The start of a new year is always a period fall of promise and hope. Plans for the year ahead to realise unfulfilled dreams, to ride new events, improve times in previously ridden sportives and generally get a bit fitter and faster than the year before, are put in place.

Keeping the level of motivation high during these early months can be challenging. Weeks of cold and miserable weather and the worst snow fall seen in decades, combine to make it difficult to get out on your bike and fulfil your potential. Here’s a few ideas to hopefully help you out…

Goals and Targets

Setting out a plan of what you hope to achieve in the year ahead can give you focus and give your riding a purpose. Pick a few events, put them in your diary and use that as motivation to push you out the front door when the sofa is trying to lure you back inside the warmth of your house.

Go one step further and enter your chosen events as soon as possible. This way you’ll commit yourself to doing them and gives you an objective when next going out for a weekend ride. And as sportive events in particular grow in popularity you’ll avoid the disappointment of not securing an entry.

Going the distance

Alternatively, perhaps riding organised events isn’t your cup of tea. That’s fair enough. With a huge network of roads in the UK and some of the finest countryside in the world right on our doorsteps, there’s plenty of exploring to be done without fixing a number to your handlebars.

So set yourself a mileage challenge, perhaps to ride a 100 miles by a certain date, and work out a plan to incrementally increase your longest ride distance over several weeks and months. Take a look at a map and choose some place new to ride. For instance, you could plan a ride to the coast and back. Nowhere in the UK is more than 70 miles from the coastline, and this could be a good starting point.

Try something new

Thought about time trialling but never gotten around to it. Fancy the idea of touring? Tempted with an Audax? Spicing up your year with some something new can avoid falling into a rut of doing the same thing as previous years. This newness can be a great motivator.

Training plan/diary

If you really want to progress your fitness this year a well prescribed method is to keep track of all your rides. It gives you focus, tracking your fitness gains, plotting your weight loss, and helps you stick with your riding plan. Keep it simple and it needn’t take up a lot of time at all. A calendar on your bedroom wall or on the fridge is an easy way to incorporate into your busy life.

Also you need to decide realistically how much time you can afford for cycling, fitting it around the other demands on your time. Knowing how many hours a week you have to ride and making a plan of what riding to do in those available time slots, can make your training more effective and will greatly enhance the improvement in your fitness.

There are plenty of good books available on the subject, and professional cycling coaches aren’t as expensive as you might think and will give you expert advice, and help you achieve your goals for the year.

Join a club

Bored of riding on your own? There’s a healthy network of cycling clubs stretching right across the country and many will happily welcome riders of all levels with open arms.

Riding in a group is great for motivation; training with people of a similar ability level can be a lot more effective than riding on your own. Most clubs will offer regular club runs of different speeds, training sessions and chaingangs, along with other benefits like advice from the more experienced club members.

Buy a new bike

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of rolling along the road on a brand new shiny bicycle and nothing can give you extra motivation to get out on your bike than a new bike sitting in your hallway.

Finally, enjoy yourself in 2010. It’s going to be a great year.