This is the english version of my original article from my blog unicorncycling.com you can find the german version there!
"Yay! A baby in my belly! But is it okay to ride a racing bike when you're pregnant? Am I not harming the baby by doing so anyway? Is there anything I need to be aware of?" These questions went through my mind as a passionate road cyclist about 5 seconds after the positive test result in week 5 of my pregnancy. Even in the early days, when you are waiting for your appointment with your gynaecologist (many gynaecologists don't make appointments until week 7-9, because it is more likely to be able to detect the heartbeat of the foetus by then), I did a lot of googling. Of course, you don't make such important decisions based on a few articles on the internet, but I was simply interested in the experiences of other female athletes - but also in current studies that deal with the topic.
It is particularly important for me to emphasise that this blog post does not, of course, replace consultation with your doctor and/or midwife.
The symptoms that accompany pregnancy are also known to vary greatly and can have a considerable influence on your individual sporting experiences during pregnancy. While one woman can hardly get away from the toilet bowl or is carried away by a gripping tiredness, another can still be blithely thinking about how long she wants to keep on biking. In addition, there are indications that can arise in the course of pregnancy that can mean a "change of direction" in terms of sport from one moment to the next!
Within this article
- 7 Tips and tricks for cycling during pregnancy
- Experiences from week 4 to 10 of pregnancy
- Experiences from week 10 to 20 of pregnancy
- Experiences from week 20 to 30 of pregnancy
- Helpful link and interesting reads
Tip 1: PUT THE FACTS ON THE TABLE AT THE DOCTOR'S!
Regardless of what kind of sport you are passionate about, you can quickly achieve training volumes that you wouldn't necessarily expect from us women. If you tell a doctor or midwife "that you like cycling, even a little longer sometimes", this may create a completely false image in the mind of the recipient: that you can ride your trekking bike 60 km on the Danube cycle path on a beautiful Sunday. It is clear that this is far removed from the reality of life for many racing cyclists who easily spend 15 to 20 hours a week or more on their bikes, do performance-based training or go on extended bikepacking trips with distances of well over 100 kilometres a day. So that there is no misunderstanding, put all your sporting successes of the last year on the table so that your doctor gets a realistic picture of you as an athlete.
Your medical advisor will be able to help you in a much more precise way. Instead of relying on random numbers like "don't go over 140 bpm", together you can develop realistic sport recommendations for your own, highly individual body based on past performance diagnostics and training volumes.
Picture taken by Martin Granadia
Tip 2: SO MANY OPINIONS, SO LITTLE BEHIND THEM.
Of course, I had often heard and read that from pregnancy on - actually until the children are grown up - you often hear a lot of unasked-for nonsense. But when it happened to me for the first time, I was flabbergasted at the audacity. Statements like "What? You still want to ride a racing bike? That will lead to XY with the stretched maternal ligaments!", "What? Cycling closes the pelvis!!1!" or "My friend is a triathlete and still competed at X weeks of pregnancy under full load!" (yes, there are definitely both extremes). While such statements from strangers or colleagues may go in one ear and out the other, it can lead to a lot of remorse, especially in a close environment. I have prepared myself for this with tip 3:
Tip 3: BE COMFORTED WITH YOUR DECISION FOR OR AGAINST SPORTS.
If, in consultation with your gynaecologist and your own risk tolerance, you have made a decision such as: "From now on, I will only do basic sports, take extra care on downhills and skip the session in hot or bad weather for safety reasons", then come to terms with it. Constantly questioning this just because you hear someone else is doing it or that it would be too dangerous for them is not going to do you any good at all!
Of course, the big question is what can happen in case of a fall. So far, I haven't found a good solution for that either. You don't ride alone any more, even though the risk of injury is much lower than in households and the like if you ride in the right way. But the risk from other road users can never be ruled out, no matter how you get around. In my opinion, the mental well-being of the mother-to-be should not be disregarded when weighing up the risks - for those who have been used to exercising outdoors in the fresh air for years, a prompt switch to pure indoor training is usually not an option. At least if you don't want to go crazy!
Tip 4: KEEP THE BENEFITS FOR THE BABY & YOU IN MIND!
