Solving My Exertion Headaches—Finally

For as long as I’ve been cycling, I’ve experienced what I’ve now come to realise are called exertion headaches. For whatever reason—probably because I was getting them so often after long rides—I just assumed they were a normal part of endurance cycling. If you’re doing 3+ hours on the bike, this is just expected, right? It was one of those things I never really questioned. The discomfort was mild enough that I just dealt with it rather than addressing the issue.

Well… until now.

Last Saturday, I finally decided to do something about it. I’d been off the bike for quite a while due to university commitments eating up all my free time. Naturally, and to my great displeasure, I’d lost most of my cycling fitness. Strava was telling me I was at a fitness score of 20—my lowest in over four years. After a 40-mile ride the previous weekend, I realised this was a problem. You see, 40 miles last summer wasn’t an issue. I never used to get headaches from this distance, so clearly, my exertion headaches were somehow linked to my level of fitness and exertion.

I did some research and came across a Reddit thread (which I can no longer find) where a cyclist described having the same problem. One of the commenters suggested adding significantly more salt to his water. Later, the original poster responded that this completely solved his headaches.

This actually made a lot of sense. For your body to function properly, it requires a very fine balance of water and minerals. When you exercise, you sweat, and through this and other bodily functions, you use up salt. If you don’t replenish the salt, you can become hyponatremic—a condition where your sodium levels drop too low, leading to headaches, nausea, confusion, and in extreme cases, serious health complications. Given this new information, I had to try it myself.

The ride I was planning for the weekend was just short of 60 miles. I hadn’t ridden that distance in one go for about four months, so if I had any chance of making it back to Edinburgh, I’d need to fuel properly.

My Experiment: More Salt, More Fuel For this ride, I made a few changes:

Bottle 1 (750ml): 1 sachet of Active Root (electrolyte + carb mix with ginger—highly recommend) + ~1/5 teaspoon of table salt. Bottle 2 (1L): 2 electrolyte tablets + another ~1/5 teaspoon of table salt. Additional Fuel: 40g of carbs in the first bottle, a cereal bar, an energy gel, six dextrose tablets, and a handful of candied dried mango. The Result I made it back to Edinburgh in one piece, didn’t bonk, and didn’t get dropped from the group—thank goodness! However, I did feel a bit nauseous after finishing, possibly from exhaustion or all the sugar. Fortunately, this passed almost immediately after eating lunch.

More importantly: no exertion headaches.

I was just as fatigued as usual (I don’t think there’s much I can do about that apart from getting fitter), but the mild headaches I’d come to expect never arrived. The entire rest of the day, I was waiting for them—but they never came.

The Next Problem: Post-Ride Mood Swings Now, the next issue I need to solve is the massive mood swing that fatigue seems to cause me. I love cycling, but the day after a big ride (and sometimes even two days after), my mood crashes. I’m more negative, irritable, and just worse to be around. It’s like a mild depression—I’m tired, hungry, and physically drained.

Maybe this is just a normal part of post-exercise fatigue, but I really want to find a way to enjoy cycling without this side effect. I love cycling so much, but if it means struggling to function for two days afterwards, is it worth it?

I see two possible solutions:

Get fitter and hope that increased fitness means less fatigue, which in turn prevents the post-ride mood crash. Stick to shorter, lower-intensity rides. I guess we’ll find out.