Originally Posted by patentcad

In my opinion one of the biggest lessons in competitive cycling is that you are more limited by your mind's ability to tolerate pain than your body's capacity to endure the physical stress of racing. Racing does teach you to expand those limits in your head, so you get physically but just as crucial mentally tougher. After a while 'I don't know if I can do this' becomes 'I've been pushed to this level 20x this season already, I'm not backing off this time either'.