Traveling takes it out of even the hardiest of travelers, here’s some tips to help make your journey that bit smoother
“Wherever I go I always take swim shorts and instant coffee.” – Lachlan Morton
Traveling the world is synonymous with learning and experiencing new things. We are huge advocates of exploring. We are a team of hardened travelers and over the years we’ve learnt a thing or two about how to make our journeys go that bit smoother. Our riders, sport director and team doctor offer up their well-honed tips and tricks to pack, beat jet lag, and keep your body healthy.
Mike Woods
The Australian trip for the Tour Down Under is rough. It’s super long and anytime I do a long haul flight I try to get on the timezone prior to leaving. The day of flying I start to change my meals up a bit. I also hydrate quite a bit and I limit what I eat. It’s not quite fasting, but coming close to it for most of the flight, it makes a huge difference.

Then once you land you have your first regular meal at an appropriate meal time and it helps you get on schedule straight away. If you’re on a long haul flight from, say America to the UK, and you’re eating on the plane then you can be eating at 3am in the morning, which doesn’t make any sense.
By not eating much on the plane also limits your intake of salty food and so you’re not retaining a ton of water and getting super inflamed. I think the diet part is the most important part of flying, and the fasting bit helps with the illness prevention because you’re not consuming quite as many germs.
Hugh Carthy
I always take shoe dryers. They’re heaters that you slide into your shoes. They help dry them out if I’ve been out cycling in the wet. It makes such a difference to put your shoes back on the next day and they’re not wet. I usually have to loan them to my roommate as well.
Lachlan Morton
Wherever I go, I always take swim shorts and instant coffee.
Ken Vanmarcke – Directeur Sportif
One of the most important things is my headphones. From the moment I leave the house I put them on, then the first time I take them off is when I arrive at my hotel. It gives me a comfortable feeling and they’re noise cancelling so everything is quiet and it’s less hard on the mind.
Traveling with family can be stressful but I enjoy traveling with my brother [Sep Vanmarcke]. If we’re together we talk and laugh, but sometimes we also leave each other alone and have “me time” with the headphones.
David Castol – Team Doctor
When you’re traveling you’re three times more likely to get a gastrointestinal infection or respiratory illness, so our goal is to try and minimize that for the riders. Being athletes at this level takes a toll on their immune system, so they’re more likely to get sick, so that’s why we try to be really careful.
Our objectives are to, focus on good sleep hygiene, good nutrition, and minimize the risk of getting ill.
Sleep
If you are traveling multiple time zones then it’s good to start adjusting to the destination time zone a week before you fly. Nowadays there are different apps and websites to help with this. We use a website called Jet-Lag Rooster, where you input where you’re traveling from, where you’re traveling to, and what time your flight is and it gives you a sleep adjustment program.
Once you get to the airport you should adjust your watch to your destination time zone. On the plane we ask riders to try and avoid blue light on their screens. Most of them have some blue light blocking glasses, and now most phones have a night mode. It’s a good idea to switch to that mode. Wearing ear plugs, night masks and comfy clothing will also help make sleep easier.
Nutrition
Throughout the year, we provide the riders with some probiotics from team partner Sound Probiotics to keep their gut health at its best, especially when traveling to, say, Asian races where food is different to what they’re used to. We advise them to get into a routine of taking their probiotics everyday to ensure their gut is stronger and healthier. The other important thing, never rely on airplane food, because it doesn’t fulfill your daily nutrition requirements. Always be prepared. Take some snacks, maybe a prepared meal from home, especially for long flights.
Also follow the meal schedules of your destination, even if you’re not hungry just have something. Keep well-hydrated, even take some electrolyte tablets for the plane and make sure you’re drinking all the time. Once at your destination remember to keep on hydrating.
Keeping healthy
Hand sanitizer is something that we always recommend the athletes carry. But the best way to discourage spread of diseases is regularly washing hands.
We tell the riders to pack two essential things for the flight: compression socks and garments for the legs and nasal sprays that help prevent colds and flu. These are easy to pick up from pharmacies and are worth spraying up each nostril before getting on the plane. If it’s a long haul flight, it’s worth repeating every so many hours in accordance with the dosage.
Another thing we advise them to carry is a spare water bottle, taking it through security empty and then filling it up before getting on the plane.
When the riders arrive at their destination, if it’s still daytime, we advise they go out for a walk or head out for a quick ride, just to get the body moving and to relax. It helps to get some sunlight as then the brain learns that it’s still day time and when it comes to nighttime, adaptation to sleep will be better.
@EF Education First

