Electric bikes offer a wide range of benefits, enabling you to travel further and faster, offering a green alternative for commuting, and encouraging more people to experience the joy of cycling. However, with a motor and battery providing assistance while you pedal, can you get fit on an ebike?

With many aspects of cycling seemingly focused on performance gains, electric bikes are often met with scepticism for providing a helping hand on hills or a sweat-free ride to work. However, riding an electric bike can still improve your fitness.

We previously challenged cycling coach and elite rider Tom Bell to see how hard he could ride on an electric mountain bike, and while he didn’t quite hit his 208bpm maximum heart rate, getting up to 198bpm showed he wasn’t getting a free ride. Far from it, in fact.

“You can still push as hard as you like on an ebike, you just have added assistance,” says Bell. “So, although it can be used to make climbing and riding in general easier if you want to back off, it’s also possible to put in a lot of effort but just go faster for that effort.”

That’s backed up by researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah. They tracked the heart rate of experienced mountain bikers on pedal-powered and electric mountain bikes.

When riding an e-MTB, their subjects hit 94 per cent of the average heart rate they achieved on a non-assisted mountain bike when riding a six-mile study loop with 700 feet of climbing, putting them comfortably in heart rate zone four.

In other words, they were working hard, even if the electric bike took the very top-end sting out of the ride. Interestingly, their perceived exertion levels were lower on the e-MTB and, of course, they rode faster and completed the loop quicker.

Ultimately, the study concluded that electric mountain bikes appear to be an “excellent form of aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, even for experienced mountain bikers who regularly engage in this fitness activity”.

Breaking down barriers

The same researchers in Utah have also looked at the health benefits of commuting on an electric hybrid bike, finding that riders’ heart rates reached, on average, 89 per cent of the mean achieved when riding a non-assisted hybrid bike, giving them a moderate-intensity workout. Ebike use “retained the majority of the cycling cardiovascular health benefits”, according to the study

Participants in the study also said they were more likely to use an ebike for everyday transportation, including cycling to work, than a traditional bike.

As well as concluding that ebikes are “capable of providing much of the cardiovascular health benefits obtained during conventional bike use”, they also “may help reduce some of the obstacles to conventional bike use, such as increased transportation time, decreased convenience, and physical fatigue”. If people are cycling more instead of driving or using public transport, they are likely to be getting fitter.

That’s a conclusion borne out by another study, which looked at the riding patterns of 10,000 ebike and non-ebike bike users across seven cities in Europe. It found that ebike users took longer trips, so their gain in physical activity was similar to that for regular cyclists.

Again, Tom Bell concurs: “Electric bikes can help you stay out longer on the bike. Even if the average intensity may be lower, there is a big correlation between ride/training duration and fitness improvement, and a lot of aerobic benefits come from increasing ride duration, not just intensity.”

More fun, more riding

Electric bikes can also help riders stay out for longer and, in turn, ride more often, according to Bell.

“On the mountain bike side, because the motor can be used to make pedalling back up a hill much easier than without, it makes doing repeated runs of downhill trails much easier and arguably more fun because more runs can be fitted into a given period of time,” he says.

“If these ebikes make a rider enjoy the bike more and this leads to them riding more consistently, over time this will have a big positive impact on their fitness.”

Bell also points out that ebike riders will often be keeping up a pace above the 25kph at which assistance must cut out (in the UK, EU and Australia). “When that speed is reached, the rider no longer has the assistance of the motor, so that means they will still be needing to exert quite a bit of power to maintain their speed,” he says.

In short, electric bikes can offer fitness benefits for experienced riders and those who may otherwise be daunted by cycling.

Meanwhile, electric bikes can also help people to ride who may otherwise not be able to due to health concerns, particularly given the ability of ebikes to offer varying levels of assistance and thus allow a rider to better manage their effort level, not least when climbing.

Freedom to ride

Repeated heart problems were forcing Sean Yates, a former Tour de France yellow jersey wearer and directeur sportif at Team Sky, to reduce his riding. When he did go out, he sometimes needed to be collected by car and would take several days to recover.

Yates’ answer was an electric road bike. He credits his electric road bike with helping him to get out and enjoy his riding again. “I will always have the passion to ride, and the head and heart still want to experience that feeling of freedom,” says Yates. “Without this bike, I might be stuck indoors watching daytime TV.”

Yates isn’t alone among former pros in taking to an ebike. Brian Robinson, who was the first Briton to finish the Tour de France in 1955, as well as the first to win a stage (one stage win in each of the 1958 and 1959 editions), rides a Ribble Hybrid AL e at 91 years old.

Meanwhile, five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault rides Look’s road ebike, the e-765 Optimum. “It is a genuine revolution for any cyclist,” says Hinault. “I would never have believed they could retain all of the sensations of a 100 per cent muscle-driven bike.”

The bottom line is this: an electric bike can be the ideal way to enjoy the fitness benefits of cycling, while still offering assistance when it may be required – whether that’s to ride further, tone down the peak exertion of riding a non-assisted bike, or provide assistance on difficult terrain.

Five tips for getting fit on an ebike

1. Start slowly

An ebike will take the peak exertion out of your ride, so it’s easier to go further. But if you’re new to cycling or not as fit as you want to be, start with shorter rides on easy routes to get the feel for what you’re capable of, rather than being too ambitious.

You’ll gain more fitness benefits from more frequent, shorter rides than from the occasional epic. You’ll also want to understand the range that you can get from your ebike before committing to a ride that might drain the battery.

2. Plan your route

If you’re new to cycling, try to take on routes that aren’t too demanding at first. Even with a motor, you can still push your limits on climbs.

Start on roads or trails that don’t over-exert you until you get the feel for your physical capacity and the varying levels of assistance the bike can offer to support your ride.

3. Select a lower assistance level

Once you’re confident in your fitness and the bike itself, you’ll get more of a workout if you lower the assistance level that the motor provides.

On a flat road or moderate hill, you might be quite capable of going well with minimal assistance or with the motor switched off altogether. Save the top level of support for the steepest uphills and you’ll extend your range, too.

4. Plan for recovery

Recovering from your ebike rides is as important as if you were riding a normal pedal-powered bike. A challenging ride may be just as tiring on an ebike, particularly if your electric bike has enabled you to ride for longer than typical.

However, with ebikes usually lowering your overall effort level, you should be able to ride more frequently, and riding more often will help improve your long-term fitness.

5. Enjoy yourself

Above all else, cycling should be fun – and electric bikes are fun! – so enjoy your riding.

It’s important to remember why we all got into cycling in the first place – because it is fun.

Regardless of the purpose of your riding – whether that’s commuting, cycling to lose weight or training for a big ride – riding your bike should be a joyful experience that brings a smile to your face.

If you’ve found the sheen has worn off your cycling, try out any of these five tips to get your time on two wheels tickling a 10 on the funnometer again.

Got any tips of your own? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

1: No Garmin, no rules

A friend of BikeRadar once quipped that, if they rode without a power meter, they wouldn’t be able to measure how much fun they were having.

Jesting aside, even the least performance-minded cyclist can get caught up obsessing over numbers while riding – it’s difficult to shut out the anxious caveman part of your brain if your average speed drops unexpectedly and a late finish is looming.

By all means, record your ride, but consider pocketing your bike computer the next time you head out.

Rather than fretting over figures, ride at a natural pace that feels right for you, your route and the weather conditions – simply enjoy what’s around you.

Smiles not miles; #nogarminnorules; a Strava detox – whatever you want to call it, we promise you’ll be surprised by how much of a difference it makes to your mood.

2: Ride somewhere new

Tired of the same old local loops? Is every pothole in a 10-mile radius of your home ingrained in your muscle memory?

If that sounds familiar, it’s time to up sticks and lay down tracks somewhere new.

We suggest seeking inspiration through the likes of Komoot Highlights, which recommends roads, trails and landmarks as curated by the app’s community. Strava and other cycling apps feature similar functionality.

Alternatively, it’s always worth trying a good guidebook. Many will even include route maps, which will help if you wish to combine a new adventure with some GPS downtime.

Going by public transport can also be a pleasant experience with a bit of pre-planning.

After choosing an area you want to explore, we recommend taking a train (and hey – who doesn’t love a trundle on the ol’ iron horse?) somewhere with a view to riding back home, rather than relying on catching a service at the end of a ride.

With no return leg to worry about, you can in effect double your distance over ground on any given ride, greatly increasing your chances of enjoying new vistas.

That said, we’d still always plan a modest distance as the crow flies to keep a day manageable if all goes pear-shaped – you can always add in a few cheeky wiggles if you fancy a longer excursion.

3: Sleep somewhere new

It’s hard to beat the heady mix of endorphins and smugness brought by starting a big day on the bike after waking up al fresco.

Even the interior gloom of some anonymous plantation forest will take on a new charm with a good day’s ride in the legs and a bowl of porridge in the belly.

While it’s possible to spend an extraordinary amount of money on a fancy bikepacking setup, it’s definitely not a requirement.

When split among willing friends, even the affordable family-friendly camping gear left languishing in your garage can become a manageable load.

If you don’t mind waking up with a slug moustache, a well-pitched tarp can also be almost as comfortable as a tent.

If you are just starting out with snoozing outside and want to invest in the minimum amount of kit, an overnight trip to a bothy – an unmanned free-to-use shelter – will usually only require a sleeping mat and bag.

Finally, if you prefer silky sheets to damp down, youth hostels are another affordable (and often family-friendly) option for the itinerant cyclist.

Most will have facilities to lock up your bike and old-school sites will also allow you to cook your own food, bringing down costs.

If you’re shy about sharing with strangers, block-booking a bunk room with friends can make the whole experience more pleasant (just make sure you have friends who don’t snore).

4: Try something new

Trying something new doesn’t necessarily mean buying a new bike, or taking part in a different racing discipline.

The bike you already own is most likely perfectly suitable for modest adventuring beyond your norm.

For the pebble-phobic road cyclist, you only need to look at the likes of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship to remember that, not so long ago, daring cyclists weren’t afraid to take road bikes into what many would consider wildly inappropriate terrain.

There’s nothing stopping you from following in their footsteps, with modern disc brakes and (comparatively) wider tyres making gentle off-road jaunts a lot more pleasant.

Sure, you might not be able to rattle along gravel roads as fast as you could on a dedicated gravel bike, but even 25mm tyres are perfectly okay on smoother off-road surfaces (you just may want to increase your tyre pressure a little to avoid pinch flats).

If you prefer to keep things paved, less competitive events such as an audax/brevet are a great way to see new places and meet riders.

If you’re a mountain biker and fancy a charmingly old-school challenge, why not try something like Cycle Quest or mountain bike orienteering?

Both will teach you new skills and get you into new places in a low-stress environment.

5: Build a parts bin special

If you’re anything like the component magpies that make up the BikeRadar team, you’ll have a big box of ‘just in case’ parts taking up room in your life.

Putting these neglected and often outmoded components to good use on a new low-effort bike is a great way to make something useful out of your clutter, and up your mechanical skills in the process.

Unless you already have an old frame hanging up in the rafters, we recommend starting with a careful assessment of what you have and considering what would work with this lot, rather than what you would have.

Don’t allow perfect to get in the way of good – let your lot dictate the shape of the build and go from there.

Once done, buckle up and prepare for many nights spent trawling eBay for a used frameset. Be patient, set yourself a hard price limit and try to buy local if possible.

Builds put together in this spirit are some of the most characterful and fun bikes on the BikeRadar team, and we guarantee you’ll enjoy the process just as much as we have.

Measuring your heart rate has long been established as one of the easiest ways to monitor your effort while exercising but, in recent years, heart rate variability has emerged as a new metric that can help riders keep abreast of their overall health and wellbeing.

Using heart rate training zones enables cyclists to target specific areas of fitness and understand the body’s physiological response to riding.

But there’s more you can learn from how your heart is functioning, based on your heart rate variability (HRV), and it’s a topic of increasing interest both to athletes and the medical community.

Let’s take a closer look at what heart rate variability is, why it’s important and how you might be able to use it to your advantage.

What is heart rate variability?

According to the Harvard Medical School, heart rate variability is “simply a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat”.

We’re used to the regular bump-bump of the heart as it beats, but this rhythm is less regular than it at first appears, with measurable differences in milliseconds in the time between successive beats.

“The fluctuation in your heart rate – the variance in time between the beats of your heart – is heart rate variability,” says Kristen Holmes, VP of performance science at WHOOP.

“If your heart beats 60 times per minute, it’s not actually beating once per second. For example, within that minute there may be 0.9 seconds between two beats and 1.1 seconds between two others. The greater this variability is, the more ‘ready’ your body is to perform at a high level.”

Heart rate is controlled by your autonomic nervous system, which regulates the things that carry on without you having to think about them.

“It works behind the scenes, automatically regulating our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and digestion among other key tasks,” says the Harvard Medical School. “The autonomic nervous system is subdivided into two large components: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system.”

Whereas the sympathetic nervous system manages increases in heart rate and blood pressure – the so-called ‘fight or flight’ response – the parasympathetic nervous system works in the opposite direction, slowing heart rate and reducing blood pressure – also called ‘rest and digest’.

The interplay between these two systems controls your heart rate, as well as other background bodily functions, working in response to external and internal stimuli.

Heart rate variability increases when you’re more relaxed and your parasympathetic nervous system is in control, but decreases under stress when your sympathetic nervous system dominates.

“Heart rate variability comes from the two branches of your autonomic nervous system simultaneously sending signals to your heart,” adds Holmes.

“If your nervous system is balanced, your heart is constantly being told to beat slower by your parasympathetic system, and beat faster by your sympathetic system. This causes a fluctuation in your heart rate.”

How is heart rate variability tracked?

To track HRV, you need to be able to accurately measure the time between successive beats of the heart. More specifically, it’s the RR interval, which is the period between the large peaks in heart electrical activity you see on an electrocardiogram (ECG), as featured in all good hospital dramas.

An electrocardiogram trace is the gold standard in tracking HRV, because the electrodes attached to your chest provide an accurate measure of the peaks.

In recent years, a number of wearable devices have emerged that can track HRV, including the WHOOP 4.0 strap. It’s a wrist-worn strap with a set of light-based sensors that measure your heart rate, blood oxygen levels and skin temperature.

HRV needs to be tracked over many heartbeats to get an accurate measurement. The data is usually expressed as a root mean square deviation, a statistical analysis that measures the spread of values.

“Heart rate variability is a very sensitive metric that varies significantly throughout the day,” says Holmes. “Tracking it when you’re active is not always useful because it fluctuates so drastically from one moment to the next.”

As a result, the strap takes a ‘dynamic average’ during sleep. “It’s weighted towards your last slow wave sleep stage each night, when you’re in your deepest period of sleep and your body is most at rest,” Holmes adds. “This gives you an accurate understanding of your baseline so you can monitor your trends.”

Many of the best cycling watches also use optical heart rate sensors on your wrist to follow your heart rate and can identify your levels of heart rate variability. With some models, you can also use the watch alongside a heart rate strap.

Garmin smartwatches, such as the Fenix 7, use heart rate and HRV data to give you a ‘Body Battery’ number, which estimates how your energy levels are changing throughout the day. There’s also the option to use a heart rate strap to get a three-minute HRV trace. HRV is something that Polar and Suunto smartwatches track and analyse too.

What are the benefits of tracking heart rate variability?

We’ll go into the benefits of monitoring heart rate variability when it comes to your training later on, but there are more general advantages of keeping tabs on your HRV and how it varies over time.

According to the Harvard Medical School, “HRV may offer a non-invasive way to signal imbalances in the autonomic nervous system.”

“When you have high heart rate variability, it means that your body is responsive to both sets of inputs (parasympathetic and sympathetic). That’s a sign your nervous system is balanced, and that your body is very capable of adapting to its environment and performing at its best,” Holmes adds.

“But if you have low HRV, one branch is dominating the other (usually the sympathetic) and sending stronger signals to your heart. This indicates your body is working hard for some reason – maybe you’re fatigued, dehydrated, stressed, or sick and need to recover.”

Those imbalances can come as a result of a wide range of factors, including training, lifestyle and biological factors, according to WHOOP.

“HRV is a holistic indicator of stress,” says Simon Wegerif, the founder of ithlete, a HRV tracking tool, in a podcast with TrainingPeaks. “HRV is useful partly because it’s such an inclusive indicator of stress, fatigue and recovery.”

The Harvard Medical School says a high HRV may indicate greater cardiovascular fitness and more resilience to stress.

“You might see a connection to HRV changes as you incorporate more mindfulness, meditation, sleep and especially physical activity into your life,” it adds. “For those who love data and numbers, this could be a way to track how your nervous system is reacting not only to the environment, but also to your emotions, thoughts and feelings.

The EF Education-EasyPost pro cycling team uses WHOOP’s device to track its riders. The team’s Neilson Powless reports finding that his numbers were abnormal and HRV depressed. He went for a Covid test, which came back positive, alerting him that he had the disease three days before he developed symptoms.

He also found that his HRV was low prior to getting sick and withdrawing from stage four of the 2022 Paris-Nice race. Tracking HRV has also led to changes in Powless’s meal patterns, so that he now tries to eat both before and after a training session, having a lighter meal in the evening because this gives him better fitness metrics than eating more later in the day.

“HRV is very useful with sickness, as often it gives some forewarning, of at least a few hours but sometimes two or three days,” says Simon Wegerif.

“Most endurance athletes are pretty motivated people and don’t want to spend too long off training.

“If someone gets a cough or a cold, it typically takes two weeks to work its way through completely, but it’s the first three or four days that are the worst and those are typically the ones associated with the poor HRV.

“After that, it could be that the HRV starts improving significantly, at which point the athlete can get back to low-intensity training when they still have the blocked-up nose or sore throat, but their body is in better shape to withstand the start of training again.”

In summary, HRV can potentially be used to identify how a range of factors impact health and wellbeing.

However, the Harvard Medical School issues a word of caution: “While HRV has been linked to overall physical fitness, the correlation between changes in HRV and how your autonomic nervous system is functioning will require much more research.

“Still, if you decide to use HRV as another piece of health data, do not get too confident if you have a high HRV, or too worried if your HRV is low. Think of HRV as another way you might tap into [how] your body and mind are responding to your daily experiences.”

What is a ‘good’ heart rate variability?

HRV is a measure that’s very personal and can vary significantly between individuals, so rather than being something that you can compare to other people, it’s more a question of what’s ‘good for you’.

WHOOP’s Holmes says: “HRV varies greatly from one person to the next. Younger people usually have higher HRV than older people, and males may have slightly higher HRV than females. Elite athletes usually have greater HRV than other people (particularly endurance athletes), but it’s not absolute. What constitutes good heart rate variability differs for everyone.”

As a result, it is advisable to track HRV as a trend. This, Holmes says, will enable you to assess the positive impact of any lifestyle changes or, equally, spot a downward trend that may be a result of overtraining, sickness or insufficient sleep.

How can heart rate variability inform your training?

HRV is a metric that’s increasingly being incorporated into the training of elite cyclists, primarily as a means to assess the body’s readiness to train.

According to a study by the Miguel Hernández University and Stellenbosch University, summarised by TrainingPeaks, athletes following a training programme guided by HRV achieved “substantially greater increases in peak power (5 per cent), power at VT2 (14 per cent), and power over the 40-minute time trial (7 per cent) compared to traditional training, where the peak and 40-minute time trial power hardly improved at all.”

During the study, a seven-day rolling average of HRV, measured every morning using a Polar H7 chest strap, was used for prescribing training load.

Not all cyclists have the benefits of a university-backed study, of course, but HRV has become a key metric in the latest wearable devices. WHOOP uses HRV, along with other measures such as resting heart rate, sleep quality and breathing rate, as part of its recovery analysis.

It then uses a traffic-light system to categorise your readiness to train, with green signifying that you can take on a more strenuous workout, amber that you’re in maintenance mode and red that it’s time for a recovery day. Garmin has a similar approach with its ‘Body Battery’ and ‘Stress’ scores, which are based on an all-day HRV measurement.

“Rather than sticking to a regular workout schedule, modifying the intensity and duration of your exercise based on heart rate variability will allow you to train smarter and more efficiently,” says Holmes.

“When your HRV is high, your body is ready to take on a greater workload or strain. When it’s low, it’s a sign to cut back and focus on recovery.”

“HRV can be a valuable tool for making the most of your training,” she adds. “After days of strenuous activity, your HRV will drop. With proper rest and recovery it will then rise, letting you know when it’s a good time to push yourself again.”

Riding can be a great way to get some quality alone time, but it’s also a brilliant way to spend time with your family.

In this guide, we take a look at the best ways to get children onto two wheels and riding safely and confidently, from non-pedalling passengers to independent riders.

How to cycle with your kids

Step 1: Get your partner on a bike too

Family cycling isn’t only about teaching your children how to cycle. Often, it’s a time when a non-cycling partner also starts riding again.

First things first: make sure you both have good bikes in working order. If you’re buying a new bike, check out our in-depth guide on how to choose the best bike for you.

New isn’t the only option, of course – the second-hand bike market can be a great way to pick up a bargain, but read our guide on tips for buying a used bike to make sure you avoid common pitfalls.

It’s a good idea to perform a quick safety check on a bike if it hasn’t been ridden in some time. This will help keep all the bikes in the household running sweetly, and ensure if there are any surprise issues, such as a mid-ride puncture, everyone is equipped to deal with it.

Let the newer cyclist set the pace and mileage, and you can also level the playing field by fitting any bike trailers, child seats or luggage to the bike of the more experienced or stronger cyclist for the bulk of the ride.

It’s also worth avoiding busy roads, which can be intimidating for new cyclists and children, and aren’t conducive to conversation while you ride. Choose a quiet, pleasant route that’s going to be fun for everyone.

If you live in the UK, Sustrans has a database of cycle paths, many of which are away from roads completely.

Keep mileage low, especially for the first few outings, and take plenty of snacks and drinks. Younger children won’t need much entertaining, but they’ll want to stretch their legs, so aim for somewhere with a bit of grass or a play area.

Step 2: Get the right kit

Having the right kit will make the whole experience safer, more comfortable and, therefore, more fun for everyone.

You may need some specialist equipment such as a bike seat or tow-along, but you don’t need to fork out for loads of special kids’ bike clothing – unless you want to, of course!

How to buy a kids’ helmet

Helmets are like shoes – the most important criteria for a helmet is getting a good fit. When choosing a bike helmet for a child, rather than looking for a specific model, visit your local bike shop and choose one that sits snugly on their head.

In the UK, it should be EN 1080 European Standard approved, which covers helmet safety for children. In the US, it must comply with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. In Australia, the helmet must fit its own mandatory standard.

Ventilation isn’t very important though, especially for child passengers, who don’t generate much heat.

Make sure it’s worn properly, with the forehead protected. Avoid over-tight straps or nipping your child’s neck with the clasp by sliding a finger behind the chin-strap when fastening it.

Summer cycling clothes for kids

Avoid sunburn by liberally applying sunblock and/or choosing light clothing with arm and leg coverage. The back of the neck is very vulnerable for children in child seats.

Dress your child with an extra layer of clothing because they won’t get as hot as you.

Winter wear

Children can and do get very cold when cycling in winter, even in trailers. Wrap them up really well.

Ski-style salopettes make great over-trousers, and a balaclava under the helmet (remove some padding) will prevent painfully cold ears.

Wellington boots are useful even in trailers, which may collect water in the footwell.

Kickstand

It can be difficult to get a child into or out of a child seat or trailer by yourself, so a strong kickstand, such as the Pletscher twin leg, can help. But never leave a child unattended in a child seat, even with a kickstand.

Step 3: Pre-school riding

Up until the age of four or five, small children are usually non-pedalling passengers. Fortunately, they’re fairly portable – with the right equipment.

The most popular choices are child seats and trailers, though cargo bikes are getting more common and many people swear by them for the school run.

Bike trailers

Bike trailers are usually two- or three-wheeled trailers that will seat one or two children, and can be attached to the rear of the bike to be pulled along behind it.

They will have a roll cage and covers that protect the passengers inside from weather, grit from the road and insects. Many often work as joggers and strollers in addition to trailers.

There are a few advantages over a child seat, including greater carrying capacity with room for nappies, groceries, toys and so on, as well as better bike handling for you.

