How to Ride with a Hangover

So, you woke up hungover. We’ve all been there at one time or another. And while having a hangover generally doesn’t feel great, that doesn’t mean you should skip your ride. In fact, a ride might be just what the doctor ordered.

And there are definitely things you can do before, during and after a ride to help your recovery along so you can feel better, faster. To head out the door without feeling completely awful, follow these tips.

While we tend to consider greasy breakfast sandwiches and tons of coffee ‘hangover food,’ the best option is actually a combination of complex and simple carbohydrates. Think meals like oatmeal with a bit of maple syrup and berries, suggests sports medicine expert Michael Ross M.D.

Alcohol increases insulin secretion, which causes low blood sugar—meaning that even if you’re skipping the sugary drinks for shots of tequila, booze will still mess with your system. The food won’t help you ‘soak up the alcohol,’ but it will help your blood sugar get back to normal, pre-alcohol levels.

Ross explains that drinking alcohol also causes lactic acid buildup, which gives you that post-century concrete-legs feeling before you’ve gotten out the door. To combat this, he suggests keeping your pace easy but your cadence high, which flushes the lactic acid out of your legs. After a few minutes, you should start to feel more like your old self.

One thing you should skip: intervals. Ross doesn’t recommend doing any hard training efforts as you work through the head- and stomachache that come from being hungover. Your body is already working hard to recover, and you could compromise your immune system even more by pushing yourself through those VO2 max intervals.

If you hate to skip a workout, consider doing a super-easy ride in the morning to help your body regain equilibrium, and save the hard efforts for later in the day, once you’ve eaten, rehydrated, and recovered.

Starting the day with plenty of water (and electrolytes) can work wonders to get you back to status quo. “My advice would be to get out there and work out,” says former Cycle-Smart coach Shawn Adams. But before you head out the door, start your ride with a full water bottle (or two). “Make sure that you get back to rehydrated before the training and drink extra—with electrolytes—on the ride,” he says.

A hangover can make direct sunlight feel like your skull is burning, so take this ride as a chance to rock a stylish cycling cap and the darkest lenses you have.

Ross recommends ibuprofen or naproxen if you’re feeling truly crappy when you wake up. Take a normal dose, but give it time to go into effect before you head out the door. And hydrate plenty—if you skip water while riding on painkillers, you run the risk of overworking your kidneys.

For stomach trouble, taking antacids is also fine, Ross adds. But he stresses that using painkillers before rides should never become habit: Overuse can impair kidney function, and it can also hide the ache from other recurring issues, eventually exacerbating them.

While feeling a little under the weather after a night of partying can make you feel like lying on the couch while binge-watching TV, you’ll feel a lot better if you go for a ride. The fresh air and sunshine can snap you back to being a normal, pleasant human being. “My vast experience with this is that the first 30 minutes or so are rough, then you usually feel better,” Adams says. But he adds one caveat: If you’re still intoxicated when you wake up, stay off the bike until you’ve sobered up.

Molly Hurford

Contributing Writer

Molly writes about cycling, nutrition and training with an emphasis on bringing more women into sport. She's the author of nine books including the Shred Girls series and is the founder of Strong Girl Publishing. She co-hosts The Consummate Athlete Podcast and spends most of her free time biking and running on trails, occasionally joined by her mini-dachshund.