Without doubt, the best form of recovery is sleep. In fact, certain growth and repair hormones are only released in deep sleep. Every time you fall into deep sleep your body produces a shot of growth hormone that is responsible for only one thing; to make you stronger! Growth hormone builds muscle and helps you to recover more quickly.It's critically important that you sleep as often and as long as possible. Simply put: if you neglect to sleep enough, you cannot be capitalising on your training. Much of the benefit that you could have gained from your training will be wasted. This is not good and not a good use of your time. You should sleep a minimum of 8 hours per night for bike racing but the likelihood is you'll need more. You'll find most young racers sleep between 9 and 10 hours per night.

• Get up immediately after waking and try to go to bed at about the same time every night. A rule of thumb to Work out how much sleep you personally need is to go to sleep a half hour earlier every night until you start to wake feeling refreshed or wake without an alarm clock at your normal wakeup time. 
• Another important tip on getting a great night sleep is to ensure that your bedroom is totally dark when you go to sleep. This may include covering up the windows so that they block street lights and putting a dark cloth over the alarm clock or other light emitting devices in your bedroom. Having a quiet room helps too.
• Also, if you do wake up at night try to avoid turning on any lights. This is because the bright light is detected as a morning wake up message. This upsets your body’s rhythms by interfering with the secretion of your recovery hormones for the rest of the night.
• Keep a water bottle on your bedside table. If you get up during the night to go to the toilet have a drink before you go back to bed. This will help you be less dehydrated when you wake in the morning.

Your body appreciates a regular sleeping routine and if you concentrate on doing this, pretty soon you won't need an alarm clock to wake you up anymore. If you have the luxury of time to rest immediately after training: take a nap. It will do wonders for your recovery.

Remember also to get up immediately on waking otherwise you will upset your regular nightly sleep pattern.