| Tip 1: Get on your bike | | | | still hurt, but the sense of achievement outweighs the |
| It's easy to spend time reading books and training | | | | suffering. |
| manuals, and looking at pictures of bikes in glossy | | | | It's not about the bike! Just because hills are difficult |
| magazines. Unfortunately none of these will help | | | | doesn't mean you need a lighter bike, it probably just |
| improve your cycling as much as actually getting out | | | | means you need more practice on hills. |
| on your bike! No nutritional advice or super-light | | | | Believe it or not you will even reach a point where you |
| carbon-fibre bike is any use at all unless you also | | | | enjoy cycling up hills! |
| spend time out on the road. | | | | Tip 4: Cycle intervals |
| Try and get out two or three times a week - perhaps | | | | Modern thinking is that the best way to improve your |
| two evenings a week after work for a short trip (an | | | | level of ability is to spend 90 % of the time cycling at a |
| hour or so) and once at the weekend for a longer ride | | | | reasonably leisurely pace (not too leisurely, though) with |
| (perhaps two hours, slowly increasing to three hours). | | | | great exertion the remaining 10% of the time. |
| Tip 2: Ignore your average speed | | | | This is usually achieved using so-called intervals. The |
| Most cyclists have a small computer on the bike that | | | | general idea is that you cycle very hard for a short |
| reports average speed, distances travelled and so on. | | | | time, then spend a few minutes cycling gently while |
| This is great information to have, but your goal is not to | | | | you recover, then cycle hard again...and so on. |
| travel as far as possible, or to have an average speed | | | | The length of each exertion varies, but one minute of |
| as high as possible. | | | | very hard work followed by five minutes of recovery |
| The goal is (a) to have fun and (b) to increase your | | | | would be a good starting point. |
| overall level of cycling ability. Sometimes you will feel | | | | Don't forget though, you need to do fifteen minutes |
| great and other times be a bit tired. You will need to | | | | warm-up cycling before you start the hard intervals. |
| start each ride with a slow few miles of 'warm-up'. | | | | Tip 5: Stay motivated on your bike rides |
| If you set out simply to increase overall average | | | | Initial enthusiasm and rapid improvements in your speed |
| speed, you will be tempted to ride too fast immediately | | | | and ability might make you want to cycle all the time. |
| you set off, without adequate warm-up, and this will | | | | This is good, but can be very harmful to your body, |
| lead to muscle pains and other injuries. | | | | especially if you have spent several years without |
| Tip 3: Cycling uphill | | | | doing much exercise. Aches and pains can turn up that |
| Cycling on the flat is fine, but the sure way to improve | | | | at first you don't even associate with cycling. |
| your strength on a bike is to cycle up hills. At first even | | | | It's better to cycle three or four times a week and |
| a small hill can seem very difficult, but after a few | | | | want to do more, than to cycle every day and get fed |
| times you will find they get easier. You won't notice | | | | up with it. If you want a few days off from cycling - no |
| small hills, and big hills won't seem so bad. Yes they will | | | | problem! |