They are wider and more visible than child seats too, which encourages drivers to give you room.

Another advantage of a trailer is that you may be able to fit a small balance bike in the storage space. This way, if your little one wants to ride for a bit they can, then jump back in the trailer when they get tired.

Trailers are also very stable; if you happen to fall, the trailer should remain upright, and even if it does topple over the children are protected by the aforementioned roll cage. Also, while trailers may look bulky, most trailers fold flat for storage at home.

Kids’ seats

Most kids’ seats fit on the back of a bike, using an attachment system similar to a rear pannier or luggage rack, or attaching via a mount fitted to the down tube.

You can also get front-mounted child seats that usually sit on the top tube between the saddle and the handlebar.

For the majority of child seats, you’ll need to ensure the bike you plan to use has the right mounts on the frame. Child seats are cheaper than trailers and require less leg and lung power. They’re great for outings in better weather, and most suit children from nine months to three or four years. A weight limit of 18 to 20kg is usual.

After fitting the seat, accustom yourself to the bike’s compromised handling by taking a trial run with a big sack of potatoes or similar.

Also practise getting your leg over the top tube without swinging it over the saddle, or you may accidentally kick your passenger.

Front seats affect the handling less than rear seats, but force you to ride bow-legged – okay for a mile or two, irritating beyond.

When fitting, ensure the back of the seat is above or in front of the rear axle. Weight further back can ruin handling. You get better control with a wide bar – flat or riser.

Safety note: It’s vital that nothing – wayward clothing, feet, fingers – ends up in a wheel. All trailers have side panels to prevent this, and most seats have foot straps and side panels.

Dangling laces, scarves or mittens-on-strings can still be a risk. Make sure, too, that you periodically check all your family cycling equipment for loose screws, bolts and so on.

Balance bikes

Balance bikes are an increasingly popular way to teach children how to cycle. They are brilliant for giving children the feel of riding a bike without the complication of gears and pedals.

Teaching your child how to ride a balance bike usually makes the transition to riding a bike with pedals quicker than learning on a bike with pedals and stabilisers, then removing the stabilisers later.

However, bear in mind that kids won’t be able to cover a lot of ground on a balance bike, so these are best for either local jaunts or rides where you’ll be able to carry the child and store the balance bike when they get tired. Or bored.

Step 4: Ready to ride

By the time they start school, most children will be capable of riding a bike of their own, but not far and not on busy roads. There are other ways to get them pedalling, though.

A trailer bike (or tagalong), which is half a bike plus a towing arm, is the cheapest solution, and many fold for storage. Most suit children from four to nine years. The upper limit is weight: your trailer bike passenger shouldn’t exceed half your bodyweight.

You can also get towing arms that fit to the front of a child’s bike and hold the front wheel off the ground, working in effect like a trailer bike.

The advantage here is that you can use them to ride to a destination such as a park, then detach and allow the child to ride free.

When riding with a trailer bike, fit a mudguard to the ‘down tube’ of the trailer bike, up near the handlebar, because your passenger’s face is in the line of spray from your back wheel.

Also, use mudguards on the towing bike and get two racks or hitches so you can swap the trailer bike between towing bikes.

If riding at night, you must fit a rear light and reflector to the trailer bike because it will obscure those of the towing bike.

Because your child is under your direct control, you can ride anywhere. Busy roads aren’t any more dangerous, although conversation will be impossible, so quieter lanes are better, while off-road singletrack, bridleways and forest tracks are all possible.

On longer rides, you need to check the trailer biker’s morale and energy levels regularly, and, if necessary, boost both with stops and snacks. Adults can feel themselves getting tired, while children can tire in moments and suddenly be upset and tearful – or fast asleep!

Step 5: Independent cycling

Children as young as six can ride a dozen miles, and by the age of 10 or 11 most are keen to use their own bikes.

Independent cycling offers a sense of freedom and achievement. The snag can be finding a suitable bike.

Finding the right child’s bike

Finding the best kid’s bike for your child is important. A lot of lower-priced children’s bikes are under-specced and overweight; 15kg is typical, which can be half the rider’s bodyweight.

Your child will get more enjoyment out of cycling – and more miles – with a lighter bike. As a rough guide, aim for 13kg or less for 20in- and 24in-wheel bikes, especially if they’re likely to go off-road.

Don’t be tempted to buy a bike for your child to ‘grow into’. An over-large bike will be awkward to ride.

As a rule of thumb, 14in- or 16in-wheeled bikes suit ages four to six, 20in-wheeled bikes ages five to 10, and 24in-wheeled bikes ages eight to 12.

A long seatpost and a steerer with plenty of spacers, or a quill stem, will maximise growing room. Children often prefer a seat height that’s lower than optimum, and must be able to stand over the bike and dab a foot when seated. Also, smaller hands need to be able to reach the brakes.

The number of gears on a bike can be a badge of status among children (and adults!), but too many gears can cause mechanical complications. One gear is best for starter bikes, a 3-speed hub for second bikes, and a 7-speed or 8-speed derailleur for pre-teens.

Teaching your child to cycle

Sooner or later, your child will fall off, but off-road falls at this age are rarely serious because there’s no traffic or street furniture to hit, and speeds are generally low.

As mentioned above, a helmet is an obvious precaution, and cycling mitts can help prevent scuffed hands.

Long trousers, such as tracksuit bottoms, and shirts with sleeves are better than bare arms and legs. They offer protection from minor grazes, scratches and nettle stings. Boots or sturdy trainers are better than sandals or plimsolls for the same reason.

Some clothing companies do offer cycling kit in child sizes.

As always, plan the ride so you’re going to places that will interest the children – a cafe stop here, a good place for trying to do jumps there, whatever interests them.

Don’t overestimate your speed when planning the route. If they’re on their own bikes, you may be averaging only 5mph or so off-road.

Above all, relax! This should be an enjoyable experience for everyone. Hopefully, you’ll be cultivating a lifelong love of cycling in your kids.

These cycling tips, covering kit, clothing, nutrition, technique and more, are aimed at beginners, the new riders who’ve just started out on their great two-wheeled adventure. Think of BikeRadar as your riding buddy, who wants to help you get the most out of yourself and your bike!

Below, we’ve tried to cover the common pitfalls of getting into riding, but not forgotten that the best thing about cycling is that it’s fun.

Whether you’re a road cyclist, mountain biker or city commuter, there’s bound to be something here for you (spoiler alert: the most important one is at the bottom).

In the words of the great Eddy Merckx – the legendary Belgian ex-pro cyclist who won 11 Grand Tours, including five Tour de France victories: “Ride as much or as little, as long or as short, as you feel. But ride.”

If you’re looking for specific tips, you can skip to the relevant sections of this article by clicking the links below:

• Best cycling clothes for beginners
• Bike maintenance made easy
• What to eat and drink when cycling
• Cycling safety for new cyclists
• Riding technique

Best cycling clothing for beginners

Right, let’s start with what to wear. There’s a huge range of cycling clothing out there, in a dazzling variety of colours and fabrics, from the easily affordable to the insanely expensive. Let’s measure you up…

1. Padded cycling shorts

The best cycling shorts stop your backside from hurting so much.

If you’re asking yourself: should I wear underwear under padded cycling shorts? the answer’s no. Massively padded perches won’t help you on longer rides, trust us on this.

The only way to be comfortable in the saddle is to wear padded shorts, choose the best bike saddle, set the saddle height on your bike right and ride until you get used to your saddle.

2. Wear a cycling helmet

We know legislating helmets is massively contentious, but the best road bike helmets and best mountain bike helmets might save your life.

It’s not hard nowadays to find one that’s comfy, light and affordable. And no, you don’t have to buy the most expensive model because they all conform to current safety standards.

3. Try clipless pedals

Deciding between flat or clipless pedals can be tricky.

Clipless pedals are confusingly the ones you clip into using cleats, and they are without a doubt the best road bike pedals.

The binding can be made loose enough to come away easily, you’ll quickly learn how to use clipless pedals and they’ll make a massive difference to your pedalling efficiency.

4. Mountain bikers, wear protection

Mountain bikers, particularly when you’re starting out or learning new skills, will be very grateful for a decent pair of gloves and knee pads, as a minimum.

What to wear mountain biking depends on how technical your riding is. If you’re learning big jumps or hardcore downhill trails, consider armour and pads for your elbows, and even back protectors too.

5. Get some cycling sunglasses

The best cycling sunglasses don’t need to cost the earth or make you look stupid, but they will keep your eyes protected from bugs, stones, sun and rain.

Some versions feature interchangeable lenses, so, if you can, get one lens for bright conditions and one for dull, wet days.

Bike maintenance made easy

Now that you’re wearing something comfortable, let’s move on to keeping your bike happy. You don’t need a shed full of tools to achieve this, but it helps to have a friendly bike shop nearby in case you need advice.

6. Use chain lube

Keep your chain clean and lubricated, particularly if riding in bad weather. As our guide to how to clean a bike chain explains, you’ll eliminate the dreaded ‘creak’ that cyclists hate, and more expensive parts such as chainrings won’t wear out as quickly.

7. Check your tyre pressure

Recommended tyre pressures will be indicated on the sidewall of your tyres, but the ideal road bike tyre pressure is subject to a number of factors.

The best bike pumps are a good investment because they require less effort to get to the recommended pressure, and will feature a handy pressure gauge.

8. Fit mudguards/fenders for wet conditions

Fitting mudguards is an integral part of how to get your road bike winter ready.

Your back will thank you, your washing machine will thank you, anyone riding behind you will be thank you too. Some (including some BikeRadar staffers) will point out they can ruin the clean lines of a fancy road bike but, in the mire of winter, do you really care?

9. Keep your bike clean

Although few of us are as fastidious as we should be, you can clean your bike in seven simple steps.

Hot soapy water and a sponge will do the job for most parts unless the grime is caked on, in which case there are some great cleaning sprays available. Use specialist degreaser for the drivetrain (cassette, chain, crankset and so on). Then spray your gleaming bike all over with a silicone aerosol – avoid braking surfaces – this will stop mud sticking on your next ride.

10. Master puncture repair

Learn how to fix a puncture, and always carry a repair kit (including tyre levers, patches or a new inner tube, and a pump).

When you’re miles from home and suddenly hear that hissing sound, you’ll be glad you learned how to fix it yourself.

What to eat and drink when cycling

Right, that’s clothing and kit sorted, let’s consider your fuel source. You could spend a fortune on specially formulated sports nutrition, but the truth is you don’t have to. Have a rummage around your cupboards at home and see what’s portable.

11. Stay hydrated

Whether you prefer a water bottle or a hydration pack, make sure you pack some fluid whenever you’re heading out.

The best bottle cages are a practical way to carry water on your bike. You can nearly always find somewhere to refill along the way, and most coffee shops are happy to oblige for free.

12. Stay fuelled

Avoid bonking on a bike ride, where your body runs out of fuel and you grind to a painful halt.

The body can carry around 90 minutes’ worth of glycogen for high-tempo efforts before it needs replenishing, or else will switch to burning fat. The problem with burning fat is that you can’t work at anywhere near the same intensity level. Given how many calories cycling burns, consume around 100 to 250 calories every 30 minutes, whether that’s energy gels, cereal bars or a banana.

We like carrot cake, by the way. If you make your own energy bars, you’ll save money and can tailor them to your taste and nutrition requirements.

13. Use electrolytes

Cramping is a common complaint when you start riding harder or longer than your body’s used to.

One piece of advice often offered is to ensure you replace the electrolytes lost through sweating, either by drinking specially formulated sports drinks or by making your own energy drinks (it’s basically fruit juice, water, and a little sugar and salt). No one knows for certain why cramps occur, but this seems to help.

14. Refuel

Carbohydrates and protein are what to eat and drink to recover from a hard ride. It’s best to have a carb and protein-rich meal for post-ride recovery. But between meals or when you’re pressed for time, try a delicious smoothie recipe for pre- and post-ride fuelling. These act as a recovery drink, which after a long, hard ride will help the body repair itself, in conjunction with some rest.

Aim to consume something with a 4:1 carbs-to-protein ratio soon after finishing. There are plenty of pre-mixed recovery drinks on the market, or you can have fun by making some. Our current go-to is milk, one banana, a tablespoon of peanut butter and some honey, all whizzed up in a blender. Yum.

15. Give it the beans

The mid-ride coffee stop is a cherished tradition and there’s sound scientific reasoning behind it: coffee and cycling are a performance pairing. Caffeine has been found to measurably improve your endurance on the bike. Do say: “Espresso doppio, per favore.”

Cycling safety for new cyclists

This is an important one – we want to keep you safe. The good news is that with the right mix of confidence and caution, city streets and rural roads are yours for the taking. Build up some experience and you’ll learn to read situations quickly and accurately.

16. Communicate

If you’re going out for a long ride on your own, tell someone where you’re going and when to expect you back. The best bike computers and best cycling apps, such as Strava, allow you to send a tracking link to your loved ones so they know where you are. You can also share your location via WhatsApp.

17. Get street-wise

Learn some basic traffic-riding skills for the city. You’ll feel a lot more confident for it. Be assertive, stay out of the gutter and remember that you’ve got as much right to be on the road as anyone else. In order to ride safely in traffic, you need to know the difference between ‘primary’ (middle of the left-hand lane) and ‘secondary’ (about one metre to the left of the moving traffic lane) positions, and use them appropriately. Our cycling to work guide has more commuting tips.

18. Don’t jam the brakes

The front brake is much more effective than the rear at stopping you, so try to achieve a 60/40 or 70/30 power distribution between front and rear. But be very, very careful not to lock up. Modern brakes are pretty powerful and you don’t want to go over the handlebars.

19. Turning technique

When cornering, ensure your outside pedal is at the lowest position, with pressure being placed on it. This will give you more grip, particularly in the wet, and make sliding out less likely.

20. Better together

On the road, knowing how to ride in a group opens up social and training opportunities. A friendly pack of riders is much more efficient (read uses less energy) by taking turns at the front, but this requires riding close to each other. And you don’t want to cause any accidents. So keep a level head, don’t make any sudden movements or brake unexpectedly, and avoid ‘half-wheeling’ (riding slightly ahead of the person next to you). Learn how and when to use hand signals on your road bike to warn riders behind you of any obstacles they might not see until it’s too late. They’ll do the same for you.

Riding technique

We come to our final section, cycling technique. There’s plenty of debate out there on the ‘right’ technique for all forms of riding, but there are also a few absolutes:

21. Sit comfortably

Perfect your road bike position and get your bike saddle height right. You’ll be more comfortable, more powerful and all-round happier if your bike is the right size and your handlebars are set up correctly. We highly recommend that cyclists of all levels get a professional bike fit, and a decent bike shop can help you here.

22. No chain strain

Avoid ‘cross chaining’ the gears. In other words, if you’re in the largest chain ring, don’t run it with the largest cassette cog (ditto, smallest chain ring, smallest cog). This places extra loads on the chain and stresses the whole system. Your bike really doesn’t like it and it’s not efficient. Our guide to bike gears has all you need to know.

23. Spin

Try to maintain a high, regular cycling cadence, around 70 to 90 pedal revolutions per minute if you can. If you’re grinding too hard a gear, your cadence will drop and power output will tail off. Try to anticipate big hills by shifting into a low (easy) gear just before you need it.

24. Team up

Find some riding buddies. That could mean joining a cycling club, persuading your mates to dust off their old bikes or showing them how to buy a used or second-hand bike online. Should they need convincing, roll out a handful of the great benefits of cycling. You’ll feel more motivated to get out and ride if you’ve got a pal to share it with.

25. Grin

Riding bikes is fun. Acknowledge other riders, enjoy yourself, then eat cake, and don’t worry too much about having the ‘right’ gear or the ‘best’ bike. The best bike out there is the one that you enjoy riding.

That’s it, our list of 25 cycling tips for beginners. Do you agree with them? Think we missed some out? We’d love you to tell us in the comments!

The term ‘VO2 max’ will be familiar to many cyclists, and most riders will know that it’s a metric that differentiates professional cyclists from amateurs. Simply put, VO2 max is a measurement of how much oxygen your body can use at maximal sustained output, so it has a crucial role to play in determining your ability as a rider.

Since a high VO2 max is widely considered to be a strong prerequisite for cycling performance, let’s take a closer look at what it is, why it matters and whether you can improve your VO2 max.

What is VO2 max?

Broadly speaking, power on the bike can be generated in two ways: ‘aerobically’ (using oxygen) and ‘anaerobically’ (without oxygen). The maximum rate of oxygen consumption is your VO2 max.

In other words, your VO2 max defines the size of your aerobic engine. The bigger this engine is, the more power can be produced via this energy system.

VO2 max is usually measured as the volume of oxygen (ml) that’s consumed per kg of body weight per minute, or ml/kg/min for short (a relative measurement). It can also be expressed without taking body weight into account too (an absolute measurement).

VO2 max is measured in the lab, but you can get an indication of how your VO2 max might be changing by testing your maximum power over five-to-six-minute efforts.

What’s a good VO2 max?

The average sedentary male has a VO2 max of 35 to 40ml/kg/min. For females, this is lower at 27 to 30ml/kg/min.

In contrast, elite male and female cyclists have much higher VO2 max measures of around 80 to 90ml/kg/min and 60 to 70ml/kg/min respectively.

For reference, Chris Froome reportedly has a VO2 max in the range of 80.2 to 88.2ml/kg/min, accounting for changes in weight, and 2020 Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar looks to sneak into the low 90s.

Impact of VO2 max on cycling performance

VO2 max matters for cyclists because the aerobic system is the most sustainable way to generate power.

In contrast, generating power ‘anaerobically’ is a time-limited system, and although quick to deliver energy, produces by-products that cause fatigue.

To generate 300 watts, for example, it’s better to produce that power aerobically rather than anaerobically because this will result in fewer fatiguing by-products and you will be able to sustain that power for longer.

Drilling down into the details, the key benefits of a high VO2 max include:

1. The ability to sustain medium-hard power outputs for longer due to lower production of fatiguing by-products
2. An improved maximal lactate steady-state (sometimes referred to as the lactate or anaerobic threshold), Functional Threshold Power (FTP) or critical power, which we’ll collectively refer to as maximal steady-state power
3. Better recovery from hard efforts, due to faster clearance and processing of fatiguing by-products

In short, VO2 max plays an important part in performance across almost all cycling disciplines, from short track sprints right up to long stage races.

Nature or nurture?

It’s not uncommon to hear that VO2 max is determined purely by genetics, and that it can’t be increased significantly through training.

While genetics do play a key role in determining VO2 max, and do ultimately impose a ceiling on how high a particular rider’s aerobic capacity can get, training also has a big impact.

Studies show that beginner cyclists can increase their VO2 max by around 10 to 20 per cent over a period of around four to 12 months with relatively minimal training (e.g. three times per week).

Of course, as you get fitter, it becomes harder to increase your VO2 max and you’ll typically need to increase your volume of training, and make your workouts more specific and targeted.

Elite athletes operate at or very close to their genetic maximum and so large jumps in aerobic capacity for them are very difficult to achieve.

However, in our experience, it’s pretty rare for the average cyclist who is fitting training around work and life commitments to hit their genetic ceiling, so VO2 max usually has some scope for improvement.

Other factors that impact VO2 max include gender (females have lower VO2 max values, as mentioned above) and age (VO2 max typically declines by 4 to 4.6ml/kg/min per decade beyond the age of 30).

On that note, when considering a realistic progression of VO2 max, age is certainly something to bear in mind. If you tested your VO2 max at age 30, and then again at age 50, and you’d managed to maintain the same VO2 max, then that would be a positive outcome. Relative to your age, you’d have improved your VO2 max, even though the actual value had not changed.

Sudden increases in altitude also impact VO2 max because the concentration of oxygen in the air is lower, and this slows the rate at which oxygen can be transferred from the lungs into the blood, although the body adapts to counteract this over time.

Similar adaptations are also achieved through EPO supplementation – a banned substance common in the blood-doping heyday, which increases the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

How to improve your VO2 max

If you’re fairly new to cycling, then just riding on a consistent basis can improve your VO2 max, and almost any kind of training will help.

However, once you’ve been consistently training for a while, you’ll need to become more focused with your workouts.

There are broadly two types of adaptations we’re looking to achieve when we’re training VO2 max:

• ‘Central’ adaptations, which relate to the delivery of oxygen via the lungs, heart and blood
• ‘Peripheral’ adaptations, which relate to adaptations at the muscles that improve their ability to take on and process the oxygen

Central adaptations respond best to intervals that allow you to spend as much time as possible close to your VO2 max.

Happily, you can get a rough idea of how much time you’re spending close to VO2 max by looking at heart rate. Any time you spend above 90 per cent of your maximum heart rate can be considered constructive VO2 max training time.

Peripheral adaptations, on the other hand, respond most strongly to volume and workout duration. The best type of session for developing this is long, steady riding at zone two (55 to 75 per cent FTP, or 60 to 70 per cent of your max heart rate), or base training.

Getting the right mix of these types of workouts is important. VO2 max-type intervals are hard work mentally and physically, and should be performed in moderation. A good mix for most cyclists is one to two interval sessions per week, keeping the remainder of your sessions to zone two (or lower).

It’s also worth keeping in mind that relative VO2 max depends on body weight, so if you maintain the same ability to process oxygen, but lose some weight, your VO2 max will also increase.

The bigger picture

While VO2 max is certainly important for cycling performance, there are other factors that feed into success too.

For Grand Tour contenders such as Froome, Roglič and Pogačar to climb fast in the mountains, they must be able to sustain high levels of power for a long time.

For this, they need to have a high maximal steady-state power, commonly estimated via an FTP test (power-to-weight ratio – or W/kg – is also crucial when climbing).

This maximal steady-state power is the point where production of those fatiguing byproducts mentioned above (including the substance ‘lactate’) equal the maximum rate at which those by-products can be cleared. Above this point, you fatigue quickly, but when riding at or below it, power can be sustained for a relatively long time.

Generally speaking, the closer the steady-state gets to the athletes’ VO2 max, the better.

For example, take a cyclist with a relative VO2 max of 75 ml/kg/min, who can only produce 60 per cent of that at their steady-state power, versus another athlete with a lower relative VO2 max of 70 ml/kg/min but who can sustain 75 per cent for extended periods. That latter athlete will usually out-perform the former head-to-head.

In contrast to amateur cyclists, who may be limited by their VO2 max and/or their maximal steady-state power (and the relationship between the two), elite riders possess both extraordinarily high VO2 max numbers and high maximal steady-state power numbers.

Other factors that feed into performance include the cyclist’s anaerobic capacity (the ability to produce very high power through the anaerobic system), and their efficiency (which is partly determined by physiology, but also by factors such as bike fit and equipment).

The bottom line is that VO2 max is a key metric most riders interested in improving their performance should look to increase, but a high VO2 max is only one of a number of factors that are important in cycling success.

Changing your saddle height right is the most important adjustment you can make to the fit of your bike. In this guide, we will explain how to determine your correct saddle height on a bicycle, including how to set the fore/aft position of the saddle, as well as tilt.

While this guide focuses on setting the saddle height for a road bike, it applies equally to mountain bikes, hybrids or any other type of bicycle.

One key note before we begin: there is no such thing as simply setting your bike saddle height’ and being done with it. However, there is such a thing as ‘setting your saddle’.

The difference? Seat height, the saddle’s fore/aft position, and tilt should all be addressed simultaneously to ‘set your bike seat’. Get all three of these things right and you’ll be set to have a comfortable and efficient ride. Get any of the three wrong and it can lead riders off the bike or riding in discomfort.

How to set saddle height on a bike

Let’s begin by determining where your bike seat is now by taking a couple of measurements so you can learn from the changes you make, and what the difference is between a good seat position, a better position and the best position possible.

The three critical measurements to consider are saddle height, fore/aft, and tilt.

There are several ways to measure these, but the methods described below allow anybody with a tape measure and a smartphone to accomplish this task.

It’s good practice to document your starting position before doing anything. It will come in handy in the future, especially if you find any changes you have made aren’t working for you – with your old position noted, you can go back to your starting point quickly.

The foundation for this measurement system is to eliminate saddle-specific features. It doesn’t account for the differences between seats because there is no such measurement, but it does allow you to measure any saddle accurately, and that’s a great starting point.

