Recovery for a ride starts before the session begins. Ensuring that you have fuelled enough for the training session in your meals preceding the session will assist in recovery for after it.
Say you are doing an hour of intervals, consuming 60-80 grams of carbs ~3 hours beforehand will ensure that you have adequate carb availability to complete the session without the dreaded ‘bonk’. Also, drinking enough fluids before and during the session, as well as keeping cool if you’re training indoors.
If the session is very hard, then a cool-down (a period of 10-20 minutes of very low intensity riding) has been found to be beneficial for clearing the built-up fatigue metabolites that come from intense or prolonged exercise. This can also be done with both active and passive stretching after a session.
Consuming your recovery drink within an hour of completing the training session has also been shown to improve recovery. Studies have shown that even those who consumed the same amount of carbs and protein throughout the day did not recover as well if they left the start of their recovery nutrition till after 1 hour after the end of exercise. Also ensuring you remain well hydrated in the hours proceeding the session is important.
Finally, rest! This is the most important part of recovery, be it sleep or just giving your body the chance to recover. Not all of us have the luxury of the pros to rest all day after a tough session, but short bouts of focussed rest will still help. Power naps if you’re able to do them can be beneficial, also yoga or mindfulness training. But the best by far is a good night’s sleep. It beats any massage gun, massage session or other recovery tool, and when combined with proper nutrition and hydration is an unbeatable combo.