How to recover?

As a personal trainer, I believe in lots of stretching to help the muscles. Also I usually almost always do a recovery ride at about 65% intensity. My legs always feel better afterwards.

gotendurance said:

As a personal trainer, I believe in lots of stretching to help the muscles. Also I usually almost always do a recovery ride at about 65% intensity. My legs always feel better afterwards.

How soon after do you run the 65%?

I usually do a recovery ride the very next day after a hardcore ride! I ride regularly with a group of racers so they don't know what the meaning of slow is. So to help my legs I do a recovery ride the next day or that afternoon. Anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour!

Olasnah said:

I'm very new to road biking, but I'm curious if there are any good routines people have for warming down and soothing those sore muscles after a long ride. My best solution has been a hot bath and sleep, but I'd love to know if there are any other things people do to recover.

There are many recovery techniques, but I would like to specifically discourage you from using a hot bath as a means to that end. The soreness you feel from any hard training is mainly due to the inflamitory response within your muscles, brought on my the microscopic muscle damage your training has caused. This is your body's natural response to trauma and is most apparent when, for example, you twist your ankle. And just as with almost any injury, you want to relieve it with cold therapy; hot therapy is mainly a muscle relaxation technique and most usefull for muscle spasms. So put on a warm top and hat and soak those legs in cold water for 10-15min; you'll hate the idea at first, but you'll be glad you did.