1. How to measure your bike’s saddle height

Use your tape measure to start at the centre-top of your saddle and measure in a straight line to the centre of your bottom bracket (ignore the seat tube angle – just follow the tape measure).

Some cranks are best measured from the driveside and some better from the non-driveside – either is fine.

Document your measurement to the millimetre (764mm, for example).

2. How to determine the saddle fore/aft position

Measure from the wall to the bottom bracket for measurement #1.

Measure from the wall to the tip of the saddle for measurement #2.

To calculate saddle setback, deduct measurement #1 from measurement #2.

3. How to determine saddle tilt

Because many seats have contours, the best way to get consistent measurements is to measure the overall seat tilt.

Place a piece of board over the seat and use your smartphone or inclinometer to find the overall seat tilt.

Double-check to see if your bike was level before you started. I recommend documenting to the nearest 1/10^th of a degree.

How to get the perfect saddle height on your bike

Once you have your three measurements, it’s time to get started.

There’s no shortage of ‘old school’ methods for seat height: the ‘Holmes method’, ‘Lemond method’, armpit on the saddle and fingertips to the centre of crank, and so on.

To some extent, these have all been discredited by new schools of thinking in bike fitting, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful.

Determining saddle height with the heel method

As a place to start, the ‘heel method’ is a very quick way to establish a baseline height. I still find it quite useful.

This process can be done in a doorway, or better yet with the bike on a stationary trainer.

Hop on the bike and place your heel on the pedal, in whatever shoes you plan on riding in.

Pedal forwards or backwards, but do it slowly. If the saddle is too high, you’ll not be able to pedal smoothly without having to rock your hips from side-to-side, overreaching. Move your saddle down 1 to 2cm at a time until this back and forth stops.

Conversely, if it’s easy to pedal smoothly, try going up a few centimetres at a time until you have to start reaching for the pedals. Once you’re reaching, start edging your saddle back down until you find yourself in an ideal starting height.

How to use an app to determine your saddle height

Leave the ‘heel method’ in the rear-view mirror and try putting your foot on the pedal as you would when riding. If this means clipping into clipless pedals, then go for it.

If you prefer to ride with flat pedals, then put about 1/3 of your foot in front of the pedal axle, and 2/3 behind.

At this point, a stationary trainer is pretty much a necessity if you want to give a proper evaluation of your seat height.

If you don’t have one, it’s still certainly possible, but requires help from a friend and some fancy smartphone camera action.

With the bike in a trainer, it’s time to snap a few photos/videos. I recommend downloading any one of a number of free apps for capturing and analysing motion.

The app I prefer is Hudl Technique, but there are plenty to choose from. Any app that can create still images from action will suffice.

Ride your bike for a few minutes, as you would on any daily rides, adjusting your position on the seat until it feels comfortable.

Once in position, you can begin capturing some imagery. The goal is to be able to quantify how much bend is in the knee throughout the pedal stroke, and to the approximate location of the centre of your knee.

Generally speaking, at full extension (which is not 6 o’clock – more like 5 o’clock) 30 to 40 degrees of knee bend is the generally accepted range.

If you’re feeling tension at the front of the knee or a large amount of work only from your quads, the seat height is a bit low.

If you feel a dull ache at your low back, or you can feel your hips rocking a bit, the saddle is likely too high.

Using the same images track to a point where the crank arm is forward-horizontal and look to the knee.

Approximate the centre of your knee, or the point where it appears to hinge. Where in relation to the pedal axle is your knee? In front, behind, or just above?

If it’s behind, try sliding your seat forward a bit, until the centre of the knee is vertically in line with your pedal axle. Do the opposite, of course, if your knee is in front of the pedal axle.

When you moved your seat forward or backward did it feel like the seat height change? If you moved your seat forward to move your knee forward, you’ll likely need to raise your seat, too. The opposite is, of course, true if you moved your seat rearward.

This little dance goes on until you’ve found something that feels smooth and balanced. No rocking back and forth, no muscle groups feeling like they’re doing more than their share of the work, and no aching knees or hips.

Now take your bike out for a few short spins and bring your hex keys with you.

A few small tweaks can help finalise a good position, but don’t overdo the first couple of rides or you’ll be minimising the opportunity for proper and painless adaptation.

Make the saddle work for you

All of this has been under a major assumption that your saddle properly supports your sit bones.

So, does it? Do you feel definitive pressure on the two sit bones of your pelvis? If not, it could be for two reasons:

1. Your saddle shape or width aren’t matching your anatomical structure, or
2. The tilt of the saddle isn’t enabling your sit bones to do their job.

If it’s the latter of the two that’s worth discussing, largely because you can check for yourself if your bike seat is actually right for you.

The tilt of the saddle is a determining factor for where pressure is applied to the pelvis. If the front of the seat is too high it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the sit bones to provide support.

Conversely, if the saddle is too far down at the front your sit bones can support you, but you’ll be sliding forward and subsequently applying too much pressure on your hands.

Use a piece of board and a digital inclinometer (or smartphone level app) to determine saddle tilt. Write it down! Make sure your bike is level and if not, take in to account the fact that it’s not. Now try moving things around to see what provides the most support, structurally speaking.

Most saddles fall into a 0- to 6-degree range, with positive (nose up) numbers rarely a possibility.

This is a bit of an arbitrary number, but I find it prevents extremes for new riders, which isn’t uncommon.

Sitting pretty

Now you’re all set.

If you still haven’t found true comfort after adjustments have been made, keep moving things around. Don’t forget to document your changes and how your body has responded.

If you’re not finding comfort within a few centimetres of your starting point it’s likely time to head to your local bike shop to investigate your seat shape and width.

Following the instruction above provides only a good starting point for setting your bike saddle up correctly. The way you move on the bike, what your lifestyle is like off the bike, and what types of self-care you engage in all dictate how you sit atop and pedal a bike.

Don’t listen to what worked for your friends, listen to your body. If something aches, try something new. If things are good, document the position and leave it alone!

When you start cycling, there’s a whole glossary of jargon to get your head around, and one of the most cryptic terms is “cadence”. What is cadence and why is it important to your riding?

What is cadence?

Cadence is fundamentally very simple: it’s the number of revolutions your pedals make per minute as you ride. But you don’t have to spend too long cycling to see that riders will often pedal at different rates.

Watch a bunch of pros in a race and they’ll seem to be pedalling really fast, particularly on a flat course. Their cadence will typically be very high, often 100 revolutions per minute (rpm) or more. 

Most will be pedalling slightly slower on a climb, but still much faster than the average cyclist. Chris Froome’s extreme climbing style is a prime example of this, with a cadence still often around 100rpm even going uphill.

On the other hand, the average recreational rider will typically pedal much slower, at around 60rpm, while a fit amateur might be doing 80 to 90rpm.

Does it matter whether you have a high or low cadence? Let’s take a closer look at why cadence matters, how you measure cadence and whether there’s an ideal cadence to aim for.

Why is cadence important?

Cadence is a key measurement because it’s a vital component in the power you put out on the bike. After all, power is a calculation of how hard you push on the pedals (torque) multiplied by how fast you are turning them (cadence).

Cycling at a lower cadence typically puts more strain on your muscles, while a higher cadence shifts the load more to your cardiovascular system, says Dr Xavier Disley of AeroCoach, who has researched cycling efficiency and cadence, working with a number of elite cyclists.

If you have a more muscular build, you’re likely to be more comfortable at a lower cadence, while a wiry rider will probably want to push a lower gear at higher revs. There’s an energy cost to just turning the legs, which will vary with your physique, Disley points out.

Experiments have shown that trying to ride faster at a lower cadence (in a high/difficult gear) is more likely to lead to muscle strains and muscle soreness after a ride than achieving the same speed at a faster cadence, but with a lower load. 

On the other hand, too fast a cadence and you’re likely to find your pelvis rocking, which could lower pedalling efficiency. You’ll also tire quickly.

Measuring cadence

The simplest way to measure your cadence is just to count how many times your legs go up and down in a minute. But for a more accurate record, there are electronic devices (cadence sensors) you can use. 

Many cadence sensors for bikes are designed to attach to the left-side chainstay. A magnet attached to your crank arm passes the sensor, which in turn records how many times it goes past and then sends a signal to your bike computer. You will then have a record of your cadence over time, which you can analyse as your training progresses.

Wahoo’s RPM Cadence sensor, on the other hand, attaches to your crank and works as a standalone unit, transmitting cadence data to your computer.

And if you have a power meter, this will measure cadence and send the data to your computer too. Some bikes come with an integrated cadence sensor.

What is the ideal cycling cadence?

In truth, there isn’t one. The ‘ideal’ cadence depends on a number of factors and can vary from one rider to another.

Measuring in a lab how much power cyclists can put out relative to the energy they’re using shows that most cyclists will self-select their optimal cadence, says Disley. 

Experience also matters, and riders who have logged lots of miles in the saddle will likely have found a range of cadences that work for them, depending on the terrain and demands of a particular ride.

Disley also points out it’s important to experiment with different cadences to find your optimum – and one cadence may not be best across all situations.

Time trialists, for example, tend to use a higher cadence in shorter events than they do in longer tests, Disley says. “Your aim should be to improve your cadence, rather than just to increase it,” he adds.

There are also benefits to varying your cadence in training sessions to improve your cycling technique and provoke specific adaptations.

Using a high cadence at lower loads will train your neuromuscular system to pedal more smoothly, while a lower-cadence/higher-load session will help to increase your strength. 

Riding rollers is a good way to smooth your ride style, while structured drills are better than long, steady rides to get your legs spinning smoothly and efficiently. 

Want to know more? The training sessions below will help you to pedal more efficiently.

Two training drills to improve your cadence

We asked Matt Rowe of Rowe and King to recommend two training sessions to work on different aspects of cadence: one to build strength and one to improve pedalling fluidity.

He’s coached pro cyclists and is an advocate of indoor training.

1. Pedalling fluidity and coordination 

Rowe recommends a 20-minute session of 4x (4 minutes at 120rpm + 1 minute easy).

For the whole 20-minute block, keep your upper body as still as possible. A strong core is key. Allow power transfer to come from the waist down.

You can then rest and repeat the block for a second time if you feel adventurous, Rowe says.

2. Strength endurance session

To build your strength, Rowe recommends a lower-cadence drill with high power output.

2x 15-minute blocks at 89 to 90 per cent of FTP, at a cadence of 50 to 60rpm. If you’re not familiar with FTP (Functional Threshold Power) read our guide.

The lower the cadence and higher the power, the more torque is created. So, over time, as you progress you can nudge the power up and decrease the cadence.  

Rest well between each block (between 10 and 15 minutes) for full recovery.

Marginal gains

Get into elite-level cycling and it’s not just about cadence and power output.

Expert bike fitter Andy Sexton of Bike Science points out that elite time-trialists and triathletes are going so fast that a small increase in power output from a faster cadence will be more than outweighed if that stops a rider being able to maintain an optimal aero position.

Cadence will also vary with the type of riding: a track sprinter will put up with a much more extreme riding position and cadence for a handful of seconds in a sprint relative to a pro road rider who’s in the saddle for hours.

Meanwhile, physiotherapist Phil Burt, who has worked at British Cycling and Team Sky supporting elite Olympic and pro cyclists, points out that crank length is also an important determinant of cadence because it contributes to the rider’s gearing.

It’s easier to maintain a higher cadence with shorter cranks, Burt says, and there’s a trend for triathletes to ride short cranks for smoother power delivery at higher revs.

Crank length is typically determined by frame size on off-the-shelf bikes, but this may be an appropriate component to swap for riders looking to fine-tune their pedal stroke.

Power-to-weight ratio is one of the key metrics that determines how quickly a cyclist can climb uphill.

Of course, the total power output you can produce plays a role in determining your overall cycling performance, but raw wattage alone doesn’t always tell the entire story, especially when climbing hills comes into the equation.

This is where your power-to-weight ratio – expressed as watts-per-kilogram – is key.

Normalising your power output to your body weight can provide a better means of assessing your ability over hilly terrain and comparing your performance to other cyclists.

Here, we’ll look at how to calculate your own power-to-weight ratio, how to improve it and what effect that improvement can have on your cycling performance.

Calculating power-to-weight ratio

Your power-to-weight ratio can be calculated as watts (W) divided by your body weight in kilograms (kg), expressed as W/kg.

All you need to do is take the power output you can sustain for a given duration or at a certain physiological threshold (we’ll come on to that) and divide it by your body weight in kilograms to find your own W/kg.

The watts used in this calculation will most commonly refer to your power output at your maximal steady-state power, which could be an identified lactate concentration (e.g. 4 mmol/L), critical power or, most commonly, Functional Threshold Power (FTP).

For example, if you complete an FTP test and your Functional Threshold Power is determined to be 250 watts, and you weigh 75kg, your power-to-weight ratio here will be 3.33 W/kg.

While lactate concentration, critical power and FTP are slightly different to one another, they are all essentially trying to identify a maximal point at which exercise intensity can be maintained without the rapid onset of fatigue.

At the same time, your W/kg over shorter and longer durations can just as easily be calculated to see how you stack up in other types of effort – for example, on a single hill or over the course of an entire event or ride.

Other common durations of comparison include your W/kg over one minute (roughly indicating your anaerobic capacity) and five minutes (roughly indicating your aerobic capacity, or VO2 max).

Why does W/kg matter?

As mentioned above, your power-to-weight ratio really starts to affect performance when climbing comes into the picture.

That’s because, when climbing, the dominant source of resistance to your forward motion is gravity.

The gravitational force you have to overcome is dependent on your body weight. So producing 300W as a 60kg person (5 W/kg) will get you up the hill faster than producing 300W as a 90kg person (3.3 W/kg).

In contrast, when riding on the flat, the dominant source of resistance to your forward motion is air resistance. This increases with speed and also depends on your frontal area (i.e. how big you are).

In this case, body weight has a small indirect impact, because bigger people are often heavier. But this impact is much less than for climbing and, ultimately, it’s usually raw power that makes the difference on the flat rather than W/kg.

A cyclist’s power-to-weight ratio isn’t just a relevant metric for riders who want to climb faster in the real world.

The virtual roads and trails found on indoor cycling apps, such as Zwift, RGT Cycling and Rouvy, use your W/kg as a major determinant in how fast you go, and thus having a good W/kg can help you win Zwift races and stay up at the front in virtual group rides on hilly courses.

Zwift also uses W/kg to categorise races and group rides, so you can find a group to match your ability.

What’s a good power-to-weight ratio?

Now that you have some idea about how your power-to-weight can affect performance, what do good numbers actually look like for different ability levels?

A power profile chart is commonly used to compare different ability categories in terms of power-to-weight ratio.

Power-to-weight ratio chart

(Values shown are in W/kg. Adapted from Allen & Cooper et al. 2010)

Your W/kg across the different durations can give some insights into where you are most/least naturally talented or where you need to improve to achieve your goals. You can then use this information to create a training plan.

However, it’s worth noting that you’re unlikely to excel across all durations.

An FTP of more than 6 W/kg is commonly associated with professional cyclists who specialise in climbing. However, these cyclists often have weaker 5-sec and 1-min W/kg values compared to sprinters, due to their muscles being heavily adapted to aerobic metabolism.

Similarly, these sprinters will have lower W/kg ratios at their FTP due to factors such as greater muscle mass and larger anaerobic capacities.

Ultimately, a W/kg chart like this can give you a good idea of how you stack up against other cyclists, what durations you’re most suited to and where you might want to focus your training.

How to improve your power-to-weight ratio

When looking to improve your power-to-weight ratio, perhaps with the goal of becoming a faster climber on the bike, this can be achieved by increasing your power output, lowering your body weight or ideally accomplishing both at the same time.

Reducing your body weight is ideally achieved by reducing body fat (rather than muscle), which can be done by ensuring you have a small energy deficit between what you eat and how much you burn, and following a diet that allows you to do this over the long-term.

In general, diets that help achieve this are relatively high in protein (e.g. between 1 to 1.5g/kg of body weight), fruit, vegetables and wholegrains.

These foods are filling but also relatively light in calories, and the moderately high protein intake can also help conserve your muscle mass during weight loss.

If you’re training quite a lot, you’ll also want to make sure you’re getting in a good proportion of carbohydrates in order to fuel high-intensity workouts and support your immune system (between 6 to 10g/kg of bodyweight depending on training volume).

Training to improve power output will differ depending on the duration you’re targeting (e.g. W/kg over one minute versus W/kg over one hour). However, many cyclists aim to improve their W/kg at their maximal steady-state power (e.g. FTP).

Training to improve your power at your maximum steady-state is best achieved through:

1. Long, low-intensity base training rides at around 55 to 75 per cent FTP or 68 to 83 per cent threshold heart rate (useful if you’re using training zones), which helps reduce lactate production and improve lactate clearance.
2. Intervals at around your threshold power or heart rate, which help improve your ability to clear lactate. We particularly like intervals that alternate between intensities just above and just below your threshold.
3. Intervals that allow you to elevate your heart rate close to maximum and hold it there for several minutes, helping to develop your aerobic capacity, which impacts how much lactate you produce and clear. We particularly like intervals that start hard (e.g. 120 to 130 per cent FTP or 8 to 9/10 effort) for a few minutes. Then you can adjust your intensity to whatever is required to hold your heart rate above 90 per cent max for a further four to six minutes.

FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power, which is defined as the highest average power you can sustain for approximately an hour, measured in watts.

FTP is one of the most common training metrics used in cycling and is frequently used by coaches as a benchmark metric and to determine training zones when using a power meter, while the latest training apps also use FTP to set workouts and training plans when using a smart trainer.

In this guide, we’ll look at how to determine your FTP, what you can do with that number, and how to improve your FTP. We’ll also consider why FTP might not always be the best number to use to guide your training effectively.

How to determine your FTP

Indoor cycling apps such as TrainerRoad, Wahoo SYSTM and Zwift use Functional Threshold Power to calibrate workout intensities. For example, Zwift may call for three-minute intervals at 120 per cent of your FTP, with two-minute recoveries in between.

Cycling coaches use FTP in the same way – to measure progress and to personalise specific training intensities. This is the same process whether working with WorldTour team riders or keen amateurs.

The previous standard, lactate threshold, involved measuring blood lactate every few minutes while ramping up intensity on a trainer.

Dr Andrew Coggan, co-author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter, created the FTP standard as a more practical approach. In functionality, training to lactate threshold and FTP are very similar.

“FTP has become the gold standard,” says Scott Moninger, a former professional cyclist and coach for Velocious Cycling Adventures. “Whereas a few years ago you had to go into a lab, now you can get that number with a power meter and a 20-minute field test.

“In a perfect world, I’d get a cyclist to do a 60-minute time trial, but I can’t ask people to do that,” Moninger says. “Even if you removed the realities of traffic and stoplights, a 60-minute time trial is very difficult to do.”

So Moninger and most others use a 20-minute field test with a power meter.

How to find your FTP with a 20-minute test

To measure your FTP, you need a bike with a power meter or a smart trainer with an integrated power meter. A bike with a power meter is ideal because you are generally able to generate more power outside than when you’re on a fixed bike inside.

The key, however, is to make the test repeatable, so you have consistent results from one test to the next.

After a good warm-up, including one or two hard efforts of four to five minutes, ride as hard as is sustainable for 20 minutes.

Moninger recommends finding a road grade of anywhere between 2 and 4 per cent if possible because this will engage more of your glutes and back muscles and result in the best possible power.

“I see differences of between five and 15 watts, depending on the person,” Moninger says. “It’s the same with a trainer, and it’s the same reason power on a time-trial bike is lower, even for the best TT riders in the world.”

Once home, go back and look at your average power for that 20-minute effort. You can use Garmin Connect, Strava, TrainingPeaks or Golden Cheetah to do this.

You can also just use your Garmin, Wahoo or any other compatible bike computer – just remember to start and stop a lap for your 20-minute effort.

Once you have your average 20-minute power, subtract 5 per cent and you have your FTP.

What can you do with your FTP?

Learn what effort levels are sustainable for different durations

The first time you do a 20-minute test, you will probably start out too hard and see your wattage number gradually fade – even if the effort feels the same, start to finish.

This shows why it’s helpful to have a power meter quantify your power production instead of just relying on feel.

The more you ride with a power meter, the more you will understand your abilities. Starting a 20-minute climb? Let your buddies blow themselves up going hard for the first couple of minutes while you carefully pace out your effort, riding at your FTP.

Chris Froome has received plenty of flack over the years for staring at his computer during critical Tour de France stages as he monitors his effort. But you know what? He rode within his capabilities – and he’s won the Tour four times.

Measure your improvement

How do you know if you’re getting fitter and faster? Because you beat your training buddy up a hill? Or because you bettered your time at your local time trial?

These are useful, but not exactly scientific. Your buddy could have been under the weather and the TT might have had a screaming tailwind. Measuring your FTP is similar to standing on a bathroom scale – that number ain’t gonna lie.

Moninger recommends testing your FTP every four to six weeks during the season.

How your FTP compares to another rider’s is irrelevant. The highest FTP is not what wins a race. The highest power-to-weight ratio will likely win a hill climb and the highest power-to-drag ratio will likely win a flat time trial. But the FTP number in and of itself is not a comparative metric – it’s your personal number for specific training.

Speaking of that bathroom scale, if your FTP is going up and your weight is going down, you are going to go faster. Period.

Calibrate your training zones

One of the first things training software programs will prompt you for is your FTP.

Plug in this number and the program will do the rest, whether this is TrainerRoad, Zwift or something else. Many of these programs have built-in tests to help you measure your FTP (Zwift offers either a 20-minute FTP test or a ramp test).

If you are using a training plan from a book, a magazine, a coach or elsewhere, it will prescribe training by zones. Usually, there are six or seven zones (depending on the coach’s or company’s particular philosophy).

For training with power, these are based on your FTP and are often determined like this:

When you hear people talk about doing a tempo ride, or an endurance ride, what they are talking about is training in those specific zones.

Training zones can be just as important for easy training days as hard ones, helping you to recover effectively and avoid overtraining.

Cyclists are often guilty of going too hard on easy days and are then unable to go as hard as needed on very hard days.

• Read more on training zones

How to improve your FTP

In short, train. Instead of just riding along and hoping for the best, spend time riding in zones three and four.

Cyclists will naturally settle into riding at endurance pace (often referred to as base training), which is helpful for building a solid base for long, steady rides. But the biggest gains for FTP come by pushing near or above that threshold.

Frank Overton, founder and head coach at FasCat Coaching, has, for a decade now, been a big proponent of sweetspot training as a way to raise FTP and generally be more productive with your training time.

He and other coaches define the ‘sweetspot’ as an overlap between the top end of zone three (or ‘tempo’ riding) and the low end of zone four.

Overton recommends working sweetspot training into group rides or climbing efforts, but for those who want specific intervals he suggests:

• 4 x 15 minutes between 84 and 97 per cent of FTP; 10 minutes easy riding between efforts
• 2 x 20 minutes between 84 and 97 per cent of FTP; five minutes easy riding between efforts

Sales of indoor trainers have exploded, with major bike retailers reporting increases of between 500 and 1,000 per cent in the UK in 2020.

Smart trainers account for a large proportion of these sales, where “smart” refers to the ability of a computer program or app to talk to the trainer and control the bike’s resistance without the need for a rider to shift gears.

One notable feature of smart trainers is the ability to ride a workout in ‘ERG mode’, so let’s take a look at exactly what ERG mode is, why and when you might want to use it, as well as the key advantages and disadvantages it can offer.

What is ERG mode?

ERG mode is a setting in training platforms such as Zwift, TrainerRoad and Wahoo SYSTM that fixes your power output by automatically adjusting your resistance to match your cadence.

Power is a calculation of torque (how hard you’re pressing on the pedals) multiplied by cadence (how fast they are turning). ERG mode uses the two in tandem to ensure you hit the prescribed power output.

As an example, if a workout requires you to hold 200 watts, the resistance will automatically increase if your cadence drops, or decrease if your cadence increases, in order to keep you at 200 watts.

This is in contrast with other trainer modes, where the onus is on you to adjust your resistance and cadence in order to hit your target power.

Perhaps not surprisingly, ERG mode only works with pre-built workouts because it requires a target power to be defined, otherwise the trainer wouldn’t know how much resistance to apply.

