The Moveee team
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A gran fondo is a mass-participation long ride — usually somewhere between 100 and 160 km with real climbing stitched in. It's timed, and there's a start banner and a number on your bars, but for the vast majority of riders it isn't a race: it's a big personal day out with a few thousand new friends. The goal for your first one isn't to win. It's to finish strong, still smiling, still able to enjoy the food at the end. This is a 12-week plan built around that goal — and, just as importantly, one you can actually stick to.
Consistency beats heroics. Four steady weeks of riding will do far more for your fondo than one epic weekend that leaves you wrecked for the next ten days. And on the day itself, finishing strong is a pacing and fuelling game at least as much as a fitness one — riders with less form who pace and eat well routinely roll past fitter riders who went out hot and blew up on the third climb.
Are you ready to start?
You don't need to be fast, and you don't need fancy numbers. This plan assumes a realistic beginner baseline — nothing more:
If you can comfortably ride for a couple of hours today and carve out four-to-eight hours most weeks, you're ready. If your longest ride is currently 45 minutes, spend three or four weeks just building to a relaxed two hours first — then start here. There's no shame in that; it's the smartest thing you can do.
The 12-week shape
The plan moves through four phases. Each one has a job, and each builds on the last. You get progressively more capable, with a deliberate easy week roughly every fourth week so your body absorbs the work rather than crumbling under it.
Aerobic volume — build the engine.
Sweet-spot intensity + your first big long rides.
Event-specific efforts + your longest ride.
Sharpen, rest, arrive fresh.
12 weeks at a glance
weekly training load rises, then drops for the taperBar height is the relative weekly load — notice the dip every ~4th week, the peak at week 10, and the sharp taper into race day.
Week by week
| Week | Phase | Longest ride | Key session | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | Base | 2h | 2 easy spins + 1 longer aerobic ride | 5 |
| W2 | Base | 2h 30m | Aerobic base + short tempo touches | 5 |
| W3 | Base | 3h | Long ride grows + cadence drills | 6 |
| W4 | Base | 2h | Recovery week — volume drops | 4 |
| W5 | Build | 3h | Sweet-spot 2×15 min @ 88–94% | 6 |
| W6 | Build | 3h 30m | Sweet-spot 3×12 min + climbing repeats | 7 |
| W7 | Build | 4h | Sweet-spot 3×15 min · first 4-hour ride | 7 |
| W8 | Build | 2h 30m | Recovery week — easy + openers | 5 |
| W9 | Peak | 4h 30m | Event-pace efforts on real climbs | 8 |
| W10 | Peak | 5h+ | Longest ride — full dress rehearsal | 8 |
| W11 | Taper | 3h | Volume down ~40% · keep 2×8 min sharp | 6 |
| W12 | Taper | 1h 30m | Short openers, sleep, fuel, race! | 3 |
Numbers are guides, not gospel. Slide the long ride to whichever weekend suits, and if life gets in the way, repeat a week rather than skipping ahead.
The key workouts
Most of your riding stays easy — genuinely easy, the pace where you can hold a conversation. The magic is in a handful of repeatable sessions that do the heavy lifting. Learn these four and you have the whole plan in your legs.
How: Your single most important session. Start easy and hold Z2; over the weeks stretch it toward your event distance.
Why: Builds the aerobic endurance and fat-burning that carry you through the back half of the fondo.
How: 3×12–15 min at 88–94% of threshold (a strong, controlled effort you could just about hold a short sentence at), 5 min easy between.
Why: The most time-efficient way to lift sustainable power — big fitness for the hours you put in.
How: Find a 4–8 min climb. Ride it 3–5 times at a firm tempo, spinning back down to recover.
Why: Teaches you to pace climbs and turns the hills that scare you into the parts you look forward to.
How: Once a week if you can. Sit in, take turns on the front, practise eating and drinking in a bunch.
Why: Free fitness plus the exact skills — drafting, cornering, fuelling on the move — you'll need on the day.
The taper
The taper is where nervous first-timers sabotage themselves by cramming in "just one more" big ride. Don't. The work is already done — the last two weeks are about arriving fresh, not fitter. Here's the whole art of it:
- Cut volume by roughly 40–50%. Ride less, and make the easy rides genuinely easy.
- Keep a little intensity. Short, sharp openers (a few 1–2 min efforts, or 2×8 min at tempo) keep your legs feeling snappy — don't go fully couch-bound.
- Sleep like it's your job and top up carbohydrate in the final days.
- Expect to feel twitchy and slightly guilty, like you're not doing enough. That restless, spring-loaded feeling is exactly right — it means the taper is working.
Race day: pace and fuel it right
You've done the training. Now protect it with two simple disciplines: pace conservatively and eat before you're hungry.
Pace
Start slower than feels natural — the adrenaline and fresh legs will beg you to hammer, and that's the trap. Sit in wheels wherever it's safe; drafting can save 20–30% of your effort on the flat and rolling sections. When the road tips up, ride the climbs to your own power or RPE, not the wheel in front — let the fast folks go and reel a chunk of them back in later. The rider who feels comfortable at halfway is the rider still riding well at the finish.
Fuel
Aim for 60–90 g of carbohydrate per hour (a mix of drink mix, gels, bars, chews — whatever your gut tolerates) and 500–750 ml of fluid per hour, more in the heat. The golden rule: start eating and drinking in the first 30 minutes, long before you feel you need it. Once you're hungry or thirsty on a long ride, you're already behind and it's very hard to claw back.
A simple fuelling timeline
Practise this on your long rides so nothing on the day is a surprise.
Normal carb-rich dinner. Lay out kit, charge your computer, hydrate.
Familiar breakfast — oats, toast, banana. ~500 ml with a little salt.
60–90 g carbs + 500–750 ml fluid. Set a timer so you never forget.
Fast carbs — a gel or two — and stay drinking. Don't coast on empty.
Within 30–60 min: carbs + protein + fluids. Then enjoy the finish food.
Quick gear checklist
Pack the night before, not at 5 a.m. with one eye open. The essentials:
- Spares & tools — two tubes (or plugs for tubeless), tyre levers, a mini-pump or CO₂, a multi-tool, a quick link.
- Food & drink — more than you think you'll need, plus bottles filled and mix pre-measured.
- Layers — a packable gilet or arm warmers; mountain descents get cold even on warm days.
- Lights — a rear light at minimum; front too for early starts or tunnels.
- A charged computer or phone with the route loaded, so you're never guessing at junctions.
- Sunscreen, ID and a bit of cash or a card for the café stop that makes the whole day worth it.
Twelve weeks, four phases, a handful of honest sessions, and a plan for the day itself — that's genuinely all it takes to line up for your first gran fondo ready to finish strong. If you'd rather not build and juggle the calendar by hand, Moveee does it for you: connect your rides and it builds a periodised peak plan straight to your target event, with a real, terrain-matched route for every single training day — and it plans around the days you actually ride, shifting the work when life gets in the way. It even carries the Slovenian gran fondo race calendar, so picking your event is the easy part. It's free. Pick a fondo, and let's get you to the start line.
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