Yes, there are some risks, but above all, exercise - and primarily exercise that the body already knows - is an absolute must during pregnancy, if the health of the expectant mother somehow allows it. No wonder: according to studies, regular exercise reduces the risk of gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia, premature births, complications during natural births, thromboses, etc. The longer you are active during pregnancy, the shorter the break around birth and the postpartum period. And the easier it is to get back into it afterwards - hopefully. 😉 For me, it's important to always keep these benefits in mind when someone wants to make me feel guilty. No one who is really interested in the health of the expectant mother and baby and has spent even 5 minutes on the subject will advise you not to ride a road bike again - as long as your pregnancy is normal. I then like to jokingly reply: "My baby already has better basic endurance than you do." - if I stay cool enough.
Tip 5: GIMME GIMME MORE (SNACKS)!
Not surprisingly, however: having enough (delicious) food with you on the tours is the be-all and end-all. You never want to meet the "man with the hammer", but even less so if someone in your belly is "eating with you". Especially when you are getting heavier and your fitness level is decreasing, you feel the need for extra energy much more often. And so that you don't eat when you're already hungry, it should be something that tastes particularly good. For me personally, that's Maurten Bars* and anything with nuts.
Tip 6: DATA & YOUR OWN FEELING BRING AHA-MOMENTS
I personally find it quite exciting to compare all the data from everyday life & training with my own body feeling. Some weeks when I didn't get to ride as much, but was particularly busy at work, felt much more strenuous to me than those when I really did a lot of road cycling. These data show very "nicely" how exhausting stress (which unfortunately can hardly be avoided for all those who don't slide directly into a working ban) is for one's own body.
I'm also getting used to smaller and smaller distances on my rides, which are as strenuous as a brisk Gran Fondo used to be because of the extra 10 kilos. All these loads from the watch and bike computer come together in one place for me: in the Garmin Connect app*. If I'm already completely exhausted at 8pm or just hungry all day, a look at the last few days in the app explains a lot. Particularly practical: in the app I can also record baby movements in my belly. On days when I'm out and about a lot or doing sports, the baby tends to move less. On the one hand, it is gently rocked in the amniotic fluid throughout the day, on the other hand, there are fewer quiet moments when you pay particular attention to the movements. But there's no need to worry, on quiet days there is much more gymnastics!
Tip 7: ENJOY THE MOMENT, IT CAN CHANGE AT ANY TIME!
There are some indications during pregnancy that unfortunately exclude sport and therefore also road cycling. Even if you no longer feel safe on the bike, common sense tells you not to ride a road bike for the time being. That's why I try to enjoy every ride in particular and to notice even the small details very carefully. The feeling of the wind in your face when you glide over the perfect whispering asphalt, or the fine salt crystals on your skin after an ascent and subsequent descent.
But should my cervix be too short at some point, for example, I've already made a list of things I'd like to do that are less strenuous. For example, finally learning Italian, selling some old jerseys & technology from my bike room or sorting through my photo filing of the last 6 years. If I "invest" the 6-12 hours per week that I'm currently still on the bike in these projects, I would really make some progress!
BONUS TIP: GROUP RIDES & CO
Over the last few months, I've been getting slower and slower. No big surprise: I was actually riding exclusively in base endurance pace and have become heavier. In simple words: my body is no longer used to relying on the fast power in my legs, for example, to pedal over a small hilltop. Generally, I also just slow down immediately if my heart rate goes beyond the basic range. Neither of these things is compatible with riding in a group or in pairs, unless it is absolutely clear to all participants that the pregnant woman sets the pace. Otherwise frustration quickly arises on both sides ("Why don't you try a little harder for once?" & "Why have you gone out of the saddle again?"). Experience has shown that it is much easier to find the right pace in pairs than in a larger group - and in the best case scenario, the accompanying person who is going slower than usual will take one or two photos!
THIS IS HOW I FELT ABOUT ROAD CYCLING DURING PREGNANCY
What is actually "normal" - and what is "excessive"? I found most of the stories you hear from less sporty relatives, friends and colleagues somehow demotivating. If you wouldn't think of doing a long road bike tour when you're not pregnant, why should you start doing it when you're pregnant? And if I haven't already found my great passion in "walking and a bit of yoga" non-pregnantly, why should I start doing it in pregnancy?
**To break the narrative of pregnant women "armed" with Nordic walking sticks and to show you a different normal, I've summarised a few high and low lights from the last few months. This doesn't mean that I would unreservedly recommend all of them to everyone - but if you feel the same way as I did at the beginning, maybe one or two experiences can be helpful for you.