However, the latest indoor cycling apps offer a wide range of workouts and training plans, and also allow you to build your own.

Benefits of ERG mode

One of the big advantages of ERG mode is that you don’t need to think (much) about your workout, which can be helpful if you’re riding at the end of a tiring day. Just start the workout and pedal.

The only thing you really need to focus on is keeping your cadence in a comfortable range, and not varying this too much.

ERG mode is particularly appealing for interval workouts, and for good reason.

First, using ERG mode is helpful for people who struggle to pace their efforts and regulate their power. There’s often a temptation to go harder than planned over the first few intervals, which might mean you can’t complete the last few. ERG mode prevents this by fixing the power in the correct range.

Second, ERG mode can help you hang on over the last few seconds of an interval, where you may ordinarily have given up. Think of it like an automated training companion, keeping you pushing right up to the last second.

By fixing your power to hit a pre-determined output, both during an interval and recovery, ERG mode also allows you to target specific training adaptations, whether you’re working on your VO2 max or improving your sprinting.

You can use ERG mode in conjunction with your training zones to set the precise output for a particular workout (training apps will do this for you), helping you get the most out of a short training session – one of the key benefits of indoor cycling.

While people tend to use ERG mode mostly for interval training, another important benefit it offers is keeping riders ‘reigned in’ during lower-intensity rides, including base training, where there can be a tendency to go harder than is necessary to stimulate the desired adaptations.

Drawbacks of ERG mode

One major drawback of ERG mode is that it’s based on a fixed percentage of FTP.

However, FTP changes from day to day, depending on factors such as fatigue, sleep, nutrition, hydration and so on. This means on some days your power targets in your workout might be a little too high, and on others they might be a little too low. Some apps, including Zwift, allow you to adjust the difficulty of an interval session during the workout.

Riding too often in ERG mode can also limit development of skills that are important in the real world. These include the ability to gauge your effort level and determine appropriate pacing, controlling your power output through appropriate gear selection and cadence, and having the mental fortitude to push hard entirely of your own volition.

While it’s great to be able to ride a workout without too much thinking involved, sometimes the focus needed in continually adjusting your own resistance and cadence to meet your power targets can add interest to a session.

So, switching off ERG mode every now and again, if you use it often, might be a good call if you’ve got a long indoor session to get through.

Spiral of death

Another downside of ERG mode is that intervals can sometimes feel harder, particularly if you start to fatigue and cadence drops outside a comfortable range.

At the extreme of this, you can get stuck in a spiral, where cadence drops with fatigue, leading to increased resistance and force demands on your legs. This is sometimes called the ‘spiral of death’, and can result in you grinding to a complete halt.

It pays to be aware of these limitations when getting started with ERG mode so that you can use it to its full potential and get the best experience from using it in your training platform of choice.

When to use ERG mode

ERG mode is suitable for most types of workouts, so if you enjoy riding with ERG mode, it’s good to use most of the time.

At the same time, it can be helpful to perform at least some of your interval workouts without ERG mode on. This will help you both assess whether your interval power targets are appropriate or might be holding you back too much, and develop some of those real-world skills mentioned above.

From a practical perspective, ERG mode can be slow to adjust to changes in your target power, which can be problematic if you’re doing short intervals, and in this case riding without ERG may be best.

Zwift is an online cycling game and training program that enables users to ride, train and compete in a virtual world.

Aimed at eliminating the excruciating boredom of simply sitting on the trainer and staring at the wall, Zwift has exploded in popularity since its release in 2014.

Indoor cycling is all the rage at the moment. It seems like every cycling brand now has something to offer this burgeoning market, with recent releases including indoor bikes from Wahoo, Stages and SRM, and indoor-specific cycling kit from Madison and Le Col.

There are a number of different indoor cycling apps available, but Zwift is arguably the most fully featured, and almost certainly the most popular – reports suggest that more than half a million people have signed up for an account so far.

More and more features are continuously being added to Zwift, which is mostly great because it brings a lot of value to an already impressive package. But it can also make knowing how and where to start quite daunting.

There’s no need to worry though. We’ve done a mountain of research and have put together a comprehensive guide to the virtual training and racing platform. Here’s everything you need to know about Zwift.

• Best smart trainers
• Best cycling apps | iPhone and Android apps to download

What is Zwift?

Zwift is an online, interactive training and racing platform. Your pedalling on a trainer drives your avatar around a virtual course. The harder you pedal, the faster you go.

Zwift has nine different worlds (more on these later), and within each you can navigate the roads as you go.

You can ride with thousands of other riders inside Zwift. You can join group rides and races – and even get a draft from other riders – or just join the world and jump on with other riders when you want to. You can also do structured power-based workouts.

It features a multitude of gamified elements that encourage you to ride longer and harder, with the goal of increasing your fitness. Zwift’s catchphrase is ‘Fun is fast’.

Of course, if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, there are many other great apps to try, such as RGT Cycling, Wahoo Systm, TrainerRoad and Rouvy.

How does Zwift work?

Zwift takes the input from your bike – either via a power meter, a smart trainer or just a speed/cadence sensor using ANT+ or Bluetooth – and uses an algorithm to translate your input data into your avatar’s speed on the virtual course.

It takes into account your weight, your power or calculated power, the road gradient and the draft, or lack thereof, from other riders.

You can use Zwift on a computer (PC or Mac), an iPhone, an iPad or an Android smartphone or tablet.

Zwift is now also compatible with Apple TV, so if you’ve got one of those (and your partner/roommate doesn’t mind), you can set yourself up right in front of the TV.

What equipment do I need to use Zwift?

The basic list of equipment you need is:

• A bike (or smart bike)
• A trainer or a set of rollers
• An ANT+ or Bluetooth measurement tool: a power meter, smart trainer or speed/cadence sensor
• A computer, smartphone or tablet with Bluetooth or ANT+ (or an ANT+ USB dongle)

As the main source of input data for the virtual world, the ANT+ or Bluetooth measurement tool you use is really the key piece of equipment (after your bike, obviously).

If you’re really committed to your indoor training (and have the required cash lying around), then you can get a dedicated indoor bike.

High-end smart bikes such as the Stages Cyling SB20, Wattbike Atom and Wahoo Kickr Bike, offer fully integrated indoor training solutions for those looking to squeeze every last watt out of their virtual training and racing sessions.

A smart trainer is the next option. Like an indoor smart bike, a smart trainer will measure your power directly and transmit that data straight to Zwift.

Beyond simply measuring power, smart trainers are also able to simulate course gradients – changing the resistance according to the slope – and can be controlled by Zwift in Workout mode to make sure you’re hitting the prescribed wattages of a training session (again, more on this later).

Smart trainers still aren’t cheap, but prices have come down in recent years as the market has become more competitive. If you want to know how to get the most out of Zwift on a budget, be sure to check out our guide.

If you have a power meter, you can make do with any kind of trainer or rollers. Zwift will use the data from your power meter to calculate your in-game speed, but obviously you’ll miss out on simulated gradients and controlled Workouts that come with using an indoor training bike or smart trainer.

A speed/cadence sensor is the most basic option and allows you to use your regular bike (with no power meter) attached to a conventional trainer. Zwift will then crunch the numbers to estimate your power. It’s not the most accurate or realistic option, of course, but it does have one major advantage: it’s the cheapest way to get started on Zwift.

For more on this topic, check out our guide to the best Zwift setups for every rider.

How do I get started on Zwift?

First, you need to sign up for an account.

Using your Mac or PC, you can do it online on the Zwift website. On a tablet or smartphone, you can download the Zwift app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, and sign up through that.

You can sign up for a subscription (£12.99 / $14.99 per month) straight away or start a free seven-day trial.

If you’re using a computer or Apple TV for Zwift, we also recommend downloading the Zwift Companion app from the App Store or Google Play. This app puts a number of convenient features at your fingertips, such as changing the direction of your avatar and messaging other Zwifters.

The Companion app is also a great way of exploring and signing up for the many events that Zwift offers – such as group rides, group workouts and races.

Once that’s all set up, and you have the app running, you need to pair your devices. These should appear on screen as clickable options once you’ve woken them up.

Next, you simply choose which world you want to ride in.

What courses can I ride on Zwift?

There are currently nine different worlds in regular use on Zwift:

• Watopia
• France
• Innsbruck
• London
• Makuri Islands
• New York
• Paris
• Richmond
• Yorkshire

Each of these worlds has a number of preset courses for you to ride, or you can just pedal freely around each map.

There is a catch, though. On any particular day, there will only be three worlds available to ride: Watopia (Zwift’s original and most fully featured virtual world) and two ‘guest worlds’ (two of the others).

This might sound restrictive, but Zwift is designed to be a social platform, and this stops the user base spreading out too thinly across the platform. With this feature in place, you’ll always have other people to ride with (and against).

If you want to know when a particular world will be available to ride, you can see the schedule for the coming month on the right of the World Choice screen.

Alternatively, you can schedule rides with your friends in any of the eight worlds using the Meetups feature in the Zwift Companion app (more on this later).

There are also two other event-only world maps:

• Bologna
• Crit City

These two maps are not part of Zwift’s regular ‘guest world’ rotation and can only be accessed via in-game events such as races (more on Zwift racing below).

How do I join a group ride on Zwift?

Once set up and ready to go, you can start exploring Zwift’s virtual world as you please, but there’s also the option to join a group ride.

When you log in to Zwift, you’ll see a list of upcoming rides and races on the upper-right of the Mac/PC screen. On the Companion app, you can see a more detailed list with descriptions, times and more information. You can also go to zwift.com/events for a full list.

To join, just click the ride. On most group rides you can self-select the level of intensity, from A to D (we’ve outlined what these categories mean in the racing section below). Group rides are categorised to ensure everyone rides together.

If you are not yet riding, you can receive a reminder. If you are already riding and an event is starting soon, you can join, and when the start time gets close, your avatar will be transported to the start line, where you can warm up on a virtual trainer while waiting to start.

In the start corral, you can see the other riders who will be doing the event and your instant message chats will be seen only by others in that group.

Most events have a ride leader you can follow, and you can read their comments on screen as you go. For mellower rides, the group leader often communicates to keep the group together.

Pace Partners

If you don’t want to join an organised event but still want someone to ride with, you can now choose to ride with a Pace Partner. These are bots that ride around Watopia and the Makur Islands at a predetermined pace.

Riders can join and leave at any time, for a convenient and impromptu group ride. The size of the group each bot has with them depends on how many other Zwifters are choosing to ride with them at any point in time.

There are currently four Pace Partners:

1. D. Dan: 1.5 w/kg. Casual group ride with a few gentle hills
2. C. Cadence: 2.5 w/kg. Moderately paced group ride with occasional hills
3. B. Brevet: 3.3 w/kg. Expert group ride with lots of climbs
4. A. Anquetil: 4.2 w/kg. Elite group ride on a hard route. Expect lots of tough climbs

For full details on when the different Pace Partners are available, visit Zwift.com.

Can I race on Zwift?

Yes, you can race on Zwift. Doing so is as easy as joining any other event or group ride on the calendar – you simply choose a race from the events list, choose which category you want to compete in and sign up.

Categories for racing are based on Functional Threshold Power (FTP), in watts per kilogram (w/kg):

• A = 4.0w/kg and above
• B = 3.2–3.9w/kg
• C = 2.5–3.1w/kg
• D = 2.4w/kg and below

If you don’t know your FTP, you can use one of the FTP tests available on Zwift’s Workouts page – full details can be found in our how to take an FTP test on Zwift guide.

Once you’ve selected a category and signed up for a race, Zwift will automatically take you to the race start when the race is about to begin.

Have your water bottles, an XL fan and towel ready, because if you have to stop mid-race, you’ll get dropped and left behind immediately.

Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get warmed up too, Zwift races are notorious for starting fast – some people even pump up the watts just before the start to get a jump on everyone else.

Be aware that drafting also happens, even in virtual racing! Try to use this to your advantage, just like in the real world.

What does w/kg mean?

W/kg simply means ‘watts divided by kilograms’. It’s also known as your ‘power-to-weight ratio’, and it’s a key figure in determining performance on a bike in both Zwift and the real world.

On a flat road, the absolute amount of power someone can produce is a key metric. But when the road goes uphill you also have to overcome the force of gravity, and the greater your total mass (body and bike), the more power is required to accelerate to, or maintain, a certain speed.

With that in mind, the wattage you can produce per kilo of body weight becomes the key metric on any significant hill.

Zwift uses your w/kg at FTP firstly to determine how fast your avatar moves in the virtual world, especially uphill. Beyond that, it also uses w/kg at FTP to set categories and intensity levels for group rides, races, workouts and training plans.

As you might have figured out, it’s pretty easy to cheat the system by simply entering your weight as lower than it really is. But, as the old saying goes, you’d only be cheating yourself…

What are PowerUps?

PowerUps are one of the ways Zwift gamifies the platform. They give you either an immediate quantity of experience points (XP), or a way to temporarily boost your avatar’s speed.

They’re awarded randomly whenever you pass through a start/finish, KOM/QOM or sprint arch. A bit like on Mario Kart, if you already have an unused PowerUp when you pass through an arch, you won’t get another.

There are currently nine different PowerUps in Zwift:

• Large Bonus: Instantly gives you 250 XP points
• Small Bonus: Instantly gives you 10XP points
• Feather Lightweight: Symbolised by a feather, this reduces your weight by 10 per cent for 15 seconds. Best saved for use on a steep climb, where it will make the biggest difference to your speed
• Truck Draft Boost: Symbolised by a van, increases the effect of drafting other riders by 50 per cent for 30 seconds. This is a PowerUp for riding at speed on the flats, where drafting has the biggest effect
• Helmet Aero Boost: Reduces your avatar’s aerodynamic drag by 25 per cent for 15 seconds. This is useful when riding solo on the flat or at high speeds
• Breakaway Burrito: Makes you ‘undraftable’ for 10 seconds. Best used when trying to break away from a group
• Invisibility: Symbolised by a ghost, this makes you invisible to other riders for 10 seconds. Best used when trying to break away from a group or solo rider – try to establish a gap before you reappear and everyone realises what you’ve done
• Steamroller: This power-up is limited to off-road events in Watopia’s Jungle Circuit and offers a significant reduction to your avatar’s rolling resistance for 30 seconds. It essentially makes riding on dirt roads as easy as riding on tarmac
• Anvil: The opposite of the Featherweight PowerUp, the Anvil makes your avatar 50kg heavier for 30 seconds. Best used on descents to maximise your speed

PowerUps can be activated at any time by hitting the spacebar on your computer, or via the Zwift Companion app – just touch the on-screen PowerUp icon. Once activated, timed PowerUps will show a timer for how long your PowerUp has left to run.

If you’re in the middle of a structured workout, or on a TT bike, you can only acquire Small and Large Bonus PowerUps – so you can’t use them to make your training any easier, sadly.

Can I use Zwift for structured workouts?

Absolutely, this is one of Zwift’s key features.

Zwift has hundreds of structured workouts (which are essentially interval training sessions) to choose from – or you can build your own – and you can even sign up for long-term training plans.

You can choose a plan to target specific events or weaknesses, such as ‘TT-Tune Up’ – which, as the name suggests, focuses on the aerobic power and top-end fitness required for time trialling.

Or there are broader plans such as ‘FTP Builder’, designed to increase your general fitness and Functional Threshold Power in a short amount of time.

These plans have been put together by real coaches and are designed to be flexible, so if life gets hectic, you can easily move sessions around to fit in with everything going on in the real world.

All structured training on Zwift is based around your w/kg at FTP, so you really need some sort of power measuring device – a smart indoor bike, smart trainer or power meter – to get the most out of this feature.

If you’re on a smart indoor bike, or a smart trainer, then there’s an option to allow Zwift to control the resistance in ERG mode.

This will override any changes in course gradient and change the resistance according to the specified wattages in the workout. This is a great way to ensure you’re hitting the prescribed wattage and getting the most out of every training session.

If you don’t have a power measuring device, Zwift will try to approximate your power output using data from your speed/cadence sensor and information about whatever trainer you’re using. As these numbers are just estimates, though, the training zones and data generated won’t be as accurate as they could be.

How do I do a Zwift workout?

To do a workout on Zwift, log in, then click on ‘Training’ underneath the ‘World Choice’ section in the middle of the window.

This will open up a new window, where you’ll see two tabs. One for single workouts and another for training plans with multiple sessions.

If you’ve already set your FTP, then you can simply select a workout and get going.

If you’re new to Zwift, it’s worth doing an FTP test to get an accurate baseline figure for Zwift to base your workouts around.

In addition to workouts that you do on your own, at any time, there are also scheduled group workouts. Like a group ride in the real world, these start at fixed times (and you have to sign up for them in advance via the events page) and involve multiple participants.

Unlike the group rides and races, though, group workouts keep everyone together in a group. As long as you are pedalling, you stay in the bunch.

As with the individual workouts, your efforts are based on your FTP. However, in group workouts, Zwift tethers everyone together so the end result is like being in an indoor cycling class: you are all following the same workout together, but at different individual efforts according to your fitness.

The group chat function works well here, in that the only messages you see (and send) are to the group.

How do I upload my Zwift rides to Strava?

You can link your Zwift account with Strava, and ensure your efforts appear on the KOM/QOM leaderboards.

There are two ways to do it. On the Zwift Companion app (on an iOS or Android device ) or via zwift.com.

On the Zwift Companion app, tap ‘More’ in the bottom right corner, then tap into ‘Settings’. From there, tap ‘Connections’ and you’ll find Strava at the top of the list. Simply tap the + icon and you’ll be asked to enter your login details for Strava.

Once that’s done, your accounts will be synced and your Zwift rides will upload to Strava automatically.

You’ll know you’re connected if the Strava logo appears in colour and the + sign has changed to a tick.

On zwift.com, the process is very similar. Log in to your account, then click on ‘Settings’ in the top-left corner.

In Settings, click on ‘Connections’. Click on ‘Connect’ under the Strava logo and enter your Strava log-in details when prompted.

You’ll then automatically be directed back to Zwift, where the Strava logo should now be in colour, instead of greyed out.

How do I customise my Zwift avatar and bike?

Yes, we’re all individuals! In Zwift, you can customise the appearance of your rider and your bike. Head to the Preferences section of the menu and you can toggle through a number of choices for how your avatar and bike look in the ‘Drop Shop’.

As you ride and complete challenges, you’ll earn XP and in-game currency (known as Drops). As you level up, you’ll unlock more bikes and wheels on which to spend the currency you earn. Be warned, though, if you want the best bikes, you’ll need to put in a lot of hours on the bike (unless you’re willing to resort to more nefarious means).

Locked bikes and wheels can also be more aerodynamic or lighter (and sometimes both) than the basic kit available when you start. So the kit you unlock will actually make a difference to your avatar’s speed in the virtual world, not just how it looks.

To unlock the BikeRadar kit in Zwift, simply press “P” after you sign in and enter the code “BIKERADAR”. The kit will then be available for your avatar via the normal customisation options.

How do I chat in Zwift?

When using a computer, press ‘M’ and then just start typing. Your messages will be seen by riders near you.

When using the Zwift Companion app, you can use the Group Text button to chat with riders in your same group or race. You can also hit the chat box next to an individual rider to send a private message.

The easiest way is probably using the talk-to-text function on an Android or iOS device. To do this, hit the mic icon after you have brought up the message box.

How do I set up a group ride?

The quickest way to set up a private group ride with your followers is to use the Zwift Meetups feature in the Zwift Companion app. Head to the Events page, tap the Meetups icon at the top of the page then tap ‘Create Meetup’.

From there, you’ll have a number of options to customise the ride; the date and time you want to ride, where you want to ride, route, distance/duration, whether to automatically keep everyone tethered together or not… and whether you want the Meetup to be a race!

Once you’ve decided on those details, you just need to invite people from your list of followers (you can only invite Zwifters who follow you to a Meetup ride currently), add some ride details so invitees know what they’re being invited to and then tap Create Meetup.

When it’s time for your Meetup, just log into Zwift a few minutes beforehand and Zwift will automatically transport you to the start of the ride.

Zwift also recently changed things so that you can still join a ride up to 30 minutes after the Meetup has begun (provided it’s not a race), so there’s no need to worry if you’re running a little late.

Can I report riders for bad behaviour?

On the whole, Zwift is pretty civil, but you might encounter a few problems.

For starters, it is impossible to crash or be crashed by someone. If you feel like someone is acting inappropriately, you can flag them with the Zwift Companion app.

You can also flag other riders for foul language, harassment or suspicious power output. This last category Zwift has set as ‘flier’ – basically meaning if you see someone flying past you at a sustained 8+ watts per kilogram, then something is up.

Zwift has power profiles for world-class performances for various durations. So if a rider gets flagged, and Zwift looks at their file and sees they are indeed producing phenomenal power, then the rider will receive a message along the lines of ‘hey, you should be pro!’, with a recommendation to check their settings and a notification that their ride is invisible to other riders.

That rider will still be able to complete their ride and see other people in the game, but they will just be invisible to others.

Two things can cause supernatural power in Zwift: inaccurately entering weight (and thus altering that w/kg figure) or having a trainer improperly set up.

Steering

One of the more recent innovations on Zwift is the steering functionality. Originally restricted to a small off-road course in the Titan’s Grove area of Watopia, it’s now possible to use steering across the entirety of the game.

In order to take advantage of this new feature, you’ll need an Elite Sterzo Smart steering plate, which costs £69.99 / $109.99 / €84.99.

With steering enabled, you’ll be able to choose your line more deliberately (to take a racing line, for example), or move out of a group to prevent other riders from drafting you.

However, it also means that your avatar will no longer be able to ride through other avatars – you’ll have to steer around them instead.

You’ll also have to pay close attention to the riders in front because you’ll need to steer yourself into the draft in order to get the maximum advantage.

Event organisers can choose to have steering turned on or off, so make sure to double check this when signing up.

• Zwift expands in-game steering to all roads

Greg LeMond enjoyed cross-country skiing. Richie Porte likes to swim. For pros and amateurs alike, after a long season of cycling, the winter months are a chance to do something different. It doesn’t all have to be about cold, muddy miles in the saddle or indoor cycling.

However, while cross-training is popular in winter, it needn’t be the preserve of the off-season – there’s year-round appeal, too.

You could be at the end of a hard spell of training, recovering from an injury, or want to improve your all-round conditioning throughout the season. It’s just that winter is the most opportune moment to do so, with few events on the horizon and weather conditions lacking appeal.

It’s not about doing something that will magically enhance your cycling. It’s about having the opportunity to recover from the rigours of a tough sport and trying an activity that is similar but not the same. It’s the differences that make the difference.

“Cross-training can be helpful by allowing body and mind to recover following a long, hard block of training and racing, while preventing a big decline in general fitness,” explains Simon Jobson, professor of sport and exercise physiology at the University of Winchester.

Cross-training can be fun and challenging. LeMond, the three-time Tour de France champion, wasn’t exactly coasting with cross-country (XC) skiing, a sport that vies with cycling for where the highest V02 max values are found. If you think a bike sprint is hard, check out the race finishes from the Mark Cavendish of the cross-country skiing world, Petter Northug.

It was a break from the grind of LeMond’s season, so in that respect it was regenerative. In XC skiing, similar muscle groups are worked but in different ways, allowing you to retain a level of fitness but resting from your bread and butter, building motivation for the new season.

As well as being recuperative, cross-training can be transformative. Doing nothing but riding your bike will create body imbalances, which can lead to over-use injuries in the long-term.

“Most riders will benefit from a psychological rest at one or two points in the year, but most will also be keen to limit the fitness losses that result from inactivity,” says Jobson.

“The old adage ‘a change is as good as a rest’ comes into play, with cross-training removing the relentless focus and, in many cases, stress required for regular, structured bike training.”

Running

Running is perhaps the most popular cross-training activity for cyclists, but is also the riskiest.

If you have a weak core, poor flexibility or muscle imbalances – all common traits of cyclists who only ride their bike – then running, with its impact forces, might not initially be for you as a cross-training option, and certainly not in large quantities.

Even experienced runners, returning to it after time away, have to be careful not to throw themselves in too hard, too quickly.

