Online social networks add a personal dimension to hard numbers, with Strava the daddy of them all. The competition for ‘segments’ – to be pursued with care on open roads – can provide a virtual replacement for colleagues who’ve refused to venture outdoors. An opportunity to see the numbers that those in your network are posting can often provide all the motivation you need to join them. Join our Strava club to see how you rank among RoadCyclingUK readers.

While the aforementioned Strava is perhaps the most popular among cyclists, it is far from the only option, with applications like Endemondo, Garmin Connect, and Map My Ride attracting enormous online communities. While they all function on the same principal – processing data from GPS devices – each is subtly different, with a bias weighted in favour of analysis tools or social networking.