How To

Eight ways to get faster on the bike

Everybody wants to be able to ride faster. Here are eight things to think about if you want to be a better cyclist

Hire a coach

Want to improve your speed on the bike? Read on!
No matter what, when you're riding on your own it's far more efficient to try and get out of the way of the air than attempt to overpower it
Having an expert design your training plan can take some of the guesswork out of training, and also help to ensure you recover properly and don't overtrain
Intervals might hurt, but they'll bring big gains (Pic: Media24)
Training with power might still be reasonably expensive, but it's by far the best metric for measuring your effort
Unless you're going fast enough to justify this position, then you can still pedal!
Going out with stronger riders will force you out of your comfort zone (Pic: Polka Dot Cycling)
Are you a masher or a spinner?
"Ride lots" was Eddy Merckx's opinion on how to become a better cyclist. It might not be that simple but hours in the saddle definitely make a difference

Hire a coach

Hire a coach. And motorpace behind it. Five hours per day, seven days per week. Or maybe not.

The great thing about coaches (the human ones that is, not the fancy buses) is that they (normally) know what they’re doing. If your training approach resembles ours – in other words, riding your bike lots and sometimes riding a little harder or up a few hills – then finding someone who can lay out a proper programme for you is a great idea. It also makes economical sense if you want to make substantial steps forward, or have a particular goal to work towards, compared with shelling out thousands on pounds on new equipment. As we alluded to at the top, the biggest upgrade most of us can make is to us – the engine.

An additional benefit of having a coach is that the most difficult part of training for a lot of people isn’t actually putting in the hard work, it’s knowing when to do the hard work, and not pushing too hard, too often. Clichéd as it may sound, but you need recovery time built into your training to make sure that next time you’re out going hard, you can put in the quality that will allow you to improve. If you push as hard as you can every time you ride, chances are all you’ll have to show for it is a very sore set of legs.

Letting a coach prescribe your training for you is great because not only is someone else planning what you have to do and when, but you can be confident that the body of work you’re putting in will yield results.