Seasoned triathlete Spencer Smith used to compete professionally, and for one season rode for the Linda McCartney cycling team: “I’d decided to turn pro in cycling in September the year before, and in December I went out for a run as a bit of cross-training – for about an hour, which, if I’m honest, should have been shorter. I woke up the next day and felt like I’d been hit by a truck. The key is not to overdo it, you don’t want to hurt your cycling.”

Why running?

The impact forces of running are a good thing, if you let your body adapt slowly, and can improve bone health.

“Because of the lack of impact forces, cyclists are at risk of osteopenia and osteoporosis,” says Simon Jobson. “Adding some walking and/or running to the routine will likely offset some of this risk.”

Being a competent runner also opens up the opportunity for other cross-training sports that require it, such as tennis. And with all your cash tied up in the money-eating world of cycling, running makes a refreshing change. You need a pair of trainers and, er, that’s about it.

Why not?

Running might prove a refreshing addition to your training schedule, but the physiological benefits are limited, according to Jobson.

“Experience tells me that there is only limited fitness cross-over. If you’re just going for general endurance conditioning, a more ‘whole body’ exercise will provide a bit more bang for your buck”.

Getting started…

“I’d suggest 20 to 30 minutes, but broken down” says Spencer Smith. “Do 3 minutes on, 2 minutes walking. The ‘on’ minutes shouldn’t be too hard, around 60 to 70 per cent effort.”

Swimming

Swimming is recommended as a whole-body exercise that will maintain the endurance needed for cycling, while providing a refreshing change from pedalling.

“I usually recommend activities like swimming as they feel, psychologically, a million miles away from cycling,” says Simon Jobson. “These activities provide the best chance of a full cycling mental detox.

“It’s very difficult to find non-cycling activities that stimulate the body in a way that maintains cycling-specific fitness. Therefore, I usually suggest activities that will maintain the physiological foundation of most cycling: endurance, aka V02 max.”

Despite an increase in the number of pools in the UK over the past decade, there was a drop of almost 520,000 swimming activities to 4.2m in 2019 compared to the year before, according to Sport England.

For cycling enthusiasts, it needn’t be one or the other because swimming is one of the best off-the-bike activities we can do.

It’s low impact, improves flexibility, works as a cycling-substitute cardio workout and offers light resistance in every plane of movement. It’s also a good means of off-bike rehab; Tour de France podium finisher Richie Porte swims to improve his recovery.

Why swimming?

“Swimming is the best sport you can do as a cyclist,” says Spencer Smith. “It just doesn’t beat you up like, say, running does. It engages the core and makes you work, but you can do it for half an hour and not feel like you’ve done 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.”

Why not?

A warning, though: not all swimming strokes will suit everyone.

“If you have neck problems, the hyperextended position of breaststroke with your head out of the water can worsen your problem,” writes Jo McRae in Ridestrong: Essential Conditioning for Cyclists (Bloomsbury).

“If you have instability in your lower back, or knee problems, you might find the hyperextension of the lower back with the breaststroke kick problematic.”

Getting started…

John Wood, of Tri-Coaching, says: “If you can’t swim these distances comfortably, shorten the distances to fit your swimming ability – try 25, 50 or 75m swim intervals instead.”

• 10 minutes easy swim
• 3 x 100m (usually 4 lengths), with 30 secs recovery, at steady pace
• 3 x 100m with 20 secs recovery
• 3 x 100m with 10 secs recovery
• 10 minutes easy swim

Pilates

Anyone who’s ever tried pilates – this writer being one of them – might initially wonder where the benefit for cycling is, such is its often passive, gentle nature, particularly at the novice stage.

Developed in the early 20th century by a German physical trainer by the name of Joseph Pilates, it involves stretching and manipulating your body into positions that can improve flexibility, strength and control through the body, particularly the core, with a big focus on breathing.

It can be done in either a fitness setting or a clinical one as part of physiotherapy rehab. You’ll practice repetitive exercises, standing or on the mat, with pilates aids including elastic bands and foam pads.

Why pilates?

It’s almost as beneficial as a form of mindfulness than a tool for physical improvement, which as a break from chasing cycling goals makes for a nice change.

“The isolated, focused exercises where movement is slow and deliberate can be easier to follow for cyclists whose overall movement skill can be low,” says Jo McRae.

Why not?

That positive could also be a negative for cyclists, who might find the slow, calm progress a turn-off. It can also be expensive to join a class, which is essential to be able to follow an instructor’s movements.

Getting started…

Join a class. Gyms (fitness) and physios (clinical) offer classes.

In the former, you’ll sit in front of an instructor who will guide you through movements and breathing. With the latter, you might get prescribed exercises specific to your needs.

Cross-country skiing

For many cyclists enduring snowy winters, this is the sport to maintain – and enhance – off-season bike fitness.

A fusion of aerobic conditioning, core strength, power, balance and coordination, it’s the ultimate alt-sport for cyclists, with famous practitioners including current pro Edvald Boasson Hagen and Classics legend Fabian Cancellara.

It uses the same muscle groups (quads, hamstrings, glutes, back and core) in fresh ways, requires good but not brilliant upper-body strength, is low impact and asks for similar balance and awareness as on fast descents.

There are two different types: ‘classic’ sees skiers glide in groomed, parallel tracks, with a grip wax on the centre of the ski used for propulsion. According to Ed Nicoll, a cycling enthusiast and former British professional XC skier, this is the “easiest and most accessible introduction to the sport. Anyone who can hike in the hills for a few hours could do it”.

‘Skating’ is a relatively newer development and involves shorter skis but longer poles, with more support for the ankles in the shoes. Technically, it’s more difficult, being devoid of classic’s parallel lines of movement, involving a synchronised movement of arms and legs, and requiring more upper-body strength.

The surfaces are groomed, except on the downhills, and give you more freedom to change direction. Wax is again used, this time on the whole ski. At the highest level, choosing the right wax for the conditions is a ‘dark art’, according to Nicoll, and often determines the winner.

Why cross-country skiing?

Like cycling, cross-country skiing will stress your aerobic system, but works the whole body like no other sport. It’s pretty low risk, too. Cancellara’s teams allowed him to do it, even though downhill skiing and many other sports were banned.

Why not?

It’s not exactly accessible in the UK, and there’s a lot to learn to become competent. Roller skiing (rollerski.co.uk) is a good substitute to learn the basics before you head onto the snow.

Getting started…

Try XC skiing out for a morning on your next ski holiday. It’s cheaper than downhill skiing.

In Gstaad, where I tried it out it cost 33 Swiss Francs compared to 51 for a day lift pass. It’s also worth paying for an instructor to show you the ropes. Be patient – skating on skis, in particular, is a hard skill and might not come quickly.

HIIT (high-intensity interval training) has swept the fitness world in recent years and the workouts are now a staple of gym classes and indoor training routines.

HIIT workouts are recognised as a way of burning a lot of calories in a short amount of time, so it’s easy to see why they are a favourite of time-poor gym-goers looking to squeeze the most out of their training.

But HIIT needn’t be limited to weight-based activities and gym sessions, the benefits can be felt for time-crunched cyclists, too.

Here’s everything you need to know about high-intensity interval training, the benefits and how you can include HIIT in your training plan.

What is high-intensity interval training (HIIT)?

A HIIT workout intersperses short intervals of exercise at an effort level close to maximum with periods of recovery. When applied to cycling, there is no one set way to perform a HIIT workout, with different sessions offering different benefits.

“The duration of efforts could be from a couple of seconds up to a minute or more,” explains Matt Rowe of Rowe & King Cycle Coaching. “There’s no real hard or fast definition of it, other than you’ve got to be cycling hard and with great intensity on and off. 

“You can make it as structured or unstructured as you like. Fartlek training is seemingly random efforts, and that’s a form of HIIT training.”

What are the benefits and drawbacks of HIIT?

Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of a HIIT workout is the short amount of time it takes to complete a session.

“It allows you to accumulate a lot of high-quality work at that top end of your fitness and really maximises the bang for your buck from any training session,” says Dr David Nichols, cycle training consultant for Wattbike.

Most sessions can be done in an hour or less and are easy to do on the turbo trainer, so you can squeeze a ride in with long-lasting benefits from the comfort of your own home. 

“If you’re time-poor, you’ve got to be smart with what you do have,” says Matt Bottrill of Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching.

It’s possible to see a tangible training benefit from a session as short as 30 or 40 minutes, according to Bottrill, but he warns against over-reliance on HIIT workouts. “You can’t do it every day,” he says. “It’s not feasibly possible because you can’t hit that high intensity.”

The intensity of HIIT workouts can also help you to target the top-end training that might otherwise be missing from your rides, complementing your base training or sweetspot intervals.

“When you go out cycling, most people ride steady and they think they’re going quite hard,” says Rowe. “But you’re not really engaging your fast-twitch muscle fibres that much. 

“The fast-twitch fibres can make all the difference in cycling. If you need to get up a climb and use a big surge in effort, that’s your fast-twitch fibres that you’re relying on. HIIT training does that perfectly.”

Because HIIT intervals are short, they enable you to accumulate a lot of time at an intensity above what you’d otherwise be able to sustain in continuous blocks. That, in turn, helps improve your VO2 max and threshold power, according to Nichols.

Drawbacks

While high-intensity interval training is time-efficient and provides plenty of bang for your buck, it isn’t a miracle session that can simply replace all of the other workouts in your training plan.

Due to the nature of HIIT workouts, you need to be able to train at extremely high intensities during each session, and therefore need to recover properly between workouts. 

“There’s no point in doing a top-end training session if you go into it so fatigued that you can’t reach the top end – you just end up training in that middle ground,” explains Nichols. 

“By incorporating HIIT, you’ve got to be a bit smarter – are you going to have a rest day before it? What is your training session going to look like after that? You can’t just keep periodically smashing yourself.”

Nichols recommends two HIIT sessions a week – and a maximum of three – otherwise you risk overtraining. “You can have too much of a good thing,” he adds.

If you do decide to add HIIT workouts to your training, Rowe says it’s important to not neglect the rest of your riding. “If you purely do HIIT training, you’re going to struggle with your endurance because it’s all about short, sharp efforts,” he says.

Bottrill agrees, adding that you still need to be logging the miles to see the true benefits of HIIT workouts translated on the road. “You’ve still got to do that endurance base,” he says.

He also recommends keeping HIIT to a limited phase of a training block when you want to sharpen your fitness, because of how mentally challenging sessions can be. “The hardest bit is your head,” he says. 

“The sessions take a lot out of you. You can find it very hard to then complete the next session. If you’re going to do that type of training, you’d probably want to build a six-week phase of it. Any more and you can’t go as deep mentally.”

Indoors or outdoors?

While HIIT training can be done both indoors or outdoors, all the coaches we spoke to leaned towards an indoor setting on a turbo trainer or smart bike.

“I personally prefer to do it indoors,” says Wattbike’s Nichols. “It’s convenient, set up ready to go and there’s no time-wasting. Doing it outdoors can negate the time effectiveness of HIIT.”

As well as FTP and ramp tests, the latest indoor cycling apps offer structured workouts and training plans, many of which include HIIT-style interval sessions. The best smart trainers can control the resistance for each interval, ensuring you hit the numbers required to get fit fast.

If you do opt to train outside, Bottrill recommends planning a circuit that is either flat or uphill.

“You don’t want it to be too undulating and you want to control the environment,” he says. “That’s where a hill comes good – you can ascend a climb that’s three to four minutes and then recover on the descent.”

Rowe adds that it’s also possible to turn your commute into a HIIT workout, albeit an unstructured fartlek-style session: “Maybe as part of your commute, you could sprint to a signpost and do seemingly random efforts like that.”

Of course, as with any high-intensity ride outside, make sure you are paying full attention to your surroundings at all times.

How can I include HIIT in my training plan?

As we’ve already covered, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing with high-intensity interval training, so it’s recommended to stick to a maximum of two to three sessions per week interspersed with longer endurance rides to really see the benefits. 

However, for riders who can only squeeze in a short session around other commitments, Rowe would always recommend a HIIT workout.

“A well-rounded training plan touches on all different attributes,” he says. “Sweetspot sessions are great, but at least once a week you should be doing some top-end work. The frequency at which you do it is very personal, but in the winter you have to do whatever you can in the amount of time you’ve got.

“If you’ve only got 40 minutes to train, in that 40 minutes you might as well ride hard, so HIIT works for that.”

The fatigue-inducing nature of HIIT workouts makes it advisable to plan your sessions in advance to avoid overtraining. Nichols recommends scheduling your HIIT sessions around easy or rest days, and using a weekend ride to work on your endurance.

“A ride at the weekend is going to be your long endurance ride, maybe a club run or group ride,” he says. “Outside of that, you can do two midweek interval sessions. These are your absolute high-effort, high-intensity training sessions.

“If that’s Tuesday and Thursday, you’re going to have Monday and Wednesday easy because you’ve got to schedule that recovery in.”

If you’re embarking on a training plan, chances are you’ll have come across ‘sweetspot’ workouts.

Before you get too excited, it doesn’t mean a club run with multiple cafe stops. It refers to the intensity of that particular training session. 

But how does sweetspot training differ from, say, base training or high-intensity interval training? And why should you consider including sweetspot sessions as part of your training?

What is sweetspot training?

As we’ve already alluded to, sweetspot refers to the intensity of a workout. According to Matt Rowe of Rowe & King Cycle Coaching, it typically refers to an intensity between the upper end of zone three and the lower end of zone four, if you’re training with a power meter or using training zones.

“I define sweetspot using Dr Andrew Coggan’s approach, which is 88 to 93 per cent  of your FTP (Functional Threshold Power),” says Rowe. “Or around 75 to 85 per cent of your maximum heart rate.” 

When training at sweetspot intensity, you are placing your body under sustained stress, but not so much that you can’t hold the efforts for a long duration.

The efforts are also repeatable, without inducing high levels of fatigue. As the name suggests, you’re training at a level that hits the sweetspot between intensity and volume.

On a cellular level, training at sweetspot increases your mitochondria density, according to Rowe.

“Mitochondria are small structures found in almost all human cells,” he says. “Their main job is to perform cellular respiration – taking in nutrients from the cell, breaking them down and turning those nutrients into energy.

“The mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell and, by increasing your mitochondria density, you’re making your body able to create energy more easily.

“Ultimately, through doing sweetspot training, you will feel an increased sense of fitness – in terms of ‘engine size’, threshold and ability to produce energy.”

What are the benefits of sweetspot training?

In addition to the physiological adaptations that take place as a result of sweetspot training, there are a number of benefits from riding on the cusp of tempo and threshold.

“Sweetspot offers the most bang for your buck in terms of training,” says Matt Bottrill of  Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching. “If you’re limited on time, you want to maximise what you do have.

“It’s quality training and probably one of the most beneficial ways to get fit.”

Rather than slogging away for hours on base rides as part of your winter training, sweetspot training produces similar physiological adaptations and training effects from a much shorter session. As a result, you’ll still expect to reap the rewards in a Zwift FTP test. 

This justifies its place among the turbo trainer workouts in the armoury of the time-poor cyclist – or, in other words, anyone who isn’t a professional. Therefore, sweetspot intervals enhance the benefits of indoor cycling. 

“For a cyclist who works and hasn’t got much time – maybe only four to six hours per week of training time a week – doing a couple of blocks of sweetspot in an hour’s turbo or Zwift session can give you the physiological benefits of a much longer ride,” says Rowe.

In short, sweetspot has the potential to fast-track your aerobic performance – increasing your Functional Threshold Power at the same time. “The net result is that you will be able to produce more power and ride faster for longer,” says Rowe.

What’s more, because sweetspot training is aerobic (not anaerobic), the sessions are repeatable and rewarding, helping to keep motivation up compared to a painful, lung-busting threshold or HIIT workout.

Are there any drawbacks to sweetspot training?

While sweetspot training has a number of benefits, it’s important to not become one-dimensional in your training, otherwise you risk neglecting other areas of your cycling fitness, such as VO2 max. 

“You’ll reach a ceiling,” explains Bottrill. “Once you’ve built the phase of sweetspot, you’re going to cap it, and you then want to progress to doing more [high-intensity] interval work.”

While sweetspot is particularly well-suited to riders training for endurance events and long time trials, as well as alpine climbs, that doesn’t mean it’s a catch-all training solution for all cyclists.

“It’s not suited to everyone,” says Rowe. “A track sprinter, for example, wouldn’t do a lot of sweetspot training. They don’t need endurance and all their training is top-end – in the gym, they’ll either be doing their max or going super-easy to recover.

“Sweetspot training builds the aerobic side of things, while track sprinting is an anaerobic sport.”

The key is identifying the demands of the event or goal you are training towards and adapting your workouts accordingly. That will help you focus on the areas required to produce your best performance.

Three-time track world champion and Olympic gold medallist Dani Rowe says sweetspot workouts would be “few and far between” for sprinters. “It’s suited to cyclists at the endurance end of the sport,” she says.

How can I include sweetspot in my training plan?

First of all, you need to identify your training zones, regardless of whether you train with heart rate, use a power meter, or are in your pain cave on a smart bike or a smart trainer.

Once you’ve built up an initial base level of fitness, both Bottrill and Rowe recommend including one or two sweetspot sessions per week in a training plan.

Zwift includes sweetspot sessions in its structured workouts and training plans.

The best Zwift setup, including turbo trainer accessories, will keep you entertained, hydrated and fuelled through these demanding workouts. You’ll find similar sessions on other indoor cycling apps, such as Rouvy, TrainerRoad and Wahoo SYSTM. 

If you are new to structured training, Bottrill and Rowe advise starting with five- or 10-minute sweetspot intervals, before working up to 20 minutes. As your fitness improves, you can increase the number of intervals within a session.

“Once you’ve mastered 20 minutes at sweetspot, you can build up to 2x 15 minutes and 2x 20 minutes,” says Bottrill. The end goal, he says, is a workout with an hour at sweetspot intensity. “Once you get to that hour, you’ll fly,” he adds.

Example sweetspot workouts

Here are three sweetspot workouts, for beginner, intermediate and advanced riders.

Matt Rowe recommends using the turbo trainer for these sessions. “If you were to complete the session on Zwift with ERG mode on [so the trainer automatically sets the resistance according to your training zones], it takes all the thinking out of it,” he says.

If you’re looking to get fitter, trimmer and lighter – not to mention healthier – then cycling is a great way to lose weight. It’s efficient, enjoyable, easy to slot into a busy day and, best of all, has emotional and mental benefits as well as physical ones. What’s not to like?

In fact, we’ve found 27 reasons to love cycling, and if an activity is enjoyable, studies show you are much more likely to stick with it. This is hardly rocket science, but it is a big plus when it comes to trying to shed some weight and improve your fitness.

If you have an underlying health condition or any other concerns before starting a new weight-loss plan, you might want to consider visiting your doctor.

How to lose weight by cycling: 14 tips to help you shed the pounds

Set a realistic goal

You can choose a target weight using Body Mass Index (BMI) as a guide. This is based on a person’s height-to-weight ratio, and is used by many medical professionals. BMI is good for identifying a healthy target weight to aim for.

Use an online tool such as the NHS BMI checker to identify a healthy weight for you. BMI is far from a perfect metric, but it’s a good place to get you started.

An alternative is to aim for a target body fat percentage. A healthy man would typically have a body fat percentage of 15 to 18 per cent, and a woman of 25 to 32 per cent.

A man who trains and rides regularly can reach a body fat percentage of 8 to 10 per cent and a woman training and riding regularly of 24 to 28 per cent.

There are lots of weighing scales that will measure body fat percentage, so buying a set could be a good investment.

Aim for a rate of weight loss of up to 1kg per week

While it can be tempting to try to lose more, studies have shown that sudden and rapid weight loss is rarely maintained, with many people putting the weight back on and more.

Instead, think of this as a gradual process and a change of lifestyle. You don’t just want to lose the weight, you want to keep it off too.

“For most people, if they have an hour a day, and they are happy doing an hour a day of exercise, then they can expect to lose a kilo a week,” says Andy Wadsworth, a personal trainer and coach.

Ride at a moderate pace often

If you want to burn fat, you need to ride in zones one and two of your training zones. If you want to burn fat, you need to ride at a pace that gives you a heart rate of approximately between 68 and 79 per cent of your maximum. This is something you can set up using a heart rate monitor and a bike computer.

If you don’t have these, you need to aim for a pace that leaves you out of breath but still able to maintain a conversation.

Most of your exercise should be at this level, often referred to as base training – good news because, although it’s tiring, you won’t be finishing every ride completely drained.

Aim for around an hour a day.

Commute to work

One of the brilliant things about cycling is that it’s also an efficient form of transport, so switching your commute to two wheels means you’ll be getting in a regular amount of exercise in time that you would have spent travelling anyway.

Commuting by bike can have a huge impact on weight loss. A 2015 study by the University of East Anglia and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research showed that people who switched to cycling from driving or public transport lost on average 7kg/1st over the course of a year when riding 30 minutes each way.

Cycling also helps improve your concentration, creativity and memory, so you’re also likely to be more productive when you get to work.

Aerobic exercise, including cycling, has been found to reduce anxiety and stress levels.

Add two or three high-intensity sessions a week

High-intensity interval training sessions will help improve your cardiovascular fitness, making your body a more efficient calorie-burning machine.

Either swap these for two or three of your regular rides or, if you feel up to it, add them on top or combine them by adding a high-intensity session at the end of a moderate ride.

For these efforts, you’ll need to be riding at 70 to 90 per cent of your maximum heart rate for most of the session, or riding hard enough that you can’t hold a conversation. You don’t need to hold this pace for the whole session: interval training is very effective.

Wadsworth recommends adding this on top of your regular workouts: “Your body starts to work in an anaerobic mode, so your body has to repair itself after the exertion and burn fat that way, as well as increasing your aerobic capacity and muscle mass… The more muscle you have, the more fuel you’ll need to keep it going, the more calories you’ll burn.”

Over the winter, there are few better ways to fit in quality work than cyclocross racing. You’ll ride flat-out for up to an hour on muddy technical courses. Your legs and lungs will burn as you accelerate out of bends and up banks. But laps will fly by, making it much less bleak than slogging through interval sets on your own. The atmosphere is competitive, yet inclusive and cyclocross skills will transfer to tarmac.

If you don’t fancy doing this outside or the weather is bad, there’s always cycling indoors. It might not be as much fun as riding outside, but the best smart trainers and turbo trainer workouts allow you to smash a session when it’s lashing with rain. Indoor cycling apps, such as Zwift, make the experience more realistic – and, dare we say it, fun – than ever.

Other apps, including RGT Cycling, Rouvy and TrainerRoad also have workouts and training plans with plenty of interval sessions to choose from.

Get plenty of sleep

Sleep is the unsung hero of weight loss. Studies have shown that people who get six to eight hours of sleep a night are much more successful at losing weight and keeping it off, and also tend to be less stressed.

Research has also indicated that people who don’t get enough sleep at night are more prone to feeling hungry and less likely to feel satiated when they eat.

And of course, a good night’s sleep is essential to help the body repair and build muscle after each day so you are ready for the next.

It sounds simple, but it’s important; aim for a quality sleep of around seven hours every night to give yourself the best chance of losing that weight.

Keep track of your progress

Keep motivated and monitor your progress by recording it as you go.

Don’t be disheartened if things don’t change at the same rate; you are training your body to be fitter and more efficient, and some weeks you’ll see lots of progress, other weeks you might plateau – the overall trend is what’s important.

If you’re tracking your progress using your weight or body fat percentage, then measure yourself once a week, ideally at the same time of day. First thing in the morning, after you’ve been to the toilet, is a popular time!

If you use Strava or a similar route tracker, you’ll be able to see your fitness improving as you progress – you’re likely to get faster along certain segments, which gives a great sense of achievement!

In conjunction with training apps such as Wahoo SYSTM, you could also keep a training diary. 

Clothes are also a great way to check how you’re doing. If you’ve got a favourite item you want to fit into, or something you currently wear, check back every couple of weeks to see how it fits on you.

Add in some cross-training and flexibility work to your routine

While cycling is great for weight loss, it does put stress and strain on the body, particularly if you are new to it.

Cross-training will help balance out the leg-heavy muscle workout you get from pedalling, and flexibility work will stretch out those muscles and tendons, preventing injury, aches and pains.

