The flip side of recovery rides is the danger of doing too much. It's good to help your recovery by doing a gentle ride to loosen off you legs, but you do run the risk of simply adding extra stress to an already stressed out body.
Even slight over-training can be a real problem as it can take a week or more of total rest to shake off. Spotting the very first signs means you can immediately dial down the effort, save the situation before full over-training sets in and get back to full training perhaps after just one day off.
So what are the signs of over-training for you? I know for me that getting grumpy and impatient, and then feeling mildly depressed are sure signs that I've done too much. As soon as I pick up on those kind of indications I know not to do more, in the hope that I'll bounce back within 24hrs.
Another sign is checking out how much I've done - if it's way more than previous weeks then that might be a further confirmation that I've done too much.
It is possible to ignore these kind of signs, especially if you are enthusiastic, but over-training for a week or two will just mean you completely fall apart, suffer an injury or illness and then have to take a month or more off...
Italian events and European climbs