An 8-week plan for your first 50 km ride
For anyone who can ride for about half an hour now and wants to get to 50 km in one go, without it hurting. Three rides a week, none of them heroic. By the end you’ll ride 50 km at a pace you can chat at, know how to eat and drink on the bike, and probably be wondering what’s next.
Who this plan is for
You can ride a bike for about 30 minutes without stopping, on anything with two wheels: a hybrid, a road bike, an old mountain bike, an e-bike on its lowest setting. You’ve never ridden 50 km, or you have but it was years ago and you don’t remember it fondly. You have three slots a week you could ride in, and one of those slots can stretch to a couple of hours by week seven.
You don’t need to be fit, thin, young or brave. You don’t need cycling shoes, a heart-rate monitor or any idea what the jargon means. Fifty kilometres is a very achievable distance for a beginner if you build up to it slowly, and slowly is what this plan does.
A quick word before you start. If you’re new to exercise, have a health condition, are pregnant or have recently had a baby, check with your doctor first. This page is general guidance, not medical advice, and the app isn’t a medical service either. It builds a version of this plan around you, but it doesn’t know your medical history unless you tell it, and it can’t examine you.
What the eight weeks look like
Three rides a week: two short ones in the week and one longer one at the weekend, or whenever your longest free stretch falls. The short rides stay short. The long ride grows by about fifteen minutes each week, apart from week six, which is deliberately easier so your body can catch up with the work you’ve done. Week eight is the ride itself, with a couple of gentle spins beforehand so you arrive fresh rather than tired.
Almost all of it is ridden at an easy pace: easy enough to chat, or to sing badly. That isn’t a cop-out, it’s how endurance is built. The few short brisk efforts that appear from week three are there so a hill or a headwind on the day isn’t a shock.
| Weeks | Focus | Long ride grows to | How it should feel |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Getting used to riding three times a week | 45 min → 1 h | Easy. You could chat the whole way. |
| 3–5 | Growing the long ride; a few brisk minutes midweek | 1 h 15 → 1 h 45 | Mostly easy. The brisk bits are a bit puffy, never gasping. |
| 6 | Easier week: the same rides, shorter | About 1 h | Fresh. Legs should feel better at the end of the week than the start. |
| 7 | Your longest ride, a dress rehearsal for the day | 2 h to 2 h 30 (roughly 35 to 40 km) | Steady and unhurried, with a stop for food. |
| 8 | Ease off, then the ride itself | The 50 km | Two short easy spins, two days off, then go. |
Tuesday: 30 minutes on flat roads or a path, easy enough to talk. Thursday: the same again. Saturday: 45 minutes at the same pace, somewhere you’d like to go back to. Everything else is a rest day. That’s it. Week two adds five minutes to one midweek ride and fifteen to the weekend one.
A sample week
This is week four. The days are a suggestion; the rhythm is what matters: a rest day after the long ride, and never two harder days back to back.
| Day | Session | How long | How it should feel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Rest | — | Nothing on the bike. A walk is fine. |
| Tuesday | Easy ride | 35 min | Chatting pace throughout. |
| Wednesday | Rest | — | Or ten minutes of stretching if you’re stiff. |
| Thursday | Ride with 4 × 1 min brisk | 40 min | Easy, with four one-minute stretches where you’re a bit puffy but could still say a sentence. At least two easy minutes between each. |
| Friday | Rest | — | Sort your kit for the weekend. |
| Saturday | Long ride | 1 h 30 | Easy the whole way. Eat something halfway. |
| Sunday | Rest | — | Or a gentle walk. Feet up. |
How to adjust it when life happens
Missed a week? Don’t try to catch up by doubling the next one. Pick the plan back up at the week you missed, not the one after it. Miss two weeks and go back two. The long ride should never jump by more than about fifteen minutes from the last one you actually did.
Feeling wiped? Tiredness that builds over a few days, sleep getting worse, or legs that feel heavy on an easy ride are signs you’ve done enough. Swap the next ride for a rest day, or take the easier week early. A good rule for any week: don’t add more than roughly ten to fifteen per cent to the total time you rode the week before.
Ill? Cold symptoms above the neck (sniffles, a sore throat) usually mean an easy ride is fine if you feel up to it. Anything below the neck (chest, fever, aching all over) means rest until it’s gone, then start back with an easy ride, not the one you missed.
Weather? Rain isn’t a reason not to ride if you have a jacket, but ice and strong wind are. Swap days around, ride indoors if you can, or shift the whole week by a day or two. The order matters far more than the dates.
In the Etapa app, this becomes your plan rather than a plan. Tell it your goal, the days you can actually ride and how much you ride now, and it puts the sessions in your calendar. Miss one and it moves things around rather than piling them up. Not sure whether a tickly throat means rest? Ask the coach; it’s there any time, in plain English.
Kit, food and the basics
You need a bike that works (brakes, tyres pumped up, chain oiled), a helmet, a water bottle, and clothes you can move in. Padded shorts make a bigger difference than anything else for rides over an hour. For rides under an hour, water is enough. On the long rides, take a snack (a banana, a cereal bar, a handful of jelly sweets) and eat something every 30 to 40 minutes from the first hour, because running out of energy on a bike feels dreadful and is completely avoidable. There’s more in our guides to beginner cycling gear and eating on the bike.
The week before and the day itself
Week eight’s job is to get you to the start fresh. Ride 30 minutes easy on Tuesday, 20 on Thursday, then nothing until the day. Check the bike, charge your lights and phone, settle the route, and lay everything out the night before. On the morning, eat a normal breakfast a couple of hours before, start slower than feels right, eat and drink from the first half hour, and stop when you fancy. The point is to finish smiling, not fast. If you did week seven, you already know you can do this; the day is the easy bit.
Can I do this plan on a hybrid, a mountain bike or an e-bike?
Yes. Any bike that fits you and works is fine. A hybrid or mountain bike is a bit slower on the road, so plan by time rather than distance and expect the 50 km to take a little longer. On an e-bike, use the lowest assistance setting you can manage so your legs still do most of the work; that’s what builds the fitness.
How fast should I ride?
Slowly, honestly. Almost every ride in this plan is at a pace where you could hold a conversation. Most people’s first 50 km takes somewhere between two and a half and three and a half hours including stops, and that’s a perfectly good time. Speed comes on its own once the distance feels normal.
Do I need a heart-rate monitor or a bike computer?
No. The talk test does the job: if you can chat, you’re riding easy; if you can only manage short sentences, that’s brisk; if you can’t speak, you’ve gone too hard for this plan. A phone app to record the ride is handy for seeing how far you’ve come, but it’s optional.
What if I can only ride twice a week?
Keep the long ride, keep one short ride and drop the other. It’ll take a week or two longer to feel comfortable and you may want to add a ninth week before the 50 km, but two well-spaced rides a week gets most people there. Consistency beats volume at this stage.
I can’t ride 30 minutes yet. Can I still start?
Yes, just start smaller. Spend two or three weeks riding 15 to 20 minutes three times a week, adding five minutes each week, until 30 minutes feels ordinary. Then begin week one. There’s no prize for starting the plan early and nothing lost by arriving at it ready.
Turn this into your plan
Tell Etapa your goal and the days you can ride, and it builds a personal version of this plan, moves sessions when you miss them, and gives you a coach to ask the daft questions.
Free to download. 7-day free trial on every plan.