Frustration may be your most significant obstacle to achieving your cycling goals. We’ve all experienced the feeling of frustration when we get reeled in by the peloton after a breakaway or our legs turn to Jello with a mile until the summit of a climb. We feel stuck and discouraged, we tense up, and we [...]
In my last post, I introduced you to the importance of intensity in your cycling. I indicated that all of the mental preparation in the world will go for naught if you are not also physiologically prepared to ride your best on race day. After a good pre-race warm-up on your bike or trainer, reaching [...]
Intensity may be the most important contributor to cycling performance once the race begins. It’s so important because all of the motivation, confidence, focus, and emotions in the world won’t help you if your body is not physiologically capable of doing what it needs to do for you to ride your best. Whether you are [...]
No two ways about it, negative thinking hurts your cycling confidence. If you’re on ascending a long and steep climb and negative thoughts, such as “I’m gonna bonk” or “I can’t hang with this group,” pop into your head, the chances are you’re not going to keep up your pace. What’s worse is that if [...]
I was asked recently by a parent of a young cyclist, “What does it take to make a champion?” I thought for a moment and then responded with three words: “Genes, motivation, and support.” So let’s explore these three essential components (pun intended) to cycling development and success. Genes Genes are the foundation of all [...]
Confidence is a deep, lasting, and resilient belief in your ability to ride your best and achieve your cycling goals. Confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control when you need it most, whether on a long and grueling climb or when you’re trying to reel in a breakaway with only a [...]
Confidence is the single most important mental factor in cycling. Confidence is also a mental area that is ripe for change and I will not only be offering you insights into how confidence impacts your cycling performance, but, in my next several installments, I will also offer you many practical tools for developing confidence in [...]
Motivation lies at the base of the Prime Cycling pyramid. Without your desire and determination to improve your cycling performances and achieve your riding goals, all of the other mental factors, confidence, intensity, focus, and emotions, are meaningless. To become the best cyclist you can be, you must be motivated to do the work necessary [...]
Now that you have an understanding of Prime Cycling—riding at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions—from my previous Prime Cycling articles, you can begin the process of achieving it. The first step involves gaining a better understanding of yourself as an cyclist. This self-understanding then results in greater improvement and better performance. Becoming [...]
As I discussed in my first post, Prime Cycling is defined as “riding at a consistently high level under the most challenging training and race conditions.” Prime Cycling is a goal toward which everyone in the cycling world should strive, the result of which is to maximize your riding efforts and enable you to achieve [...]