**
Experiences from week 4 to 10 of pregnancy
After a winter that was - once again - far too long, the days around my positive test at the beginning of April already started to get noticeably longer and warmer. The first trimester of pregnancy is accompanied by many worries, after all, most miscarriages happen during this time. Of course, you don't want to provoke or be guilty of this - and just want to do what's best for the embryo & yourself. So nothing at all? Not necessarily! Luckily I was spared any grosser pregnancy sickness as long as I kept snacking on something or other, and was otherwise fit too, though noticeably more tired and irritable than usual.
On one of my first rides after the good news, I went to the police for the first time in a long time to file a report. On a leisurely house lap over the Sauberg, I was so narrowly overtaken in the 19th district that I almost came to a crash. In the past I probably would have ignored it, but now that I was no longer alone, it was out of the question.
In pregnancy week 7 I did a nice 100km ride at the weekend, already staying in base endurance here. Pulse over 155? Less watts! The next day I planned to run the long relay at the VCM. But since I've never run 18km in one go, and it's much harder for me to run at a low heart rate, I gave up the relay and cheered on my colleagues instead!
In pregnancy week 8 the time had come: the first cycling race in Austria in which women were also classified in the new category "amateurs". For a long time, in contrast to the men's category, women between U23 and over 30 in Austria only had the opportunity to race with the elite. The elite includes athletes who have been doing the sport since their school days, compete in national championships or even ride in professional teams. So now the time had come, and competing in a criterium for the top places is really a snap idea in pregnancy! The risk of falling in a crowd is far too great, and a race like this also means being on the absolute edge of vomit for 40 minutes. I wanted to go and cheer the others on, but after the topic had been on the tip of my tongue for years, I finally volunteered for the start. Not to be there for this historic, small step for mankind, but big step for women's cycling in Austria? I could hardly bring myself to do that. However, I brought in a "pretext": I claimed that I had had abnormal results in a recent health check. Until these were clarified in detail, I should only ride in base endurance. This also meant rolling far behind the pack, far away from dicey situations with flying bikes or riders. It was quite a boring race for me back there in my base endurance pace, but hey, being there is everything - so that this category will still exist in the future!
Even during pregnancy week 9 I was still in base endurance on the Bisamberg (a bit proud that my body can cope with gradients of up to 10% so well without my heart rate exploding) and a few more 100km loops.
Experiences from week 10 to 20 of pregnancy
In the 12th week of my pregnancy I was invited to Belgium, to the Female Cycling Summit at the Flandrien Hotel. As there was no more space on the night train, I unfortunately had to fly and could not take my own bike with me. However, I was lucky and was allowed to ride a few laps on a great, borrowed Ridley Noah Fast! As there was no belly to be seen at that time, unless you looked for it with a lot of imagination and effort, it was super timing. It was a bit more difficult for me to keep up with the group, because I had to let go at every small ramp - and there are many of them in Flanders. The distances, however, were no problem at all, and so I went for another ride in the evening or in free hours in a smaller group! The baby was already on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, Paterberg, Koppenberg, Achterberg & Foreest during the pregnancy.
Now I could finally tell many friends and relatives about the baby news, and when I wasn't sitting in the office, I did smaller gravel routes to relax. At the beginning of June I went on a gravel trainpacking trip to Carinthia with my mother: in pregnancy week 14 I wanted to show her the Ossiacher Tauern, the mountains between Lake Wörth and Lake Ossiach, which were the first on the programme at the Jeroboam Austria last year. The extreme heat, followed by not so nice rain, threw a spanner in the works and we shortened the tour via a sketchy mountain bike trail including a lot of bike pushing. On day 2 and 3 we looked for more relaxed gravel routes in the area, and I also rode up the first few hairpin bends to Gerlitzen for a fabulous lake panorama!
During this time, my right hand also began to fall asleep massively. On the one hand when I was cycling, but also when I was sleeping or walking, and when I "woke up" the hand hurt a lot. I immediately took the problem seriously. My orthopaedist prescribed a splint for the night and a referral to physiotherapy. The reason: carpal tunnel syndrome. I wore the splint for a few weeks and it quickly became bearable again, the physiotherapy then brought real improvement. I got weekly massages to remove the stuck fasciae and a few exercises on how to quickly solve the problem in acute cases. The after-effects were completely over by pregnancy week 24.
