What I Learned Cycling for 85 Miles

I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolution and so I don’t normally make them. But this year I did make a list of things I wanted to achieve in 2019. And I’m on track to complete them which is cool. But I recently took on a challenge which wasn’t on the list – competing the the Etape Caledonia cycle race in the highlands of Scotland.

Set in some of the most beautiful scenery my home has to offer, the race climbs over 4000 feet, passes through towns, villages and forests and has run every year since 2007.

Training for the event was fun and as well as getting fit, I learned a lot of other stuff too. Want to know what that was? Read on.

A Brief History of (my) Cycling

Since I was seven, I’ve loved cycling. It started with my sister’s old folding bike which I hated. It was a girls bike and the other boys in the neighbourhood liked to point that out at any opportunity. But on my 8th birthday, that all changed when a shiny blue and gold Raleigh mountain bike appeared downstairs. It was far too big and took me years to be able to climb on and off unaided.

When I was fourteen, I traded this in for a steel frame Giant mountain bike, RST front forks and light grey tyres. It was the coolest thing I’d ever owned. And two years later, when it was stolen out of my Dad’s garden shed (they forced the door open with a crow bar) I cried.

The replacement was aluminium framed, and sleek. Aged 19, I would ride it to my summer job as a gardener (weight loss tip: try cycling to work six days a week, working 66 hours cutting grass for four months while living on super noodles and budget frozen pizza).

Eight years later and I got rid of the bike after running out of space to store it. I didn’t miss it one bit. I didn’t ride for years. But then…

There’s this cool think here in the UK that some employers offer tax breaks if you buy a bike (yes that’s a real thing). The bike and equipment is paid with pre-tax cash saving you a ton of money. It wasn’t long before I was the proud owner of a lime green cyclocross bike. I started commuting the 18 miles to work straight away. I also entered an event that involved cycling from Glasgow to Edinburgh – around 47 miles.

Living in the city wasn’t great for cycling. But moving to the country was like a revelation. Almost immediately I discovered miles and miles of near deserted, winding roads. I fell in love with cycling in a big way.

Up for The Challenge

Then a few months ago, colleagues challenged me to compete in the Etape Caledonia – an 85 mile sportive through some of the most incredible scenery in Scotland.

The race, which includes over 4000ft of climb, is one of the popular sportive races in the amateur cycling calendar. I’d thought of taking part before but had been overawed by the distance – nearly double what I’d cycled before.

But I was up for the challenge and six weeks before the race, I started training in earnest.

So what did I learn (apart from where ‘chamois’ cream goes and why you don’t wear underwear with cycling shorts)?

“Everything is Reps”

Those are the words of the great Arnold. In his autobiography Total Recall, he talks about how he drilled himself over and over for various roles and jobs until he could do them without thinking. This included:

• Riding a horse
• Doing his own stunts
• Cocking a pump action shotgun one handed while riding a motorbike (no – really).

This came back to me on my long rides as I drilled things over and over – eating, drinking, drinking from two bottles, taking on energy gels. I’d never ridden for a long time before and these movements needed to become second nature.

Getting trained in the British Army how to use a machine gun – we drilled assembly and disassembly for hours and hours until we could mount the gun on a tripod in 1 minute and 15 seconds.

This translates into areas of your life other than cycling. If you want to get good at something, anything, then you need to drill over and over.

You Need to Start Small

How long was my first ride back in the saddle – an hour? two? Try 45 minutes. With the help of an online training program and my own experience in training for endurance events, I worked up the distance until I was in the 50km (around 40 miles) mark.

I’ve found that if you train for endurance, you don’t need to train to your full distance. I trained for a series of ten mile races and the furthest I ever ran was six. If you train at a high intensity but less distance, you’ll get where you want to be.

If you want to start anything, start with a single step. That’s how I built this blog, how I wrote my first book (and how I’m writing the second). It’s how I’ve built an investment portfolio and a strong family – one step at a time.

My generation want everything now. On demand. Everything is instant. But real results take time, playing (and sometimes winning) the margins. That’s how you train for an endurance event, and it’s how you live life.

Mindset is Everything

Ok, so I kinda knew this already. But on the morning of the race, I was down. Apart from having to get up at 4.20am on a Sunday for a 7.05 start, I felt like I didn’t want to be there.

So I told myself “I’m just here to enjoy myself.” That instantly took any pressure away and I smiled reflexively. When I got to the race start, I was relaxed, beaming and ready to roll.

Have you ever built something up in your mind only to find out that it was fine and even enjoyable. Could you have altered your mindset to see things a different way.

Life is full of hard stuff that you probably don’t want to do. But what if you approached it a different way – want to value or enjoy the experience ( I wrote an email to my subscribers all about this recently).

Try flipping hard stuff round so that it’s something you want to do.

And Finally..

Experience life. That’s what I’ve learned over the last few weeks – how to experience life again. It’s easy to get caught in the bubble of work, looking after family, grinding, hustle, pay of debts, manage finances and so on..

But what if you took time for you – to do something fun or awesome that you will remember for your whole life. That’s time well spent.