Free weights, pilates, swimming, Zumba and boxing are all great for cross-training, giving you a stronger core, which will benefit your cycling. Pilates and yoga are good choices for flexibility work.

Wahoo SYSTM adds off-bike activities to your weekly routine when you create a cycling training plan.

All of these help build muscle, and the more muscle you have, the more efficient your body will be at burning calories.

Eat little and often

If you think of your body like an engine, then you want to keep it topped up with fuel and running at a steady rate throughout the day.

Wadsworth recommends eating small amounts of good food every three to four hours. This will help you maintain a stable metabolism, burn fat consistently and ensure your energy levels are stable so you have enough oomph at the end of a day at work to hop on your bike.

When you finish a ride, a protein and vegetable-rich dish will help you recover better.

Avoid sugar and processed food

Sugar and processed foods may give you plenty of energy, but they often have low nutritional value. Plus, any sugar that you don’t burn off immediately will be stored by your body in the form of fat, which is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

We’re not saying you can never have cake – it’s a traditional part of the cycling experience, after all – but we are saying limit your intake to once a week or as a treat, and cut out those other sugary snacks and chocolate bars altogether.

You’re also best to avoid the sugar-packed sports energy gels and bars out there. They’re fine for racing and long events, but if you are trying to lose weight then you are better off eating a well-balanced meal beforehand and topping up with something such as a banana, some nuts or jerky.

You could prepare your own homemade energy bars for cycling to control exactly what’s in them, and save money.

Focus on lean protein and plenty of fruit and vegetables

Eating the right foods is as important as avoiding the wrong foods. You need to give your body everything it needs to run efficiently, build muscle and sustain exercise.

Matt Fitzgerald, author of Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance, recommends eating quality foods that will have a high nutritional value and often lower calorie density too.

Choose lean protein such as fish, chicken, beans and pulses. Opt for lots of fresh fruit and vegetables alongside them, and choose wholegrain carbohydrates or ones with a low glycaemic index, such as sweet potato, rolled oats or rye bread.

As Wadsworth says: “It’s a general rule of thumb, but if you can grow it or run after and catch it, or fish for it, that’s what you should be eating. Stick to that diet and you’ll lose weight.”

Smoothies and juices can be tempting, but you’re often better off eating the whole fruit because then you’re also getting dietary fibre rather than just the sweet, sugary juice.

Try riding before breakfast

Heading out for a short ride before breakfast can be a great way of kickstarting your weight loss. While doing fasted training, your body is forced to use its stores of fat because there is no food in your system.

Aim for a ride of between 30 minutes to an hour, but you will need to eat something if you’re going to be riding for much longer than that.

Avoid overtraining or under-eating

If you’re looking to lose weight, it can be tempting to beast yourself on the bike or cut your food intake right down. Neither of these is healthy, and ultimately they don’t work in the long term.

“If you want to burn fat, that’s like burning logs in a bonfire. If you want the bonfire to keep burning at high temperature, like your metabolism, then you want to keep feeding it logs every three hours – that’s the little and often approach with food. If you stop fuelling it, then the body goes into starvation mode and it will hold on to calories more,” says Wadsworth. “So short term, yes, you lose weight, but give it a few weeks and it all piles on again.”

Go too hard on the bike, particularly if you are just getting into cycling or starting to do more, and you risk overtraining, leaving you no energy to do anything, or injuring yourself and therefore putting yourself out of action.

Cutting back your calorie intake too much will mean your body isn’t getting enough fuel and nutrition to support the exercise you are trying to do, so won’t work as effectively, and is more likely to go into starvation mode where it stores any food it does get, which is completely counterproductive.

If you are trying to lose weight, then the general guidance is that men should aim for 1,900 calories and women for 1,400 calories.

Steady exercise with good, lean food equals steady weight loss that you’ll be able to keep off.

Enjoy it!

The best thing about cycling is how much fun it is. Whether you like speeding along country lanes, ripping along mountain bike trails, long contemplative rides on your own or social rides with friends, there’s loads to love, and you’ll almost forget you’re actually exercising while you do it.

Consider joining a club and learning how to ride in a group. Your new clubmates will drag you out when you’re struggling for motivation. Healthy competition will make you push yourself harder than you can on solo rides.

So get your friends involved or go out with your family and make cycling part of your life. Above all, have fun.

With the arrival of 2022, the pressure is on to come up with a New Year’s resolution that you can actually stick to. Of course, you could forego the whole thing altogether, but where’s the fun in that?

Setting one or several resolutions gives you a framework to plan your year around, something to aim for, and the potential to finish off the year feeling smug. Think of resolutions as a series of goals that will make the next 12 months of cycling as successful and fulfilling as possible. They’re simply a starting point.

There’s a delicate balance between setting yourself a goal that is both achievable and motivating enough to get you out of bed for a winter training ride or into your pain cave. Get this balance wrong, and you’re less likely to keep at it.

So here’s some top advice to help you figure out what kinds of goals to set yourself in 2022, and how you can actually see them through, whether you’re looking to take things up a notch and ride your first century or you’re just starting out.

How many New Year’s resolutions should I make?

There’s no right answer to this question. It depends on what they are, and what you are realistically capable of doing.

If you’re doing something huge, such as racing the Transcontinental, that’s probably enough for one year. If you don’t want something quite as big, you could spread out a series of smaller goals across the year.

If you need some inspiration, here are three approaches you could take.

12 small goals in 12 months

Pick 12 small cycling goals and complete one per month of the year. This would be perfect if you’re looking to improve your performance, ride in specific events or if you struggle to stay motivated for something that seems really far away. Monthly goals will keep things interesting, mix them up a bit and help you work towards a larger goal without you even realising it.

Three larger goals throughout the year

If that sounds like too much, perhaps set yourself three reasonable goals that you have four months each to complete. That gives you plenty of time to train for each of them. This approach is a good option if you’re planning to make a major change or achieve something significant next year. Whether it’s signing up for a long-distance ride, or hitting certain fitness milestones, breaking it down into manageable chunks will keep it within reach.

One resolution to rule them all

Perhaps you’ve just got one thing in mind: you want to race thousands of kilometres across continents, tour the world or complete an overnight audax, for example. If you’re aiming high, you need to give yourself the time to prepare, so aim to complete it in the second half of the year and help yourself out by putting together a structured training plan.

How to choose your resolutions

Okay, so you’ve decided whether you’re going all-in with one big goal or spreading your resolutions across the year. Now you need to decide exactly what it is you want to do. Well, we can’t tell you what to aim for, but we can help you with the process of making that decision.

Plan and refine

All good things start with a list. Write down every single possible goal you can think of; big or small, achievable or seemingly impossible, get them down anyway. Try to spend only a few minutes doing this, or stop when the ideas slow down.

Take a look at your list. How many of those ideas really jump out at you? Depending on how many resolutions you plan to set yourself, start shortlisting. Pick out the goals that really speak to you, excite you, and you can see yourself doing.

If you’re setting more than one resolution, think about the order you do them in: are they time-bound events that have to be completed on a particular date? Do you need to do one in order to train for another?

Also, try to space them out relatively evenly so you have the time you need to prepare. If you find yourself drawn to several events all happening at the same time, try to prioritise one and keep the others for next year.

Don’t lose your original list, though. If you achieve your goals early, you’ll have more to pick from, or you can use it as a basis for next year’s resolutions.

How to stick to your cycling resolutions

Once you’ve got your resolutions sorted, you need to stick to them longer than the six-week mark, where many good intentions fall by the wayside.

Make them FAB

By FAB we mean Feasible, Actually measurable and Blinking-well motivational. In other words, ask yourself these questions:

• Can you feasibly achieve this goal given the time, resources and abilities you have?
• What do you need to do to get to that endpoint? What’s the measure of success?
• How badly do you want it?

Share them… if you want to

To share or not to share is a question only you can answer. On the one hand, sharing your resolutions makes you accountable for them, and you’ll get all the support and encouragement you need from your friends and family. Plus, what’s more motivating than quitter’s guilt?

But don’t despair. If you’d prefer to keep your resolutions to yourself, that’s okay too.

Revisit your resolutions over the year

If you’re spreading your goals across the year, you should check in every month or so. Ask yourself if you’re making the progress you need to stay on track, or if you need to adapt your training (or your expectations) a little.

Falling off the wagon doesn’t have to spell the end, either. Just acknowledge where you’re at – regroup, tweak your plan and keep on pushing. Overcoming hurdles makes success all the more sweet.

New Year cycling resolutions to get you started

If you’re still in need of some inspiration, here are just a few ideas to get you started with your list. They’ll give you drive, encourage you to focus your training or just help you get through the year with a zen-like calm.

Resolution 1: get fit

The oldest resolution in the book. It’s a good thing to aim for though, if approached with a healthy attitude. The problem here is that it’s fairly vague.

What does it mean to ‘get fit’? How will you measure the success of that goal once it’s achieved? Set yourself a specific target: to complete a certain event, climb a particular hill within a specified time or exceed your highest daily mileage by a set per cent.

Ask yourself how you plan to increase your fitness. You might be tempted to sign up to every class in the gym and ride six days a week, but is that really sustainable? Chances are you’ll crash out with tiredness by week two.

Structure your training plan and stay consistent. Targeting an event or race is a great motivator when it comes to staying on track too.

Another aim that is often cited alongside getting fit and can be vague is losing weight. This actually means losing fat, rather than muscle mass or water. Losing fat can reap rewards: faster climbing, less drag at speed and general health benefits.

However, don’t fall into the trap of fad diets – there’s no quick win or silver bullet. The key is to shift your lifestyle in a sustainable way: add more fruit and vegetables to your diet, cut back on processed foods and sugars, and get out on your bike.

You need to be specific in this goal as well: how much weight do you want to lose? What’s your target? Is it realistic for your body type?

To decrease your weight while increasing your fitness in a sustainable way, you should aim to lose about two pounds (about a kilo) per week.

With these aims, it’s important to remember to keep having fun! It’s one thing to set yourself a goal, but really you should be riding your bike because you enjoy it. One idea is to break up the training rides with some that are simply fun and you’re more likely to keep riding.

Resolution 2: learn to relax

Life is stressful. Take time to relax.

Self-care is crucial to keeping you in the saddle (and happy to be there). If you don’t know where to start, research the best approach for you. It could be a local workshop in meditation or breathing techniques, a yoga class or something else entirely.

Make sure you take some time over the year to go for rides that aren’t about achieving a certain cadence, distance or heart rate and are instead about enjoying the sensation of riding: the whirr of the wheels, the wind blowing in your hair and the countryside flying past you.

You might just discover if you take this approach you’ll find yourself in a positive feedback loop. After all, riding a bike can help you beat stress.

Resolution 3: keep a healthy balance

A less popular resolution, but important nonetheless – particularly if you have family commitments or a non-cycling partner. Cycling resolutions require time and commitment. The cost isn’t just financial, but it takes time away from your loved ones.

So, if 2022 is going to be the year you achieve your goals, you might need to have a good, clear discussion with your family and friends. Use it to set out your priorities for the year and how you can still be there for them when they need you.

It’s important to set clear parameters: how many weekends can you commit? How much money can you spend? Doing this early in the year helps you lay a clear plan and avoid any conflicts that might come later.

Finally, if you’re planning the year ahead with a partner, make sure it’s equitable. Share the chores and the free time, whether they cycle or not. They may have their own resolutions to work towards.

Of course, if your partner, friends and family don’t cycle, why not introduce them to the wonder of cycling? This leads us nicely on to…

Resolution 4: introduce someone else to cycling

You’re here for a reason: you love cycling. You know how good it is for the body and the mind. Why wouldn’t you want to share that with your favourite people?

Cycling has been shown to improve mental and physical health, it can satisfy that competitive edge or provide a cheap and sustainable way to travel. Children can do it, adults can do it, families can do it, friends can do it and couples can do it.

Really, as far as we’re concerned, there are very few downsides, so why not introduce someone to cycling this year? You could end up with a new cycling buddy and they could end up discovering a potentially life-changing passion. You might even work towards some of those goals together.

Riding with friends has also been proved to make you stronger, so this resolution is win-win in our eyes.

Resolution 5: try a different discipline

Variety is the spice of life, is it not?

There are surefire benefits to mixing things up, whether you’re a roadie trying out the trails or a mountain biker taking on the tarmac.

Mountain bikers will see serious fitness gains from putting in road miles and hill reps, while road cyclists will see their bike-handling skills soar once they’ve mastered corners or tackling uneven terrain.

Why stop there, when you can dabble in gravel, check out cyclocross or try some BMX for a serious core workout? Take to the pump track and develop skills that will see you pumping energy from trails without a pedal stroke.

Road cyclists, if you haven’t already, look into time trials or audax riding. The first will develop your fitness and skill at a high but sustainable pace and will help you push your limits, while audax riding will give your legs some seriously impressive mileage and see your endurance capacity soar.

Resolution 6: Look after your bike

Your New Year’s resolution could be something as simple as remembering to keep your bike clean and running smoothly all year. Remember to give it a sponge-down after particularly muddy rides to keep your components happy, get it serviced at your local bike shop or service it yourself.

Even if you aren’t the most confident mechanic, little things like keeping your chain lubed and your tyres inflated will make all the difference. 

Resolution 7: do a long-distance ride

Do you know how far you can ride in one go? Or over the course of several days back-to-back? Long-distance bike rides, whether on a road bike, mountain bike, touring bike or your old-but-reliable commuter bike, can be transformative.

Test your limits, see how far you can travel under your own steam, and learn how self-sufficient you can be.

We’re not suggesting you cycle the entire length of South America, but Land’s End to John O’Groats is a popular ride for UK cyclists, or just pick a route yourself, head off and have an adventure.

Resolution 8: do an event

If you’ve never taken on a race or event, add it to your list. It’ll give you purpose, something to train for, a date to complete it by, and if you get some friends to sign up, training partners too.

There are so many to choose from: crazy-long audax events and multi-day mountain bike races for endurance fiends, crit or cross-country races for those who like the adrenaline of competing in close contact with other riders, and charity and social rides aplenty for those who want something a little less competitive.

You’ll also find lots of help and advice online on everything from training plans and nutrition guides to the best bikes and what to wear.

Resolution 9: stretch it out

This is a simple resolution that will have a huge impact on your cycling if you stick to it.

Cycling can lead to repetitive strain injuries (RSI), so it’s important to stretch out those muscles. Whether you stretch it out yourself or join a yoga class, a few good sessions once or twice a week can help you gain better flexibility and experience fewer niggles, aches and pains.

Resolution 10: volunteer at (or donate to) a cycling charity

How about spending a little time giving back this year by helping out a cycling charity? Whether it’s donating old bicycles or fixing bikes while learning maintenance skills, or spending some time leading social rides, you can give yourself a warm glow, get in a good ride and help others, all at the same time.

And if there isn’t a charity you can volunteer with, how about selling some of your old kit on eBay and donating the proceeds to a charity such as World Bicycle Relief?

Are you planning on riding a century, double century or an even longer distance in 2022? There’s a lot of misleading or just plain wrong information on the web relating to long-distance cycling, but I’m here to tell you what I have found makes for a successful, lengthy ride.

Plan to succeed

While the idea of riding through lonely rural landscapes may sound attractive, you’re unlikely to pass through many populated areas, which means you’ll need to be self-sufficient on the bike and will have few (if any) convenient bail-out options.

On the other hand, spending hours riding through big towns, and invariably traffic, eats up a lot of time, bringing your average speed down. Even a small reduction in your average pace can be the difference between finishing at stupid o’clock and sensible o’clock.

While you could avoid these concerns and ride around a closed track until you’ve reached your target, you’d no doubt pedal yourself into dizzy oblivion and give up due to sheer boredom before anything else.

Striking a balance between the two on your first ride is the key; neither huffing excessive diesel fumes or bonking in a ditch on the side of a desolate moor will get you closer to your goal, so pick where your route takes you carefully.

For planning the ride, we recommend using an app such as Komoot, Ride With GPS or Strava, and exporting the route to a GPS. While the idea of travelling down unknown roads may feel romantic and adventurous, after the first few wrong turns, it’ll quickly get boring.

If you don’t own a GPS-equipped bike computer, paper maps will of course suffice, but they do add an element of stop-start hassle that, if possible, is best avoided.

When planning your route, if you don’t feel confident and would like some help along the way, you should consider entering a sportive or audax (also known as a randonnée outside of the UK).

The latter in particular is a great way to make friends and ride in a supportive and non-competitive environment. Audax UK, the body that regulates and runs events in the UK, has an excellent guide to riding your first audax.

What should I eat on my first century?

Jack Luke / Immediate Media

Nothing else is as mercilessly and unnecessarily fussed over by cyclists as food.

The established distinctions between what is and isn’t appropriate cycling food – this sickly gel is special cyclist’s food; this honey and peanut butter bagel is the scoff of mortals – shouldn’t be taken as gospel, particularly for long-distance cycling.

Basic rules should be followed, but there are no right and wrong foods for every cyclist in the land – while a diet consisting of only caffeinated jelly beans, dusty protein bars and other freaky science-foods may work for some riders, for others, all that performance nutrition causes is a noisy tummy.

Why not incorporate sports nutrition into real food and save money by baking homemade energy bars for cycling?

Experimentation is the key to working out what fuels you best on long-distance rides – try out lots of different food before your big day out and you may stumble on something that works perfectly for you.

On a long-distance ride, choosing the right food is also a psychological decision. Spending half a day hunched over handlebars will invariably ruin your appetite, and switching up what you eat throughout the course of the day will help to keep things palatable and you motivated.

I personally recommend you carry as much food with you as possible on your first ride. Being able to eat on the hoof means you can avoid the wasted time of stopping at shops or cafes for nourishment.

When you are able to confidently pace and plan a long ride, that’s the time to start indulging in more gourmet off-bike dining experiences.

I’d recommend investing in additional on-bike storage for your cycle snacks. Panniers may seem like the obvious option, but these are unnecessarily bulky for a lightweight, single-day excursion. A better choice is something along the lines of a Carradice saddlebag.

Setting up your bike for long-distance cycling

As long as you feel comfortable on it, the likelihood is that whatever bike you’re currently riding is pretty much fine for long-distance riding.

While a drop-bar, dynamo-equipped, be-fendered, plump-tyred, relaxed-geometry audax wagon will be the most comfortable way to ride more mileage, not owning a bike like that shouldn’t be a barrier to your enjoyment of long-distance riding.

However, there are still things you can do to improve the performance of your existing bike for long days in the saddle.

The first thing is to address the fit of your bike.

While a super aggressive, butt-up, head-down position will be more aero – and, thus, faster – than an upright stance, if you’re not used to riding in this position for an extended period, you’re likely to put excessive strain on your hands and arms over the course of a long day.

However, bear in mind that, like food, bike fit is highly personal.

While an upright position may work for some, it won’t necessarily for you, even for long-distance riding – again, experimentation is key but, if you don’t know where to start, consider getting a bike fit.

If you ride in wet weather, or even on wet roads, you’re going to get damp. The morale boost of being warm and dry on your bike cannot be overstated and I would always recommend fitting proper, full-cover mudguards for long-distance riding in inclement climates.

Even if you don’t plan on being out after dark, it’s always wise to bring a set of bike lights with you. What if you have a mechanical failure and have to limp home via the nearest train station? What if your average speed drops a little and you’re going to get back after dark?

Simply put, avoid the stress of worrying about not having lights – fit them to your bike and forget about them until you need them.

Prepare yourself

After scheduling your marathon ride, you’ll need to gradually increase your mileage in the weeks and months beforehand.

If you’ve chosen a spring or summer date, your winter training must include base training. These long, steady miles will boost your endurance for the big outing. You’ll begin to understand training zones and identify a pace you can hold for hours.

If you plan to do this outside, you’ll need to get your bike winter-ready. Your hands will need the best winter road cycling gloves.

Although most of us will opt to conquer an outdoor century, the benefits of indoor cycling could make a smart bike a valuable part of your preparation.

Unless your route is pan flat, raising your power-to-weight ratio in advance will pay dividends on the climbs. Turbo trainer workouts on training apps such as Zwift are an effective and efficient way to do so.

Moreover, Wahoo SYSTM allows you to create a training program specific to your goals while addressing your strengths and weaknesses. The workouts can be done on the best smart trainers or on the road.

If it hurts, stop

When I used to work in a bike shop, I was regularly shocked by the injuries that customers had as a result of their cycling.

Cycling is an exceptionally low-impact sport and these injuries were most commonly the result of poor fit on their bikes.

Sure, if you’ve just finished riding 200 miles, it’s not unreasonable to have a tender behind and feel a little stiff the day after, but you shouldn’t be incapacitated in any way.

If you think something isn’t right about the fit of your bike, or if you’re not quite physically ready for that long-distance goal, go home and try another time. The roads will still be there tomorrow.

Cycling marketing often fetishises ‘epic’ experiences on the bike – remove the rose-tinted glasses and you can easily translate ‘epic’ to ‘unpleasant’. There’s nothing noble about hurting yourself for the sake of hitting an arbitrary number.

Also, ruining future days out because you’ve ridden through injury isn’t big or clever. Pain is not a shared experience and few will care how hard you worked to ride those miles. Remember, this is supposed to be fun.

Whether you use a turbo, rollers or a smart bike, time efficiency is one of the benefits of indoor cycling. If time is tight, these 60-minute indoor cycling workouts will help increase your power and aid recovery from the comfort (or discomfort) of your pain cave.

Indoor training is more popular than ever, with smart trainers offering road-like realism and training apps such as Zwift keeping riders entertained and motivated. The latest to launch, Wahoo SYSTM, offers a tailored training schedule and multi-sport sessions.

According to cycling tradition, winter training means base training. But when spending hours in the elements is unappealing, turn to higher-intensity VO2 max work instead.

We’ve included three tried-and-tested training sessions here, whether you want to improve your Functional Threshold Power, become a stronger all-round cyclist or work on your top-end intensity.

These short turbo trainer workouts are long on toughness, so don’t forget to have turbo trainer accessories, such as hydration and a sweat towel, at hand.

Heart rate training zones

First of all, you need to work out your training zones. We’ve got a separate article on training zones for cycling – including how to set and use them.

For simplicity, we’ve used heart rate zones for these sessions, but if you’re training with a power meter you can easily adapt the sessions using the equivalent zone.

• Zone 1: Establish base fitness > 60-65% maximum heart rate
• Zone 2: To improve efficiency > 65-75% maximum heart rate
• Zone 3: To improve sustainable power > 75-82% maximum heart rate
• Zone 4: To push up threshold power > 82-89% maximum heart rate
• Zone 5: To sustain a high percentage of maximal aerobic power > 89-94% maximum heart rate
• Zone 6: To increase maximum power output > above 94% maximum heart rate

Become a stronger cyclist – improve your FTP

This workout aims to make you a stronger all-round cyclist. The classic threshold workout is 2x 20 minutes, but you can only do so many before you get bored or lose motivation, so this is all about variety.

Time flies on varied sessions such as this, too – maybe a bit too fast on those 10-second recoveries!

You’ll be hitting a full range of energy systems, working on your strength and power, and going deep into the red with the final intervals. This session is a great Function Threshold Power boost.

Pyramid scheme – increase workout intensity

If you’ve established a decent endurance base, it’s time to increase the intensity of your workouts and put in some sustained race-pace efforts. These are ideal for honing your Zwift racing form.

A solid 2x 20 minutes threshold workout can be hard to get your head around. Similarly, sweetspot training, despite being highly effective, can be repetitive.

A pyramid-style workout still logs a similar amount of time at threshold intensity, but breaks it up into more manageable chunks.

Your upper body should stay still and relaxed because any swaying or excessive head movement will increase drag when you’re out in the real world.

Also aim to keep your pedalling action smooth – don’t stomp just because you’re on a turbo. Try to maintain your race position.

Race pace with sprints

This is a great workout for raising your Functional Threshold Power (FTP), which is the highest average power or pace you can maintain for one hour, along with your power-to-weight ratio.

By including some sprints, you’ll develop your ability to recover from hard efforts while still maintaining a relatively high overall pace.

If you’re training for a specific event, a benefit of dialling in your race-pace intensity through this session is that you’ll know exactly what it feels like come race day, even if you have to dig deep and put in some higher-end efforts.