Hola.
Bonjour.
Ciao.
Ni hao.
Guten Tag.

This season, the EF Education First Pro Cycling Team will race and train across the globe. On trains and planes, in team cars and on two wheels, we’ll make our way over the mountains, through some of the world’s great cities, and experience people and places from Australia to the United Arab Emirates and from Asia to the Americas.
We’ll ride hard and open our eyes and ears to the cultures that infuse the races and the places we travel. We’ll be at all the beautiful, traditional races, but we’re breaking outside of the barriers of road racing, too. Cycling is for everyone—so this season, we’re tackling new races and rides around the globe. Because that’s where everyone is.

The thin air of the Colorado Mountains and the Leadville 100 are on our list, along with the rolling gravel roads of Kansas at the Garmin Dirty Kanza. We’ll also go across the pond to the U.K. for a bike race with several miles of hiking known as the Three Peaks Cyclo Cross. Of course, we can’t forget the Taiwan KOM Challenge. Sign us up.
I could spend the rest of my life moving around this planet.
– Taylor Phinney

We are 27 riders made up of 11 different nationalities. We speak English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Flemish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish and Estonian. We come from the U.S., Australia, Ecuador, The Netherlands, Estonia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, and Great Britain.
We’re here to race.
We’re here to enjoy the ride.
We’re here to soak up the cultures and the countries along the way.
Simply put, we’re here to explore the world.
Join us for a year of non-stop adventure. It’s time to explore with EF Education First.

“EF’s commitment is to bring different cultures together, to spark mutual understanding around the ways people and communities approach and see life. The goal is to promote empathy among people of diverse backgrounds, and inspire new ways of thinking which together can help make the world a little better. EF Pro Cycling is a platform that embodies this spirit, and which helps show how positive things happen when people explore the world,” says Edward Hult, CEO EF North America.
What does “Explore the World” mean to you?

“That’s how I’ve lived my whole life so, call me corny or not, I left my house growing up when I was 15, went Belgium, missed Christmas, missed my birthday, New Years, all of it, or winter break with the two big bike bags in a suitcase and… no clue what was going on. Explore the world. I think I’ve lived in a very literal sense.”
Alex Howes
“It doesn’t necessarily mean travelling around the world. It can also be meeting new friends, teammates. Here around me I have so many different nationalities, they have different backgrounds, different habits. Talking to them [is like I’m] already back home, talking about what I’d like to do and how [life] is back where they live and what they eat. Already this is little bit like exploring. ”
Tanel Kangert
“I often think about how I could spend the rest of my life moving around this planet, seeing different things that I wouldn’t see everyday, and I sort of feel like I need to start doing that now. To be racing for a team that is embracing this kind of a mantra is super special and I’m really grateful to be involved and I want to help to grow that as a concept and, to be the one who’s at the forefront of the exploring.”
Taylor Phinney
“Explore the world to me means travel. You get out there and travel about. Go to some different places. Just explore. Have a good time, have a bad time. There’s not always going to be a good time and enjoying it. Like there will be bad times and things will go wrong. But that’s what it’s all about. The experience. When you travel the world, you’re going to have many experiences and that’s what it’s all about.”
Tom Scully
“I think that without a doubt the world changes you when you see more places in the world. As a person, it fills you and helps you to grow in many aspects of life.”
Dani Martinez
“Explore the world to me seems like open your eyes and see the world, travel around.”
Sep Vanmarcke
@ EF Education First