In pregnancy weeks 15 and 16 I went on a group ride at my work, which actually went quite well because we were mainly on flat ground. When a fellow rider told me on a short descent that I shouldn't brake so much, I told him I was pregnant and wouldn't want to kill my child if I fell. Killing argument, after that there was peace, but I also realised that I found group rides extremely annoying even before I was pregnant, and even more so now. Instead, the next day I set off on a solo gravel adventure: in the Leithagebirge there is a large, military restricted area with great forest roads, but you are only allowed to ride them on a few days a month. The heat made the tour really exhausting in places and I decided to take a leisurely roll back home through the fields - but with a good feeling for having seen such great, new corners!
Tuscany here we come! Originally I had already booked a ticket last year with the night train to Rimini and another with the night train from La Spezia back to Vienna. The plan: a one-week solo bikepacking trip across my favourite regions in Italy, from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea, in July. My gynaecologist and midwife didn't advise me against it, but said that I shouldn't cycle at lunchtime. That wouldn't have been a problem on some days, but on others I had 2,000 metres of altitude to climb with luggage - and Italy was the centre of a brutal heatwave. A month before the start, I returned my tickets and booked a hotel together with my husband to explore the Strade Bianche by gravel bike.
Here, for the first time, the distances became much shorter! Because from 11 a.m. at the latest, the Garmin showed between 38 and 40 degrees - at these temperatures, sport is not that ideal even without a baby in the belly. After day 1, a beautiful but demanding tour to Siena, we only dared to do short tours of between 20 and 30 kilometres, around 500 metres in altitude and with gravel sections of 30-40 percent. This also took us to many great places, but some of the highlights I had planned beforehand we simply couldn't reach by bike! So pregnancy weeks 18 and 19 of my pregnancy passed - but slowly you could see a bit of the belly! Yay!
In the weeks that followed, I went on many normal rides at home, where I was always very proud when I could overtake someone (whether they were at the end of a 150km tour or not, it didn't matter) and most of the time I hid in my husband's slipstream. This made it possible to do some nice laps without my heart rate getting too high. On the days with temperatures above 35 degrees, however, I took a break.
Experiences from week 20 to 30 of pregnancy
In pregnancy weeks 23 and 24, I thought I would take my road bike (or rather, all-road bike) on holiday for the last time. For the last Strade Bianche holiday in Tuscany I put on 36mm gravel tyres without much tread, I didn't put them down afterwards. On the one hand, because my "real" gravel bike is quite a race bike and I sit much more stretched out on it - at some point my belly just got in the way. On the other hand, I enjoy the additional safety and the suspension that the wide tyres also bring on the road. Back to the 23rd and 24th week, when I spent a long weekend visiting my family in Friuli, of course with my bike! Here, too, I was able to make a tour of just under 100 km to the sea in Grado, although I tended to ignore the metres in altitude: with a maximum of 400 metres in altitude, I missed one or two highlights in this climber's paradise. The quiet hills of northern Italy & Slovenia were varied enough, though, and I began to realise that you don't have to go straight to the indoor trainer with your belly!
Back in Vienna a few unspectacular rides followed, slowly I said goodbye to my home mountains on the tours in pregnancy week 25.
Now I'm in pregnancy week 27 in Italy and yesterday I almost broke the 1000 metres altitude barrier on my tour! The baby and I are doing great. On two particularly stormy days I preferred to leave my bike behind. With the extra weight, you're already a bit more uncomfortable on the bike, and if you have to grip the handlebars all the time, it's just no fun. Although I'm very slow, cycling is still a lot of fun and the belly and shortness of breath don't bother me a bit. Fortunately, I don't get a hard belly while cycling either, but sometimes the heartburn is a bit annoying. Even downhill, I don't break any best times despite the extra weight, because I ride very carefully, of course. I wear my helmet, my baby wears my belly, so we protect ourselves. Nevertheless, I instinctively try even harder than usual not to get into dicey situations. I'm very happy to still have a few old jerseys in the box that I got too big back then, and I also alternate between Veloine pregnancy shorts without straps* and a bib in XL. Both are very comfortable - and definitely contribute to my good feeling on the bike!
READING LIST
I found the following articles & publications quite exciting