This is a tough workout, but it will stand you in good stead. The best Zwift setup will include music or entertainment to distract you from the suffering.

Mentally, if you can hold the pace required here with sprints on top, you know that it will be comparatively easy to hold that pace consistently through the event. Plus, you’ll have the confidence to attack lumps and bumps and sprint out of bends.

Yes, we would all rather ride outside. But the best indoor cycling apps can leave you fitter and faster when weather, work and the rest of your life stop you from getting out.

What’s more, the best smart trainers and training apps have made indoor cycling more realistic and effective than ever.

Here are our favourite indoor cycling apps, plus the best of the rest that are worth checking out. We’ve also included a round-up of the kit you’ll need to get started.

Racing, training or touring?

While most indoor cycling apps serve a similar purpose – to make indoor training more enjoyable and effective – they can broadly be split into a few categories depending on what you want from the experience, including intervals, racing and interactive tourism.

Some apps, such as TrainerRoad, are straight-up training tools – think personalised workouts based on power output with a specific training goal in mind.

The newly-released Wahoo SYSTM allows you to build and follow a dedicated training plan from a large workout catalogue, and also incorporates many of the features previously found on The Sufferfest, including pro race footage to train alongside. 

Others, such as Rouvy, use on-bike video from around the world, with your pedal power driving the scenic view – and, if you have a smart trainer or smart bike, the route driving the resistance.

And then there is Zwift, where you can do interactive rides, workouts and races on gamified virtual courses, with your speed based on your power-to-weight ratio in real-time.

The best app for you depends on what you want to do and, ultimately, what you want to achieve. Are you laser-focussed on interval sessions and personalised training plans or do you want an app that incorporates training features in an experience similar to a video game?

The best indoor cycling apps

Zwift has established itself as the go-to training app but there are plenty of alternatives if you want to mix-up your indoor cycling experience.

TrainerRoad is another app we have gravitated towards in the pain cave and is great for structured workouts and training plans.

The most significant launch this year was Wahoo’s SYSTM training app, while RGT Cycling is also a relative newcomer on the scene.

For most of these apps, you’re going to want to know your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) to get the most from the workouts.

Don’t worry if you don’t know it because the apps will all be able to help you determine what your FTP is – and, in turn, establish your training zones. Just be warned that finding your FTP generally involves a 20-minute all-out effort or a ramp test, so it’s no walk in the park.

Zwift

Founded by gamers with a love of cycling (and clearly some good investment backing), Zwift has undoubtedly transformed the indoor riding experience.

No, Zwift didn’t invent virtual riding – Bkool and Tour de Giro were among the first to offer online competition driven by rider output and physics-based algorithms. And Computrainer had the smart trainer experience years ago – but within a closed system and you had to buy a Computrainer.

Nor did Zwift invent power-based interval training. TrainerRoad had the early lead there.

But what Zwift has done is absolutely crush it on the social interaction and graphic elements of the game. 

With virtual group rides and races going on almost constantly, it’s easy to jump in with a group for an easy spin or an all-out slugfest. You can also ride on your own, of course, or tackle one of Zwift’s many structured training plans and workouts after taking a Zwift FTP test. 

The platform’s racing aspect has also taken off, with categorised Zwift races to join based on your power-to-weight ratio if you want to stoke that competitive fire.

Zwift is regularly adding gamified elements to bring further interactivity, including introducing steering to all courses within the game (provided you have the right equipment).

Once you’ve got your Zwift setup sorted, you can also chat with friends and other cyclists as you ride through the app’s virtual worlds.

Routes include the fictional Watopia and Neokyo worlds, and routes inspired by real-world courses such as RideLondon, the 2015 UCI World Championships in Virginia, and the 2018 UCI Road World Championships course in Innsbruck-Tirol.

Zwift also has an Apple TV app, and you can connect your smart trainer or power meter via Bluetooth.

For more, read our complete guide to Zwift.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Apple TV
• Cost: £12.99 / $14.99 per month
• Free trial period: 7 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Solo and social riding, virtual racing, training and structured workouts
• Website: Zwift.com

Wahoo SYSTM

Wahoo SYSTM is a new online training platform from the fitness technology brand. Wahoo has incorporated The Sufferfest with a wide range of additional training content in its new app.

Rather than going down the virtual world route, and competing with the likes of Zwift and RGT Cycling, SYSTM focuses on helping you to build and follow a training plan, alongside a large library of workouts and content.

Aimed at time-crunched athletes, SYSTM uses Wahoo’s proprietary Four Dimensional Power (4DP) profile (a kind of advanced FTP profile, more akin to Critical Power) to help tailor training plans and workouts to your individual fitness, strengths and weaknesses.

SYSTM also has an ‘intuitive training plan builder’, which enables users to customise training plans to suit their own goals and fitness level. It also takes into account both your indoor and outdoor riding, as well as any off-bike cross-training you may do.

Wahoo says every workout and training plan has been designed by its Wahoo Sports Science Division, led by professional coach Neal Henderson.

SYSTM has also imported content from The Sufferfest. Race simulations combine first-person camera footage and race data from elite riders, scaled to your fitness level, while there are also sessions set to videos of iconic cycling routes.

In the ‘A Week With’ category, users follow a Wahoo-sponsored professional athlete for a week, copying their turbo trainer workouts and seeing how they live and train.

SYSTM also includes classic cycling films and documentaries, such as A Sunday In Hell and Outskirts, to help you through longer base training and recovery workouts. 

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
• Cost: £12.99 / $14.99 per month
• Free trial period: 14 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Comprehensive workout library, customisable training plan, incorporates The Sufferfest and additional content
• Website: wahoofitness.com/systm

TrainerRoad

TrainerRoad

Riding a trainer aimlessly, staring at the wall is about as much fun as sitting in a waiting room at the dentist’s with no WiFi. On top of that, riding with little regard for your goals and training zones isn’t really doing anything for your fitness, if you really want to make the most of your time on the turbo.

TrainerRoad takes a less is more approach to the indoor training app, focusing heavily on relatively short, measured interval training sessions. The aim is to make you fitter and faster without the bells and whistles other apps may offer.

While some folks may have the discipline to guide themselves through workouts in their basements, most people (including the majority of the BikeRadar staff) aren’t that mentally tough. But if a coach or an app is there walking you through that sweetspot or VO2 max session and all you have to do is pedal? That, we can do.

The app’s new adaptive training feature acts like an AI coach by tailoring sessions to your current condition. The software interprets your data and makes the training schedule easier if you’re fatigued or harder if you’re getting stronger. 

In testing, TrainerRoad claims the technology halved the number of aborted workouts and increased the likelihood of users improving their FTP by 20 per cent. 

In short, TrainerRoad is streamlined fitness on your mobile phone, tablet or computer. You can drop in and do workouts a la carte, subscribe to a training plan tailored to your target event, or, if you’re already plugged into a plan on TrainingPeaks or Today’s Plan, it will import those workouts and keep you right on track.

The interface is clean and simple: just follow the targets for power (and sometimes cadence) for the prescribed duration. The bar graphs show what is coming up, and the text explains the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’.

No fluff, just fitness.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
• Cost: $19.95 per month or $189 per year
• Free trial period: 30-day money-back guarantee
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Laser-focus on interval training and training plans
• Website: Trainerroad.com

RGT Cycling

RGT Cycling (which stands for Road Grand Tours Cycling) is a competitor to Zwift, except it offers virtual riding on real roads.

You can do individual or group rides, structured training and races on virtual reconstructions of iconic roads such as Mont Ventoux, the Paterberg in Flanders and the Passo dello Stelvio.

Premium users can also upload their own GPX files and the app will create a virtual course for you to ride in-game.

RGT recently merged its two apps into one (there were previously individual apps for running RGT on mobile and then playing it on a screen). 

As a result, you can now directly connect a Mac, PC or tablet running RGT Cycling to your smart trainer or smart bike. 

The platform says this should resolve connectivity issues some users were experiencing and make it easier for any bugs to be fixed. 

For more, read our complete guide to RGT Cycling.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Apple TV
• Cost: Free (£9.99 / $6.99 / €8.99 per month for premium features)
• Free trial period: 14 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Virtual reconstructions of real roads, training and racing
• Website: RGTCycling.com

More indoor cycling training apps

There are scores of indoor training apps out there, including quite a few produced by brands to accompany smart trainers.

For the most part, we have found the branded apps to be less polished and user-friendly. However, there are a couple of exceptions, which have made the list below.

Rouvy

Rouvy contains a mix of virtual riding and interval training.

The company offers augmented-reality riding that allows you to race your friends, similar to Zwift, but instead of a fully animated world, the app adds avatars, road signs and finish banners to real-life footage. 

You can specifically train for UK sportives on simulations of Yorkshire hills the pros rode in the 2014 Tour de France. 

For more, read our complete guide to Rouvy.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Apple TV
• Cost: $12 / €12 per month
• Free trial period: 14 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Video routes, augmented reality routes, training
• Website: Rouvy.com

Bkool

Bkool previously made indoor trainers, alongside offering an app, but the Spanish company is now focused exclusively on software.  

Its virtual world comprises thousands of courses and offers similar social and racing features to Zwift.

There are also outdoor courses with real-world footage, as well as the option for targeted interval training.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
• Cost: €9.99 per month
• Free trial period: 30 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Virtual racing, virtual routes and video routes, training
• Website: bkool.com

Kinomap

With more than 425,000km of video courses from around the world, Kinomap changes the resistance on your smart trainer based on the terrain in the video.

Kinomap also offers interval training, with two modes either based around training with a power meter or fixed resistance on a smart trainer. You can train solo or join sessions with users anywhere in the world. 

• Platform: iOS, Android
• Cost: Free / €11.99 per month / €89.99 annually / €269 lifetime access
• Free trial period: 14 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary Features: Video routes, training, multisport functionality
• Website: Kinomap.com

FulGaz

FulGaz offers more than 1,200 high-definition POV videos from around the world, with everything from famous climbs such as the Tourmalet to popular group ride routes such as Akuna Bay in Sydney, Australia.

The app uses your weight and power output to adjust the speed of the video and the resistance on your smart trainer.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, Apple TV
• Cost: £9.99 per month / £85.99 annually
• Free trial period: 14 days
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Video routes, training
• Website: fulgaz.com

Kinetic Fit

Mixing the approach of quite a few of the apps above, Kinetic Fit combines interval training (using bright and blocky bar graphs) with video integration.

That allows you to watch pre-selected YouTube playlists as you ride, or even movies downloaded to your device without the need for a second screen or to navigate away from the workout.

The free ‘core’ membership allows access to one introductory training plan and a range of workouts. The premium ‘smart’ membership opens up an additional 27 training plans, video features and third-party smart-trainer support.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
• Cost: Free / $9.99 per month
• Free trial period: N/A
• Device compatibility: ANT+, Bluetooth
• Primary features: Training
• Website: kinetic.fit

Tacx Training

If you own a Tacx smart trainer, such as the Neo 2T or Flux S, then the Dutch brand offers its own training software.

The Tacx Training app features films of real-life roads such as Mont Ventoux and the Paterberg, as well as training plans, customisable workouts and the ability to replicate your own routes from GPS data.

The free service allows users to create custom workouts, analyse training data and ride to two demo films. You’ll need to sign up for a Premium or Premium HD subscription in order to access the full library of videos and training plans or to import your own GPS data.

Unfortunately, it’s only compatible with Tacx smart trainers, so if you don’t have one you’ll have to look elsewhere.

• Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
• Cost: Free / €9.99 monthly or €99.99 annually (Premium) / €13.99 monthly or €139.99 annually (Premium HD)
• Free trial period: N/A
• Device compatibility: Tacx smart trainers only
• Primary features: Training, real-life videos
• Website: Tacx.com

Indoor training: what you need to get started

Here’s an overview of the basic equipment required to use an indoor training app.

One of these three devices:

• Smartphone
• Tablet
• Computer

One of these three tools:

• Smart trainer (best for a realistic ride quality and automatic resistance control for intervals and road gradient, but pricey)
• Power meter (great for accurate data that transfers to outside workouts, no automatic resistance control unless paired with a smart trainer)
• Classic trainer with speed/cadence sensor (affordable but virtual power is calculated, so not as realistic and no automatic resistance control)

One of these two wireless connections:

• ANT+
• Bluetooth

And both of these:

• Your bike
• A big fan to keep you cool!

That’s the basics covered but our guide to turbo trainer accessories covers everything else you may need to make the experience more immersive or pleasurable.

When Dr BJ Fogg, director of the behaviour design lab at Stanford University, decided to improve his strength, he started by doing two press-ups after each trip to his bathroom at home. Over time, he added more press-ups, ending with a celebratory fist pump each time. Sometimes he did three press-ups. On other days he did 10.

But the volume was irrelevant, what mattered was that he was nurturing one of our most potent neurological weapons: a habit. Today, without thinking about it, Dr Fogg performs more than 80 press-ups every day.

To develop his habit-building formula, Dr Fogg distilled cutting-edge research in psychology, neuroscience, behaviour change and persuasive technology into a system he calls ‘Tiny Habits’. It involves starting with small, achievable changes (two press-ups), anchoring a new habit to an existing habit (his regular trips to the bathroom) and celebrating progress with positive emotions (the fist pump).

Through his online programme, network of coaches and popular book Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, Dr Fogg has now helped tens of thousands of people, from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to Olympic athletes.

Healthy habits are of particular importance to cyclists. If you could rewire your brain to ensure you stick to your training plan, stretch every day and eat healthier snacks, the rewards could be huge.

Tiny Habits coach Gavin Brauer, the CEO of KindHuman Bicycles in Toronto, Canada, has helped hundreds of cyclists build healthier habits. “Professional athletes have talent that surpasses everyday people, but they also have a world-class system of habits that leads to better training and results,” he explains. “Somebody wins a gold medal in the four years before a world championships.”

Many cyclists want to increase their average speed or have goals such as riding a century. So, how can you establish the habits that will help you achieve your goals and improve your performance on the bike?

The power of habits

Many cyclists want to train more often and eat healthier food, but there can be a gap between what we want and what we actually do.

We beat ourselves up about this fact, convinced that we are lazy or unmotivated. But Dr Fogg says that’s unfair – unaware of how our brains work, it’s like we’re trying to build a chest of drawers with faulty instructions and missing parts.

Without knowing how to build habits, we rely on willpower alone, which is a flimsy and finite resource, vulnerable to fluctuations in our moods and energy.

In a seminal study by psychologist Professor Roy Baumeister, subjects entered a room full of cookies, with some allowed to eat the treats and others told to eat radishes instead. In a subsequent geometry puzzle, participants whose willpower had been drained by resisting the cookies gave up on the task twice as fast. The study showed that willpower, like a muscle, gets fatigued from overuse. This explains why New Year’s resolutions invariably fail in the long run.

In contrast, habits are powerful modes of automatic behaviour driven by deeply ingrained neurological patterns. Every repetition only strengthens these neural pathways to embed the habit further.

We perform hundreds of habits every day, from cleaning our teeth to switching on the kettle. In fact, research suggests that 43 per cent of our daily behaviour is performed out of habit.

If you’ve ever left your house and suddenly wondered if you turned off the cooker, that’s because you did so out of habit, without thinking about it. And because your habits don’t require conscious effort, they can be incredibly powerful tools.

“If you have to make a decision to train, you’re not going to make the same decision every day,” says Brauer, who has a degree in kinesiology and psychology. “But if you can turn your training into a habit, so it’s automatic, you’ll do it without thinking about it.

“That’s the thing about BJ’s method. The rest of the world says: let’s focus on motivation! But motivation is unreliable. You need something that is reliable; you need good habits.”

Brain games

Habits serve a valuable evolutionary function, enabling us to complete important routine activity without using up energy.

Neuroscientist Dr Ann Graybiel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has researched the basal ganglia – the brain area associated with habits. In one experiment, rats (whose brains are similar in structure to those of humans) were taught the habit of finding a chocolate that was placed in the same part of a maze every time they heard a certain sound.

Tests showed that when the rats were learning to find the chocolate, they experienced lots of neural activity because finding the chocolate required effort. But when the habit became ingrained, the neurons fired only at the ‘cue’ of that habit – the sound – and again at the ‘reward’ – eating the chocolate. During the performance of the habit itself, their brains were on autopilot.

“It’s as though somehow the brain retains a memory of the habit context and this pattern can be triggered if the right habit cues come back,” explained Dr Graybiel. “We are hopeful that this may be key to understanding how to treat bad habits like addiction, and also how to encourage good habits that benefit health and happiness.”

Research suggests that by focusing on the ‘cues’ and ‘rewards’ at the start and end of the ‘habit loop’ – similar to the ‘prompts’ and ‘celebrations’ used in the Tiny Habits system – we can learn to form new habits. For example, placing your bike by the door before you go to bed (the nightly cue) and enjoying the post-ride buzz (the reward) could inspire you to commute by bike more often.

“In the morning I’d get stressed and run out of time,” says Brauer. “So I focused on building the habit through the starter stuff: just putting on my cycling shoes and packing my bag. I knew once I’d started, I’d follow through.”

Think small

Dr Fogg says it’s essential to start with small goals because habits are formed through a ‘B=MAP’ system. “Behaviour can be changed when you have a convergence of Motivation, Ability and a Prompt,” he says.

“Those are the three elements. But behaviour can happen even if motivation is low, so long as the action is easy (so you have the ability to do it) and you have a prompt to remind you to do it.

“If you don’t make your first behaviour tiny, you’ll probably fail. By starting out small and succeeding, you’ll improve your motivation by the release of positive emotions.”

A focus on building small habits – such as doing one yoga stretch every time you get out of bed, or taking an apple out of the fridge after breakfast each morning – will ensure the habit becomes ingrained through repetition. Over time, you’ll naturally take the next steps anyway: if you get the apple out, you’ll almost certainly eat it later.

“If I make the effort to put on my workout clothes in the morning, I’m going to follow through,” says Brauer. “And if I get on the floor to do one stretch, my brain will quieten down and I’ll finish the routine.”

Starting out small also improves your ability to perform the habit. “As your ability increases, fear goes away and hope increases because you see yourself succeeding,” explains Dr Fogg. “That too reinforces the new behaviour.”

Brauer used this approach to improve his diet: “I started out by getting an apple out of the fridge. Then I started cutting up peppers. And that was harder because I had to wash it, cut it up and find a container. But by doing that, my knife skills improved and my ability to find a container got better! So it became easy to add in carrots and cucumbers. This morning I was stressed, I had to get my kids to my mom, but I still cut up my vegetables for lunch because I’ve had this habit for six months.”

Anchors & emotions

Research suggests one of the best ways to build a new habit is to ‘anchor’ it to an existing habit already encoded in your brain. That’s why Dr Fogg recommends using ‘recipes’ such as: ‘After I brush my teeth, I’ll do two squats’. Or, ‘After I turn on the coffee maker, I’ll take my vitamins’. Existing daily habits – eating breakfast, checking social media, arriving in the office – serve as the cues that’ll ensure you repeat your new habit every day.

A sample recipe for cyclists could be: ‘After I answer my phone, I’ll stand up and stretch’. If you get 10 calls per day, you’ll soon develop a fantastic daily stretching regime.

Another recipe could be: ‘After I turn on the kettle, I’ll do two sit-ups’. Your regular tea and coffee breaks will now provide the framework to make core training part of your daily routine.

You can use this system to rewire bad habits, too: if your 3pm break is a trigger to raid the cookie jar, make sure you have a bowl of nuts to hand instead. The cue is still your 3pm break, but now you’ve turned an unhealthy habit into a positive one.

Dr Fogg says it’s important to celebrate the completion of each small habit, in order to cement the habit with positive emotions – the all-important reward at the end of the habit loop.

“You have to celebrate your success to fire off those emotions right there,” says Dr Fogg. “Over time, the positive emotion reinforces that behaviour until it becomes automatic. It makes you want to do the tiny behaviour again. You think: everything is going wrong today but that felt good.”

We Brits might struggle with a flamboyant fist pump, but you can say ‘Good work’ to yourself or conjure up a positive mental image of feeling stronger after those squats or sit-ups. And you need different celebrations for different scenarios.

“During races, when you’re in a pack and you need to be in the right spot, you can use Tiny Habits to ensure you always react in the right way after you see someone go off the front,” says Brauer. “It’s hard to throw your hands in the air to celebrate in the pack, so use an internal celebration instead.”

Winning mindset

Habits can be psychological as well as physical. We’re often held back by fear or doubt, but you can replace negative thoughts with a positive mindset, insists Brauer.

“When you see a steep hill, if you’re an elite athlete, you think: ‘Fun! I’ll crush that!’ If you’re less confident, your response is: ‘Oh shoot!’ Which mindset is going to perform better? So I started practising the recipe: when I see a steep hill, I’ll think: ‘I am light’. And I will celebrate. And all of a sudden, climbing felt easier.

I also built a habit around: ‘When it’s raining, I’ll remind myself how fun it is to ride in the rain’. The other day, I rode home in a storm and had so much fun.”

The more healthy habits you can introduce this year, the better. That’s because positive habits trigger a domino effect. One study in the British Journal of Health Psychology showed that when people made exercise a regular habit, they also made fewer impulse buys, missed fewer appointments and even did more washing-up.

“All our behaviours are interconnected,” insists Dr Fogg. “When you change one behaviour, you find it much easier to change other habits, too.”

Most cyclists could be forgiven for putting their feet up in the depths of winter, staying out of the cold and enjoying the off-season, with only social rides keeping the legs turning. Others, though, will be out in full winter kit, ticking off the miles in the name of ‘base training’.

But are long, slow winter miles worth building into your training plan alongside indoor training? Or is base training best left to WorldTour pros who can dedicate 20 hours a week to riding? 

We spoke to two cycling coaches to discover whether base training for cyclists is a myth or a must-do.

What is base training?

Base training involves long, steady rides intended to build your aerobic fitness.

This form of training provides the foundation on which to build your form through the rest of the season. The clue is in the name – if you consider your fitness as a pyramid, base training provides a solid endurance base, while your top-end form, typically developed through short, sharp interval training sessions, is represented by the peak of the pyramid.

“The goal is to develop your aerobic base fitness,” explains Matt Rowe of Rowe & King Cycle Coaching. “That gives you the fitness and ability to train harder and absorb a greater workload further down the line.”

Completing a phase of low-intensity endurance training prepares the body for more intense work to come, adds Matt Bottrill of Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching, allowing you to build sustainably towards a higher peak of form.

“Things like HIIT [High Intensity Interval Training] are the pillars of your future training blocks, which is how you’re going to get your peak performance,” he says. “But base training is about building those foundations so you can then take the load.”

In terms of intensity, slow and steady is the name of the game – this is no smashfest around the local lanes, chasing KOM/QOMs on Strava. Base training rides should involve riding steadily in zone two.

If you train with a power meter, zone two is 56 to 75 per cent of your Functional Threshold Power; if you train with a heart rate monitor, zone two is 65 to 75 per cent of your maximum heart rate.

There is some debate over training with heart rate vs training with power. Generally, heart rate is considered a more affordable and easy way to gain insight into your training, while power will give you more a more accurate and real-time reflection of your output.

What are the benefits of base training?

Base training has three main benefits: to improve your aerobic efficiency; to improve your ability to use fat as a fuel source and to provide a solid foundation of fitness on which to build your form.

Let’s take a closer look at the physiological impact on your body and how that will set you up for the season to come.

“Base training improves your endurance, so you’re able to cycle at a lower percentage of your VO2 max,” says Rowe. 

As a result, you’ll be able to produce the same wattage from less effort, he adds. Put simply, this will enable you to ride faster before becoming fatigued.

Base training has other benefits beyond your effort-to-output ratio. “It enables you to cycle more aerobically, using more fat as opposed to carbohydrates as a fuel source,” adds Rowe.

When riding at a low-to-moderate intensity, the body is using its aerobic energy system, with fat as the primary fuel source. The good thing about fat is that there are almost endless supplies of it, but it takes the body a lot longer to turn it into energy.

During high-intensity efforts (be it going with a break or tackling a hill) or when fatigued, the body switches to its limited stores of glucose sourced from carbohydrates (glycogen), stored in muscles and the liver. 

By boosting the body’s ability to source energy from fat during steady efforts, it leaves your limited carbohydrate stores ready for when you need them most (those high-intensity efforts) – and potentially preventing the dreaded bonk. Base training will help raise the point at which your body switches from fat to carbohydrates as the primary fuel source.

