It takes years to learn how to self-coach. Your quickest route to success is to hire a coach. If you can't really do that, there's also internet coaching at a few different levels, the bottom level being they design you a program and you take it from there. There's also software. pccoach.com has quite a good cycling program that's slightly interactive and does give you a good starting point in understanding how a cycling program is structured. Polar has cycling programs on its website, available for download. You need a recording HRM to make use of any coaching program, human or software, but it's very useful to have one, anyway.