Set a mileage target

How far do you want to ride on your bike this year?

Online training tools like Strava make it easy to track your rides on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. You can set weekly targets (according to miles or hours in the saddle) and it’s incredibly satisfying to see the mileage accumulate. I logged 4,250 miles on Strava in 2013 and have set a target of 6,000 miles in 2014.

Strava is great motivation in itself: to log your training, find new segments and routes, improve personal best times and enter the various challenges organised by the California-based website. Two challenges kick-start 2014, with ‘Prove It’ a challenge to ride 600km in January, and ‘Gran Fondo’ (the first in a new series) a challenge to ride 130km in one hit this month.