A solid base will also leave you better prepared for any setbacks in training, according to Rowe: “Once you’ve got that solid base, if you have a bit of time off due to illness or injury, you bounce back a lot quicker.

“Also, when you build up the training sustainably, you hold your form for longer when starting off with a good base.”

Who needs to do base training?

Base training has been long-favoured by professional cyclists, who have the luxury of logging winter miles on dedicated training camps in Calpe, Mallorca, Tenerife and other sun-kissed destinations, ahead of the racing season.

“If you’re a professional cyclist, the traditional method of base training will help create that big aerobic base, but it takes a long time and hours of riding,” says Rowe, whose brother, Luke, rides for Team Ineos Grenadiers. 

So what about the rest of us?

Matt Bottrill says everyone should do base training. He adds: “If you don’t do the base, you’ve got nowhere to go with it. You’ve got to do that first phase of base training – getting the winter miles in – to get a response and take the load for the rest of the year.”

Most riders have limited time to train, however – particularly if you’re balancing family, work and social commitments, alongside a training plan. While base training can be beneficial to everyone in some shape or form, Rowe emphasises the importance of variety.

“If you can train for six hours a week and that’s all the time you have available, then spending those six hours solely base training and riding fairly steady will result in a reduced total work done, so reduced training stress, which could leave you losing fitness,” he says.

The key for time-crunched riders, he adds, is to combine base training with rides at a higher intensity. 

How can I introduce base training into my winter plan if I’m short on time?

Whether you’re planning to race hour-long criteriums or ride a long sportive, Rowe and Bottrill both advise starting your training with a ‘build phase’ that incorporates base training.

“It’s all about periodisation,” says Rowe. “After the [initial] build phase is where you would see the most difference in the training for these two riders.”

Rowe advises combining a long weekend base ride with indoor training workouts on a smart trainer at a higher intensity.

Sweetspot training can be particularly beneficial, he adds. Your training ‘sweetspot’ is at the top end of zone three and lower end of zone four – intervals at this intensity are said to offer the most training bang for your buck for riders with limited time.

“The trick is combining indoor and outdoor riding,” adds Rowe, who sets interval training sessions for his coached riders year-round. 

“Zwift complements outdoor riding – it’s not a replacement for it. You can use the weekend to develop your base endurance; a long group ride is fantastic. And then, in the week, you can do a bunch of sweetspot work.”

Long rides have an additional benefit beyond improving your fitness, Rowe says, particularly if preparing for an event where you’re likely to spend many hours in the saddle.

“Getting that long riding in will develop you as a bike rider – not just your legs and your energy systems, but those muscles in your upper body as well,” he says.

“If you’re trying to do races, events and sportives that are four to six hours long, you need to get your body used to sitting on a bike in a certain position for a long time.”

Bottrill also recommends using long rides as a way to work on any weaknesses in your technique, including cadence drills. “The winter is always about asking ‘what’s my weakness?’,” he says.

Taking a varied approach to training should stand you in good stead for the season ahead, building your aerobic base while also keeping your higher-end fitness ticking over.

Time needn’t be a barrier to effective training. “I am a huge believer in quality over quantity,” concludes Rowe.

Riding your bike in the winter months is hard. It can be cold, wet, windy – often all three at once – and that’s before you factor in occasionally cycling in the dark. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.

Training throughout the winter is a great way to keep your base fitness ticking over, while also preparing you for next spring and summer and any exciting goals you’re looking to achieve on two wheels. What’s more, getting outdoors and staying active through winter is good for the soul.

Here are 10 ways to stay motivated through the winter, to help you through those moments when it can seem easier to stay in bed…

1. Have a goal

“The main thing for anyone is having a goal,” explains Matt Bottrill of Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching. “You’ve got to have a motivation. It could be something that’s happened to your family, your health, lose weight. Whatever that is, you need that goal. 

“If you’ve got that in place, every time you do a training session you’ve got a reason for doing it – you’re not just going through the motions. You then feel good about it because that stepping stone is working towards your big goal.”

A great way of determining goals is to create a training plan. Just make sure you don’t make any winter training mistakes.

2. Have the right kit

Heading out into the cold is made a lot easier if you’ve got the right winter gear in your wardrobe, especially if you’re riding in the rain.

It can be hard to get motivated if you’re imagining the next few hours to be as cold as sitting in a fridge, and staying in bed is going to be a lot more attractive.

Investing in foul-weather kit, whether that’s a good waterproof jacket or a pair of overshoes, will turn a training ride from unbearable into enjoyable, and will have you jumping out of bed and onto your bike.

Check out our guide to the best winter cycling clothing for an in-depth look at what to wear when it’s less than appealing outside.

3. Buddy up

Struggling to get motivated to head out on your own? Find another rider who is keen to get some winter training in and buddy up, instead of trying to tackle the elements solo.

Not only will it make the miles whizz by as you chat away between stops, but it’s a lot harder to bail when you’ve got someone stood on your doorstep all kitted up and ready to go.

4. Join a club run

If your cycling buddies are now in hibernation until the spring, then it might be an idea to join a club run.

Many cycling clubs run a range of rides at the weekend that vary in pace, while some offer early-morning, pre-work sessions in the week for the extra keen.

If you’re new to club runs, check out our guide on how to ride in a group, which talks you through how to ride safely and efficiently.

5. Try something new

Even if you consider yourself a road cyclist, that doesn’t mean you have to live and die by the sword of tarmac. Winter is a great time to try off-road pursuits that will not only help with your training but could also be beneficial to your overall riding technique, too.

Equally, if you’re a mountain biker looking to improve your endurance, could you be tempted out onto the road this winter?

For both roadies and mountain bikers, gravel riding offers a happy medium. Gravel bikes combine speed on the road with the ability to venture off the beaten track – ideal for steady winter miles.

Another great thing to try out is cross-training, which will inject a dose of variety and fun, as well as making you a stronger cyclist without a pedal stroke.

6. Join the Rapha Festive 500

Is your winter training just not, well, challenging enough? Try your hand at the Rapha Festive 500. 

The Strava challenge has become a legendary way for riders to up the endurance (and test the patience of family members) over the festive period, with participants set the task of riding 500km between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

It’s not 500km or nothing, however. Strava has a number of December challenges, such as a 400km distance challenge and a 7,500m climbing challenge.

7. Train inside

Whisper it, but it is possible to train over the winter period without subjecting yourself to the harsh conditions that come with it. Invest in one of the best smart trainers and swapping one outdoor ride per week for an indoor workout can revitalise your training and help keep you motivated.

Plus, interval training and sweetspot training are actually more time-efficient when done indoors – ideal if you’re juggling riding with family, work and social commitments.

Still not convinced? We’ve put together a list of indoor cycling benefits.

8. Listen to music

If you do opt to train inside this winter, there are things that can soon start to irritate you during a session – most notably the lack of visual stimulation that you get when out on the road. But there are ways of overcoming this.

“I always listen to music,” says Bottrill. “I listen to dance music and I love the rhythm of it. I match my pedal stroke to the beat of the music. You can break it down to phases, so ‘this song is four minutes, I’ll listen to two songs and then I’ll look at the time’. It’s a great way of zoning out.”

• How to create an indoor training pain cave

9. Try a training app

Another way of livening up your workout is to use a training app. We’ve got a round-up of the best indoor cycling apps.

The interactive worlds of Zwift, Rouvy and RGT Cycling can turn your indoor ride into the closest thing to heading out on the road, without leaving the house.

You’ll have the virtual world to keep you occupied, while it’s also possible to join a group ride, complete structured workouts or embark on a fully fledged training plan.

10. Remember to reward yourself

It’s all very well having goals and motivating yourself to train throughout the winter months, but you need to enjoy the rewards, too.

“You need to reward yourself,” Bottrill says. “It will make you want to achieve it more.”

So whether that’s an extra slice of cake at the cafe stop, or a new bit of kit in the new year, don’t forget to treat yourself along the way.

A good set of legs and lungs stands you in good stead for cyclocross racing, but the discipline rewards bike-handling expertise far more than other branches of road racing. There are several ‘cross skills you’ll need to climb up the field. Many of these are also handy on the road.

Practising getting on and off your bike, as well as running with it, will make your initiation to cyclocross racing less daunting.

Although you only do it once, getting out of the blocks quickly is one of the most important parts of the race. As you progress, you’ll learn how to scythe through corners by not touching the brakes and scale steep banks without getting off the bike.

The most advanced racers will also bunnyhop to good effect to maintain speed and avoid punctures.

Key cyclocross skills and how to practise them

Cyclocross starts

A fast start in a cyclocross race helps avoid congestion at the first corners and can be pivotal to overall positioning.

The term ‘holeshot’ describes the flat-out dash from the startline to the first bend. The fastest riders to get up to speed can break clear or make up ground if they’ve started near the back of the grid.

You need to react swiftly to the start signal, clip in during the first pedal stroke and be in the correct gear to power away. The best cyclocross shoes are a massive help with this.

If you’re new to riding with clipless pedals, this is a key skill to practise – you want the process of clipping in to feel like second nature.

Dismounting and remounting your bike

Obstacles, such as barriers, may call for you to get off your bike. Technical sections, such as banks and mud, can often be quicker to run than ride.

On all but the fastest and driest of courses, where you’ll spend more time seated, your aptitude in this area could save or cost you minutes.

Running dismounts maintain precious speed you’ve worked hard to build up. Remounting on the move gets you back to speed quicker after a fall or bike change.

Mastering this is a key skill for any serious cyclocross racer and, as silly as it might feel, practising this is key if you want to be competitive.

Carrying and shouldering your bike in cyclocross

Sometimes, lifting your bike and running is the best way forward on unrideable sections or when competitors have stopped in front of you. If you push the bike over rough or muddy terrain, you’ll find it hard to control and the chain will bounce about.

Thankfully, the best cyclocross bikes are exceptionally light and relatively easy to carry. Many will also have specially shaped top tubes to aid carrying.

Both techniques for doing so are more comfortable once you’re removed the bottle cages from your frame.

Bunnyhopping in cyclocross

This technique gets you over small obstacles without having to dismount. It can bring high rewards.

At regional races, you’ll see the top riders jump skilfully over wooden barriers and overtake rivals as they remount and clip in.

But, as anyone who has not gained enough air to clear the blocks of wood will testify, bunnyhopping is high risk.

Only a fraction of pros in the men’s and women’s World Cup series will dare try it. Loss of time, injury and a race-ending mechanical are possible pitfalls.

If you’re unsure whether it’ll pay off, it’s best to use the running dismount.

Cornering in cyclocross racing

Choosing the right line through a corner increases your exit speed, allowing you to surge out of it.

Look where you want to go, and then your head and body should follow. By holding your weight back, the front wheel can turn freely and will be less likely to lose grip.

A straighter line is a faster line, so seek traction and take the widest line you can before braking and then turning. Tyres struggle to do both at the same time without understeering or sliding.

On reverse cambers and slippy bends or descents, where grip is at a premium, pros often employ a technique called ‘scooting’.

They unclip one foot, usually the inside, and touch the ground for balance or to propel themselves around  the corner.

Climbing banks

Racers who can ride over short, sharp climbs can carry more speed over the crest and put time into rivals.

They dance athletically past us mere mortals scrambling and slipping our way up – made more ungainly by a two-wheeled burden.

But there’s no magic involved. They’ve just perfected the technique, and so can you.

Time taken experimenting with gearing and finding the best line on practice laps will be well spent. Aim to carry as much speed into the bottom as possible, and select the appropriate gear in advance so you don’t falter later.

Adjust your weight distribution between the rear wheel, for grip, and the front for steering and to stop it lifting. It’s a matter of strength to keep the pedals turning.

Cyclocross racing takes place on technical outdoor courses of grass, dirt, mud, sand or sometimes snow. On bikes that don’t look out of place on the road, the elites display the off-road skills of mountain bikers and the explosivity of track sprinters.

The cyclocross (often abbreviated to CX) heartland is on the continent, in Belgium and the Netherlands. The World Cup series and even domestic events draw thousands of spectators, who ward off the cold with beer and frites.

Tour de France riders in the early 20th century invented cyclocross as a discipline to help maintain shape during the off-season.

The thrilling autumn and winter sport includes sharp turns, steep banks, hurdles, tree roots and other obstacles. Riders are often forced to dismount and run with their bikes. The best bike handlers bunnyhop wooden barriers.

Competitors complete as many laps of a course that is typically 1-3km long as they can, plus a final lap, in races lasting 30-60 minutes.

In the UK, the ‘cross season typically runs from around September to February. Venues such as leisure centres, sport pitches and parks host races. There are many regional competitions you can join, such as the West Midlands Cyclo-Cross League, and national events, namely the Cyclo-Cross National Trophy.

To ride an individual race, you pay an entry fee and require a British Cycling race membership, or you can buy a day’s race licence. The growing popularity of the sport has led some leagues to require online entry in advance in order to cap numbers.

But cyclocross remains a welcoming, inclusive sport. It’s a fun way to improve fitness and a gateway into racing for others.

Moreover, learning cyclocross skills does wonders for your bike handling. Wout Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel both won multiple cyclocross world championships before taking road racing by storm.

Ineos Grenadiers’ Tom Pidcock, who is also the reigning Olympic MTB champion, is still a competitive ‘cross racer every winter.

Here’s how to trace their tyre tracks to the start grid of your first ‘cross race.

Join a club

The British Cycling website has a search tool to help you find your nearest club.

Once you’ve joined, the resident CX enthusiast will point you in the way of races and advise on kit and technique. You can practise skills together and share lifts to races.

Many clubs also organise midweek group sessions, where you can perfect your dismounting, running and remounting.

It’s about the bike

Cyclocross bikes are designed for negotiating a ‘cross course’s tight turns rather than all-day comfort. They typically have a shorter frame reach – though this isn’t always the case – a taller bottom bracket to improve ground clearance and lots of clearance around the wheels to stop mud build-up. They’ll also typically be specced with knobbly cyclocross tyres and lower gears than a road bike.

There is, of course, no reason why you can’t race cyclocross on your road bike, especially if it has disc brakes, which provide better braking in the wet and won’t get clogged up with mud like regular rim brake calipers. The geometry of a road bike is close enough to a cyclocross bike to be more than workable.

The best gravel bikes can also cope admirably with ‘cross racing as, particularly with more race-focused gravel bikes, the difference between the two is pretty small.

Local races accept flat-bar bikes too. Therefore, to begin with, you can even ride your mountain bike, provided its tyres are within the mandated width limit.

Some riders find it helpful to lower their saddle height by 5mm to 7mm when racing cyclocross because it’ll be easier to move about on the bike, make minor adjustments and to get on and off.

Gear idea

Many cyclocross racers prefer to wear a skinsuit, but you can wear a road jersey and bib shorts with no problem.

Off-road, specific footwear is essential, though. The best cyclocross shoes, paired with clipless pedals will hugely benefit your performance and enjoyment.

They are easier to clip in and out of the double-sided pedals they’re used with, easier to run in and stand less of a chance of becoming clogged up with mud. Some riders may also find riding clipped in helps improve their control in technical terrain.

Ring the changes

Although a 2x setup will get you around a ‘cross course with no problem at all, single chainrings are an increasingly common sight at races.

They’re a simple and reliable choice on rugged, chain-rattling terrain, as well as easier to maintain.

Lower speeds than on the road mean massive gears are unnecessary. A 1x crankset with a 40t chainring with, for example, a 11-40 ratio will see you up steep banks, but will also ensure you won’t spin out on the flat parts of the course.

A 1x conversion on your gravel bike is an affordable alternative to buying a separate ‘cross bike.

Low and wide

Not even the best cyclocross tyres will maintain momentum and grip through woods and mud if they’re at the wrong pressure.

Roughly 30psi is a good starting point for dry, fast conditions. Wet mud might require 15psi, but an individual’s tyre pressure will vary hugely depending on factors such as skill, speed, weight and tyre tread pattern.

In a UCI race or national trophy events, the maximum permitted width is 33mm. In regional races in the UK, you’re allowed to ride 35mm or 38mm tyres.

It’s a cliché, but indoor cycling’s reputation for being mind-numbingly boring was previously well earned.

Those of us who had a turbo trainer or rollers before the advent of smart trainers, smart bikes and indoor cycling apps will no doubt have painful memories of indoor training sessions which somehow appeared to slow the passage of time itself.

These tools have revolutionised how many of us approach riding indoors, though. Boredom is now mostly a thing of the past, provided you approach it in the right way, and more riders than ever are enjoying the benefits of indoor training

With that in mind, here are our top 5 tips to getting the most out of your indoor training.

1. Get a smart trainer

Smart trainers are a primary reason indoor training doesn’t have to be boring anymore.

Thanks to their ability to control the resistance and simulate courses, a smart trainer enables your indoor training sessions to be far more immersive than would otherwise be possible.

Want to be a better climber but don’t live near any mountains? A smart trainer can simulate gradients and replicate much of the feeling of climbing long, steep climbs. This can be especially helpful if you’re training for an event like a gran fondo or sportive.

Although nothing can match the experience of actually being outside in the mountains for real, a smart trainer paired with a virtual cycling app like Zwift, RGT Cycling or Rouvy comes admirably close.

A smart trainer doesn’t have to be super expensive either.

Yes, you can spend loads if you want to, with top-end options like the Tacx Neo 2T and Wahoo Kickr among the best smart trainers we’ve tested, but budget alternatives like the Tacx Flow Smart offer an affordable entry point into interactive indoor cycling, with fewer compromises than you might expect.

2. Be prepared before you start your session

One of the benefits of indoor cycling is how incredibly time-efficient it can be.

With no interruptions from traffic, road junctions and the like, it’s far easier to maximise the potential of every minute spent on the bike when training indoors.

Doing so means being properly prepared before you get on the bike, though. Having all of your essential accessories ready and within reach will help you avoid any unnecessary interruptions to your flow.

For example, if you’re doing structured interval training sessions on TrainerRoad or Wahoo Systm, or a Zwift Workout, you don’t want to run out of water in the middle of a long interval at FTP (Functional Threshold Power).

Likewise, if you’ve joined a virtual group ride or Zwift race, having to stop to refill a bottle, or having to get off the bike because you’ve forgotten to turn on your fan, likely means losing the draft of the group you’re in, and the end of any hopes of a good result.

Here’s our list of essential turbo trainer accessories;

• Fan for cooling
• At least one full water bottle. Take two if you’re not sure how long your session will last
• Towel or set of sweat bands
• Fully charged wireless headphones
• Trainer mat
• Table for your phone or smart device
• Some food or an emergency gel / energy bar

3. Have a goal

If you’ve got all the kit and taken one giant leap into the world of interactive indoor cycling, the next thing to do is formulate some kind of goal or plan for each session.

You can have plenty of fun exploring virtual roads, but following a training plan or doing events, group rides or races, is, in our experience, even better.

There’s nothing quite like a competitive edge for allowing you to access the inner depths of your suitcase of courage, or a training plan to hold you to account and give you the motivation you need to start a session.

And, just like in the real world, being sociable and joining a community can massively enrich your experience.

On Zwift, you can join one of the many races, events or group rides happening every day or set up your own Zwift MeetUp and invite whoever you’d like to take part.

If you’re using a different indoor cycling app, you can use a third-party communications app, such as Discord or Facebook Messenger, to meet digitally and ride together on your indoor cycling app of choice.

4. Take a fitness test

If improving your fitness is a goal for you, then setting a personal benchmark to measure yourself against is a key step.

Though there are exceptions, most indoor cycling apps use FTP as a means of adjusting your training zones for interval-based workouts.

Because of this, having a reasonably accurate FTP setting is crucial to optimising your training.

There are two standard ways of taking an FTP test on Zwift. The classic FTP tests involve a warm-up protocol followed by a 20-minute maximal effort.

If you’re using TrainerRoad, there’s also an option of an FTP test comprising of two 8-minute maximal efforts, with a short rest inbetween.

There are also Ramp tests in both Zwift and TrainerRoad, which begin easy then progressively ramp up the power until you hit your limit.

You only need to do one, but after each test is complete, each app will do its internal calculations for you automatically and give you an FTP figure.

For those who really enjoy punishment, there is another, unofficial way to test your FTP; a virtual mountain time trial up the infamous Alpe du Zwift.

The longer duration of the effort up this 12.22km climb (my personal record stands at 49:29) typically results in a more accurate FTP setting, and going for a PR time can offer some extra motivation.

It’s by no means the easy option, though, so save it for a day when you’re feeling motivated.

Instead of FTP, Wahoo Systm uses what it calls 4DP (Four Dimensional Power) instead. 4DP tests four different aspects of your fitness, ranging from endurance all the way through to sprinting power.

As a result, System’s Full Frontal fitness test is longer and more varied than typical FTP tests on many other indoor cycling apps.

Wahoo says having this extra information about your current abilities enables Systm to tailor workouts to your personal strengths and weaknesses with greater specificity.

Systm also includes its version of a ramp test, called the Half Monty, which can be used to update your fitness numbers without needing to do the Full Frontal test every single time.

5. Use ERG mode strategically

ERG mode is a setting that tells a smart trainer to hold you at a set power output by automatically adjusting the resistance to match your cadence.

There can be a temptation to use it for all workouts, as it can take away the need to perform big gear changes between intervals, and make it easier to precisely hit the target power level at your preferred cadence.

All of that is great, but ERG mode isn’t suitable for every kind of workout, so it’s best used strategically.

ERG mode is fantastic for steady intervals lasting around 30 seconds or longer. In these instances there’s plenty of time for the trainer to ramp the resistance up and down smoothly.

For shorter intervals, though, it can introduce problems.

When doing sprints in ERG mode, undershooting the required power will cause a smart trainer to keep adding more resistance, in an attempt to tease more effort out of your legs.

If you can’t stay on top of your cadence, it’s easy to fall into what’s known as the “spiral of death”.

This is where the trainer keeps increasing the resistance causing your cadence to keep slowing, which prompts the trainer to increase the resistance even further. Eventually, you grind to an exhausted halt.

If this happens to you (as it has to me), don’t panic. Simply stop pedalling for a few seconds, and your smart trainer will automatically ease off the resistance and allow you to get back up to speed.

That aside, being able to smoothly click through the gears as you ramp up the power in a sprint is also an important skill to practice.

If you’re training on Zwift and using the Zwift companion app on your smartphone, it’s possible to turn ERG mode on and off during a workout. This can be a convenient option for workouts containing a mix of interval types.

Riding in a group safely and efficiently is one of the key skills of road cycling. However, the first few times you ride in a group it can be a confusing experience. We’ve got all the essential information and techniques you need in order to stay safe, ride with confidence and have an enjoyable time.

• How to descend safely
• 10 steps to becoming a fitter, faster, better cyclist
• How to flatten even the steepest of hills

Basic group riding technique

When the road allows, you’ll usually be riding two-abreast in a double pace line. This allows everyone behind the two leading riders to shelter from the wind. 

The time each rider spends on the front is usually decided before the ride starts. Tired riders will take shorter turns.

If you’re riding on the front, keep your speed as smooth and controlled as possible because everyone is riding close to one another. This means no grabbing handfuls of brake or fast accelerating, particularly out of corners. Always have your hands covering the brakes, either on the hoods or the drops.

Half-wheeling – nudging your front tyre ahead of the rider beside you – is poor group-riding etiquette. It can come across as a passive-aggressive signal you wish to up the pace. Instead, always try to keep your handlebars level with the person next to you. If unsure about pacing, match the speed of more experienced riders.

Starting out, it’s best to keep at least a wheel length between your front wheel and the back wheel in front. As you progress, you can close this gap. But don’t overlap your wheel with the person in front, because the wheels may make contact with the slightest gust of wind or bump in the road. Try to keep your head up and look ahead for hazards or signals from the other riders.

When approaching hills, it’s important to widen the gap between cyclists to allow for slowing down. Avoid getting out of the saddle when someone’s right behind you. Your back wheel will drop back about half a bike length. This could cause them to swerve or brake sharply.

On downhills, front riders should try to keep pedalling, otherwise riders benefitting from their draft will have to brake. Before longer descents, consider letting everyone go down at their own speed and regroup at the bottom.