs

Warning Signs (Taper Too Short or Incomplete)

Common Taper Mistakes

Mistake 1, Training Too Hard

Anxiety about losing fitness leads to trying to squeeze in extra work. This accumulates fatigue exactly when you should be shedding it.

Fix. Trust the process. Fitness takes weeks to decay, and a 2-week taper won't undo months of work.

Mistake 2, Training Too Easy

Completely stopping all intensity leaves you flat and sluggish on race day.

Fix. Maintain sharp, short efforts. "Openers" the day or two before keep systems activated.

Mistake 3, Taper Too Long

Extended tapers can actually lead to detraining. Three weeks is maximum for most riders.

Fix. Match taper length to event priority and individual recovery speed.

Mistake 4, Taper Too Short

Insufficient time for fatigue dissipation. You arrive tired.

Fix. Plan backward from event date, not forward from training completion.

Mistake 5, Changing Everything

Suddenly altering diet, sleep schedule, or routine creates stress.

Fix. Keep life normal except for the training reduction. Familiar routines reduce anxiety.

Managing Taper Anxiety

Reduced training creates psychological challenges.

Feeling fat. Minor weight gain from reduced activity and glycogen loading is normal and beneficial. This is performance weight.

Phantom injuries. Every minor twinge becomes a crisis. Usually these resolve or are masked by adrenaline on race day.

Doubt. "Should I do one more workout?" No. Trust your preparation.

Restlessness. Channel extra energy into race preparation. Check equipment, plan logistics, visualise success.

Coping Strategies

Monitoring Your Taper

Watch these metrics during taper.

Form. Should be rising into positive territory. Typically +5 to +15 for a long event and a little higher for a short, hard one.

Resting heart rate. Should normalise or be slightly low.

HRV (if tracking). Should improve, indicating good recovery.

Subjective fatigue. Energy and motivation should increase through taper.

WattPlan's Fitness Explorer shows your Form alongside Fitness and Fatigue, with a forecast of where Form is heading on event day. If your event has a GPX route, a Premium Route plan gives you climb-by-climb pacing and fuelling for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose fitness during a taper?

Minimal if any. Research shows performance improves with proper tapering. Any small fitness decline is more than offset by fatigue reduction.

How do I know if my taper is working?

Increased energy, springy legs, positive Form, and improved motivation. Some riders do a short hard effort to confirm sharpness.

What if I get sick during the taper?

Rest and recover. A few days of complete rest won't hurt performance. You're already tapering. Fighting through illness is worse.

Should I carb load during taper?

Yes, if your event lasts longer than about 90 minutes. Eat 10-12 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight a day for the final 36-48 hours, and with training reduced your glycogen stores fill up. For shorter events, normal carbohydrate-rich meals are enough. See our race day nutrition guide.

Can I still ride my bike during taper?

Yes, and you should, just less and easier. Complete inactivity leaves riders feeling sluggish. Brief rides with short sharp efforts maintain neuromuscular readiness.

The taper is where patience meets preparation. Trust the process, resist the urge to do more, and arrive at your event ready to show what you can really do.

Sources

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