Ride London-Essex 100 looks easy on paper. One hundred miles of closed roads, flatter than most UK sportives, a city finish. That is exactly why it catches people out. Riders underestimate the event because it lacks the big climbs of a Fred Whitton or a Wicklow 200, train too little, then spend the last 30 miles suffering in a group that dropped them at mile 70.
Here is how to train for it properly in the 12 weeks before the event.
Key Takeaways
- 12-week build: three weeks base, three weeks build, three weeks peak, three weeks taper
- Peak volume 8-11 hours a week with one ride of 4-5 hours
- Two quality sessions weekly: one threshold, one tempo or sweet spot
- Practise group riding — the event is often ridden in fast pacelines
- Fuel at 80-100g of carbs per hour on every long training ride
- Taper 10-14 days, cutting volume 30-40% while keeping short intensity
What Ride London Actually Demands
The Ride London-Essex 100 is a 100-mile (160km) closed-road sportive finishing in central London, usually held in late May. The route is flatter than most UK sportives — total climbing is modest compared with a Fred Whitton or a Wicklow 200 — but "flat" can be misleading. Exposed Essex roads carry wind, the pace in groups is often high, and 100 miles is still 100 miles.
Finish times run from about 4 hours for the fastest groups to 7-8 hours for steadier riders. Weather is variable — often mild, occasionally hot, sometimes wet — and the closed-roads format rewards riders who can sit in a fast group without burning matches they do not have.
The limiter here is rarely climbing. It is aerobic durability plus group-riding economy — the ability to hold 75-85% FTP in a paceline for hours without spiking heart rate every time the pace moves.
Your 12-Week Build: Block by Block
Weeks 1-3: Base
Volume: 6-8 hours a week.
Four rides a week, ~80% at Zone 2. Iñigo San Millán's mitochondrial argument applies: a deep aerobic base is what lets you ride at tempo for hours without blowing up. The base training guide walks through the detail.
Key session: one long ride a week building from 2.5 to 4 hours.
Weeks 4-6: Build
Volume: 8-10 hours a week.
Keep the long ride and a recovery spin. Add two quality sessions.
Key session: 4x10 minutes at 95-100% FTP with 5 minutes recovery. Textbook Allen-and-Coggan threshold work. This is the intensity that lets you hang in a hard group and still recover inside the paceline.
Weeks 7-9: Peak
Volume: 9-11 hours a week.
Long ride grows to 4-5 hours. Ride at least two of those long rides with other people at a genuine group pace — Ride London is a group event and trained-alone riders get shelled when the group lifts.
Key session: sweet spot in longer blocks — 2x25 minutes at 88-94% FTP, or 3x20 minutes at the same. This builds the ability to sit at tempo for a full hour if the group goes clear.
Weeks 10-12: Taper and Event
Volume drops: 7 hours, 4-5 hours, event week.
Cut duration but keep short intensity — 3x5 minutes at VO2, 2x8 minutes at threshold. Seiler's polarised logic applies in taper as much as the full build: keep the top end sharp, let the depth refuel.
Climbing and Group-Riding Economy
Unlike the Wicklow 200 or Fred Whitton, the defining skill here is not climbing — it is steady-state efficiency in a group. Two sessions are most useful:
Tempo and sweet spot blocks. 2x25 minutes at 85-92% FTP with 10 minutes easy between. This is the exact demand of sitting in a group rolling at 35-38km/h on a flat section.
Group rides at genuine intensity. At least one of your weekly long rides in the peak block should be in a bunch moving at sportive pace, not a café spin. Practise rolling through, holding a wheel, and eating on the bike at speed. See our group ride etiquette guide if you are newer to bunch riding.
If you do have access to climbs, use them — hill repeats build leg durability that pays off in the last 30km — but do not invent elevation where there is none. The event does not require it.
Nutrition and Fuelling
For 4-7 hours of riding, target 80-100g of carbohydrate per hour and 500-750ml of fluid per hour, more in warm conditions.
Day before: carbohydrate-skewed meals, plenty of fluid, no fibre-heavy new foods.
Morning of: 2-3g carbs per kg body weight, 2-3 hours out. Porridge, toast, a banana. Whatever you use in training.
On the bike: eat within the first 30 minutes, then every 20-30 minutes thereafter. Ride London feed stops are well-placed, but at sportive pace it is easy to miss one or not stop for fear of losing a group — carry enough to cover 90 minutes. Full protocol in our race-day nutrition guide.
Race-Day Pacing
Ride London tempts riders into going with the fastest group they can find in the first 30 miles. That decision ends most people's day quietly at mile 80 when the group is still going and they are not.
First hour: 65-75% FTP. Find a sustainable group, eat, drink, sit in.
Middle third: 75-85% FTP, taking turns where appropriate. Keep fuelling ahead of demand.
Final third: if you have paced and fuelled, you can lift for the last 30km. If the group you are in is still rolling, you finish with them. If it is not, you ride your own watts to the line.
Common Mistakes
- Treating "flat" as "easy". 100 miles at tempo in a group is a real day out. Train it.
- Not practising group riding. Solo trained riders blow up in pacelines because they have never learned to eat, drink and recover while holding a wheel.
- Going with a group above your sustainable power. The first 30 miles is the cheap decision; the last 30 is the expensive one.
- Under-fuelling because you do not feel hungry. The pace masks the draw. Eat to the clock.
Free Plan Templates (inside the Community)
Inside the Roadman Cycling community on Skool we keep a free library of plan templates — sportive, road racing, gravel, base, build, VO2 max and FTP builder blocks. Download the sportive build, layer this article's Ride London pacing and group-riding advice over the top, and you have a structured personalised plan before you've paid a penny. Free to join.
How Roadman Coaches This
At Roadman Cycling we structure the 12-16 week build around your actual week — your commute, your group ride nights, your long-ride days — and periodise intensity so the legs are sharp in late May, not in March. Learn about our coaching or how we work with riders across the UK. The periodisation guide covers the underlying framework.
