The most affordable training tool in this list, the alarm clock is your bedside companion to greater fitness. “Up and at ‘em” is a phrase that rarely surfaces to conscious thought on a cold morning, but the sense of achievement at midday, with 60 or 70 miles in the bank, is hard to beat.

It’s an oft-repeated mantra that the hardest part of any training session is starting, and this is especially true in winter. Give yourself a fighting chance by getting up sufficiently early to create enough time in the day to fit in a training session. On a working day this may mean the difference between training or not, and at a weekend, can see you finish a ride before darkness gathers, often as early as late afternoon.

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